Burlesques William Makepeace Thackeray

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the account of a famous wild-boar in the wood, and proposed a hunt, Rowena would say,
"Do, Sir Wilfrid, persecute these poor pigs: you know your friends the Jews can't abide
them!" Or when, as it oft would happen, our lion-hearted monarch, Richard, in order to get
a loan or a benevolence from the Jews, would roast a few of the Hebrew capitalists, or
extract some of the principal rabbis' teeth, Rowena would exult and say, "Serve them right,
the misbelieving wretches! England can never be a happy country until every one of these
monsters is exterminated!" or else, adopting a strain of still more savage sarcasm, would
exclaim, "Ivanhoe my dear, more persecution for the Jews! Hadn't you better interfere, my
love? His Majesty will do anything for you; and, you know, the Jews were ALWAYS
SUCH FAVORITES OF YOURS," or words to that effect. But, nevertheless, her ladyship
never lost an opportunity of wearing Rebecca's jewels at court, whenever the Queen held a
drawing-room; or at the York assizes and ball, when she appeared there: not of course
because she took any interest in such things, but because she considered it her duty to
attend, as one of the chief ladies of the county.
Thus Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, having attained the height of his wishes, was, like many a man
when he has reached that dangerous elevation, disappointed. Ah, dear friends, it is but too
often so in life! Many a garden, seen from a distance, looks fresh and green, which, when
beheld closely, is dismal and weedy; the shady walks melancholy and grass-grown; the
bowers you would fain repose in, cushioned with stinging-nettles. I have ridden in a caique
upon the waters of the Bosphorus, and looked upon the capital of the Soldan of Turkey. As
seen from those blue waters, with palace and pinnacle, with gilded dome and towering
cypress, it seemeth a very Paradise of Mahound: but, enter the city, and it is but a beggarly
labyrinth of rickety huts and dirty alleys, where the ways are steep and the smells are foul,
tenanted by mangy dogs and ragged beggars—a dismal illusion! Life is such, ah, well-aday!
It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit.
Perhaps a man with Ivanhoe's high principles would never bring himself to acknowledge
this fact; but others did for him. He grew thin, and pined away as much as if he had been in
a fever under the scorching sun of Ascalon. He had no appetite for his meals; he slept ill,
though he was yawning all day. The jangling of the doctors and friars whom Rowena
brought together did not in the least enliven him, and he would sometimes give proofs of
somnolency during their disputes, greatly to the consternation of his lady. He hunted a good
deal, and, I very much fear, as Rowena rightly remarked, that he might have an excuse for
being absent from home. He began to like wine, too, who had been as sober as a hermit;
and when he came back from Athelstane's (whither he would repair not unfrequently), the
unsteadiness of his gait and the unnatural brilliancy of his eye were remarked by his lady:
who, you may be sure, was sitting up for him. As for Athelstane, he swore by St. Wullstan
that he was glad to have escaped a marriage with such a pattern of propriety; and honest
Cedric the Saxon (who had been very speedily driven out of his daughter-in-law's castle)
vowed by St. Waltheof that his son had bought a dear bargain.