What
gushes of rapture! What a flavour! How peculiar! Even how sacred I
Heaven at once sends both manna and quails. Another little wanderer!
Pray follow my example! Allow me. All Paradise opens! Let me die eating
ortolans to the sound of soft music!
Even the supper was brief, though brilliant; and again the cotillon and
the quadrille, the waltz and the galoppe! At no moment of his life had
the young Duke felt existence so intense. Wherever he turned his eye he
found a responding glance of beauty and admiration; wherever he turned
his ear the whispered tones were soft and sweet as summer winds. Each
look was an offering, each word adoration! His soul dilated; the glory
of the scene touched all his passions. He almost determined not again
to mingle in society; but, like a monarch, merely to receive the
world which worshipped him. The idea was sublime: was it even to him
impracticable? In the midst of his splendour he fell into a reverie, and
mused on his magnificence. He could no longer resist the conviction
that he was a superior essence, even to all around him. The world seemed
created solely for his enjoyment.
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