," the true headmark of a life intolerant of any joyless
passage. He had a kind of idealism in pleasure; like the
princess in the fairy story, he was conscious of a rose-leaf
out of place. Dearly as he loved to talk, he could not enjoy
nor shine in a conversation when he thought himself
unsuitably dressed. Dearly as he loved eating, he "knew not
how to eat alone;" pleasure for him must heighten pleasure;
and the eye and ear must be flattered like the palate ere he
avow himself content. He had no zest in a good dinner when
it fell to be eaten "in a bad street and in a periwig-maker's
house;" and a collation was spoiled for him by indifferent
music. His body was indefatigable, doing him yeoman's
service in this breathless chase of pleasures. On April 11,
1662, he mentions that he went to bed "weary, WHICH I SELDOM
AM;" and already over thirty, he would sit up all night
cheerfully to see a comet. But it is never pleasure that
exhausts the pleasure-seeker; for in that career, as in all
others, it is failure that kills. The man who enjoys so
wholly and bears so impatiently the slightest widowhood from
joy, is just the man to lose a night's rest over some paltry
question of his right to fiddle on the leads, or to be "vexed
to the blood" by a solecism in his wife's attire; and we find
in consequence that he was always peevish when he was hungry,
and that his head "aked mightily" after a dispute.
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