London for the rich, though, is a different thing altogether. “Money cannot purchase happiness,” said the philosopher. “No,” replied a celebrated wit, himself well skilled in circulating the much-esteemed dross, “but it can purchase a very good imitation of it;” and none can gainsay the truth of his distinction. What can it do for us in the great Babylon? It can buy us airy houses--cool rooms--fragrant flowers--the best of everything to eat and drink--carriages--horses--excitement--music--friends--everything but a good appetite and content. London for the rich man is indeed a palace of delights. See him at the window of his club, in faultless attire, surrounded by worshippers who perform their part of the mutual contract most religiously, by finding conversation and company, both of the pleasantest, for him who provides drag and dinner, equally of the best. Though they bow before a calf, is it not a golden one? though they “eat dirt,” is it not dressed by a French cook? See him cantering in the Park--an animal so well broke as that would make John Gilpin himself appear a fine horseman. What envious glances follow him from the humble pedestrian--what sunny smiles shine on him from lips and eyes surmounting the most graceful shapes, the most becoming neck-ribbons! No, admiring stranger! You are not in the Bazaar at Constantinople--you are amidst England’s high-born beauties in the most moral country on earth; yet even here, with sorrow be it said, there is many a fair girl ready to barter love, and hope, and self-respect, for a box at the opera and an _adequate_ settlement--only it must be large enough. Within fifty yards of this spot may Tattersall’s voice be heard any Monday or Thursday proclaiming, hammer in hand, his mercenary ultimatum, “The best blood in England, and she is to be sold.” Brain-sick moralists would read a lesson from the animal’s fate. Our men of the world are satisfied to take things as they are. Meanwhile the calf has shown himself long enough to his idolaters; he dines _early_ to-day--a quarter past eight--therefore he canters home to dress. Man has no right to insult such a cook as his by being hungry, so he trifles over a repast that Apicius would have envied, and borrows half-an-hour’s fictitious spirits from a golden vintage that has well-nigh cost its weight in gold. What an evening is before him! All that can enchant the eye, all that can ravish the ear--beauties of earth and sounds of heaven--the very revelry of the intellect, and “the best box in the house” from which to see, hear, and enjoy. The calf is indeed pasturing in the Elysian fields, and we need follow him no longer. Can he be otherwise than happy? Can there be lips on which such fruits as these turn to ashes? Are beauty, and luxury, and society, and song, nothing after all but “a bore”? Nature is a more impartial mother than we are prone to believe, and the rich man need not always be such an object of envy only because he _is_ rich.