‘Not a word of that, for Heaven’s sake!’ cried I. ‘If Cicero, travelling in the East, found sympathetic solace for his grief in beholding the arid overthrow of a once gorgeous city, shall not my petty affair be as nothing, when I behold in Hautboy the vine and the rose climbing the shattered shafts of his tumbled temple of Fame?’ Next day I tore all my manuscripts, bought me a fiddle, and went to take regular lessons of Hautboy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE PARADISE OF BACHELORS AND THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS I. THE PARADISE OF BACHELORS It lies not far from Temple Bar. Going to it, by the usual way, is like stealing from a heated plain into some cool, deep glen, shady among harbouring hills. Sick with the din and soiled with the mud of Fleet Street--where the Benedick tradesmen are hurrying by, with ledger-lines ruled along their brows, thinking upon rise of bread and fall of babies--you adroitly turn a mystic corner--not a street--glide down a dim, monastic way, flanked by dark, sedate, and solemn piles, and still wending on, give the whole careworn world the slip, and, disentangled, stand beneath the quiet cloisters of the Paradise of Bachelors. Sweet are the oases in Sahara; charming the isle-groves of August prairies; delectable pure faith amidst a thousand perfidies: but sweeter, still more charming, most delectable, the dreamy Paradise of Bachelors, found in the stony heart of stunning London. In mild meditation pace the cloisters; take your pleasure, sip your leisure, in the garden waterward; go linger in the ancient library; go worship in the sculptured chapel: but little have you seen, just nothing do you know, not the sweet kernel have you tasted, till you dine among the banded Bachelors, and see their convivial eyes and glasses sparkle. Not dine in bustling commons, during term-time, in the hall; but tranquilly, by private hint, at a private table; some fine Templar’s hospitably invited guest.