"The King arrived on Thursday evening, the promenade, the collation,--served on a lawn carpeted with jonquils--all was perfect. At supper there were a few tables where the roast was wanting, on account of some guests whose arrival had not been expected. This mortified Vatel, who said several times, 'My honour is gone: I can never survive this shame.' He also said to Gourville, 'My head swims. I have not slept for twelve nights. Help me give the orders.' Gourville encouraged him as well as he could.... Gourville told M. le Prince, who went immediately to Vatel's room, and said to him, 'Vatel, everything is going on well. Nothing could be finer than the King's supper.' He replied, 'My lord, your goodness overwhelms me. I know that the roast was missing at two tables.' 'Not at all,' said M. le Prince. 'Don't disturb yourself: everything is going on well.' Midnight came; the fireworks, which cost sixteen thousand francs, did not succeed, on account of the fog. At four o'clock in {218} the morning, Vatel, going through the chateau, found every one asleep. He met a young steward, who had brought only two hampers of fish: he asked, 'Is that all?'--'Yes, Sir.' The lad did not know that Vatel had sent to all the seaports. Vatel waited some time; the other purveyors did not arrive: his brain reeled; he believed no more fish could be had: and finding Gourville, he said, 'My dear sir, I shall never survive this disgrace....'" The names of a number of English letter writers, whose letters most people find delightful, are: Jonathan Swift, Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu, Thomas Gray, Horace Walpole, Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb, John Keats, Jane Welsh Carlyle, Edward Fitzgerald, Frances Anne Kemble, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens, the Brownings, and Robert Louis Stevenson.