"And gets himself harpooned for his pains," observed W----. "Well, then, at least he dies the death of a hero," was the reply--"tempesting the brine, and perhaps even sinking the harpooner." He uttered this sentiment with such sudden ardour, that all listened while he declaimed--"I can imagine no worse fate for a man of true talent than to linger down into the grave; to find the world disappearing from him while he remains in it; his political vision growing indistinct, his political ear losing the voice of man, his passions growing stagnant, all his sensibilities palpably paralyzing, while the world is as loud, busy, and brilliant round him as ever--with but one sense remaining, the unhappy consciousness that, though not _yet_ dead, he is buried; a figure, if not of scorn, of pity, entombed under the compassionate gaze of mankind, and forgotten before he has mouldered. Who that could die in the vigour of his life, would wish to drag on existence like _Somers_, coming to the Council day after day without comprehending a word? or Marlborough, babbling out his own imbecility? If I am to die, let me die in hot blood, let me die like the lion biting the spear that has entered his heart, or springing upon the hunter who has struck him--not like the crushed snake, miserable and mutilated, hiding itself in its hole, and torpid before it is turned into clay!" "Will Mirabeau redeem France?" asked the prince; "or will he overwhelm the throne?" "I never heard of any one but Saint Christopher," said Sheridan, sportively, "who could walk through the ocean, and yet keep his head above water. Mirabeau is out of soundings already." "Burke," said F----, "predicts that he must perish; that the Revolution will go on, increasing in terrors; and that it would be as easy to stop a planet launched through space, as the progress of France to ruin." "So be it," said Sheridan with sudden animation. "There have been revolutions in every age of the world, but the world has outlived them all. Like tempests, they may wreck a royal fleet now and then, but they prevent the ocean from being a pond, and the air from being a pestilence. I am content if the world is the better for all this, though France may be the worse. I am a political optimist, in spite of Voltaire; or, I agree with a better man and a greater poet--'All's well that ends well.'" The prince looked grave; and significantly asked, "Whether too high a present price might not be paid for prospective good?" Sheridan turned off the question with a smile. "The man who has as little to pay as I have," said he, "seldom thinks of price one way or the other. Possibly, if I were his Grace of Bedford, or my Lord Fitzwilliam, I might begin to balance my rent-roll against my raptures. Or, if I were higher still, I might be only more prudent. But," said he, with a bow, "if what was fit for Parmenio was not fit for Alexander, neither would what was fit for Alexander be fit for Parmenio."