And, after all, there is no
feeling more thoroughly delightful than to be conscious that the kind
being from whose loins we spring, and to whom we cling with an innate
and overpowering love, is viewed by others with regard, with reverence,
or with admiration. There is no pride like the pride of ancestry, for it
is a blending of all emotions. How immeasurably superior to the herd is
the man whose father only is famous! Imagine, then, the feelings of
one who can trace his line through a thousand years of heroes and of
princes!
'Tis dinner! hour that I have loved as loves the bard the twilight; but
no more those visions rise that once were wont to spring in my quick
fancy. The dream is past, the spell is broken, and even the lore on
which I pondered in my first youth is strange as figures in Egyptian
tombs.
No more, no more, oh! never more to me, that hour shall bring its
rapture and its bliss! No more, no more, oh! never more for me, shall
Flavour sit upon her thousand thrones, and, like a syren with a sunny
smile, win to renewed excesses, each more sweet! My feasting days are
over: me no more the charms of fish, or flesh, still less of fowl, can
make the fool of that they made before.
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