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186 THE ADVENTURES OP PHILIP
M
CHAPTER IX
CONTAINS ONE RIDDLE WHICH IS SOLVED, AND
PERHAPS SOME MORE
INE is a modest muse, and as the period of the story arrives
when a description of love-making is justly due, my Mnemosyne
turns away from the young couple, drops a little
curtain over the embrasure where they are whispering, heaves a
sigh from her elderly bosom, and lays a finger on her lip. All,
Mnemosyne dear ! we will not be spies on the young people. We
will not scold them. We won't talk about their doings much.
When we were young, we too, perhaps, were taken in under Love's
tent ; we have eaten of his salt : and partaken of his bitter, his
delicious bread. Now we are padding the hoof lonely in the
wilderness, we will not abuse our host, will we? We will couch
under the stars, and think fondly of old times, and to-morrow resume
the staff and the journey.
And yet, if a novelist may chronicle any passion, its flames, its
raptures, its whispers, its assignations, its sonnets, its quarrels,
sulks, reconciliations, and so on, the history of such a love as this
first of Phil's may be excusable in print, because I don't believe it
was a real love at all, only a little brief delusion of the senses, from
which I give you warning that our hero will recover before many
chapters are over. What ! my brave boy, shall we give your heart
away for good and all, for better or for worse, till death do you
part ? What! my Corydon and sighing swain, shall we irrevocably
bestow you upon Phyllis, who, all the time you are piping and paying
court to her, has Melibœus in the cupboard, and ready to be
produced should he prove to be a more eligible shepherd than
t'other ? I am not such a savage towards my readers or hero, as
to make them undergo the misery of such a marriage.
Philip was very little of a club or society man. He seldom or
ever entered the " Megatherium," or when there stared and scowled
round him savagely, and laughed strangely at the ways of the
inhabitants. He made but a clumsy figure in the world, though in
person handsome, active, and proper enough ; but he would for ever
put his great foot through the World's flounced skirts, and she