Is there unhappiness anywhere? There is not a vexing toss of the sea, not a cloud in the sky. Is not catastrophe dead, and the arrows of tragedy spilled? Peace broadens into deep, perfumed dusk towards Arabia; languor spreads towards the unknown lands of the farthest south. No anxious soul leans out from the casement of life; the time is heavy with delightful ease. There is no sound that troubles; the world goes by and no one heeds; for it is all beyond this musky twilight and this pleasant hour. In this palace on the sea Mirth trails in and out with airy and harmonious footsteps. Even the clang-clang of eight bells has music--not boisterous nor disturbing, but muffled in the velvety air. Then, through this hemisphere of jocund quiet, there sounds the “All’s well” of the watch. But, look! Did you see a star fall just then, and the long avenue of expiring flame behind it?--Do not shudder; it is nothing. No cry of pain came through that brightness. There was only the “All’s well” from the watchers. The thud of the engines falls on a padded atmosphere, and the lascars move like ghosts along the decks. The long, smooth promenade is canopied and curtained, and hung with banners, and gay devices of the gorgeous East are contributing to the federation of pleasure. And now, through a festooned doorway, there come the people of many lands to inhabit the gay court. Music follows their footsteps: Hamlet and Esther; Caractacus and Iphigenia; Napoleon and Hermione; The Man in the Iron Mask and Sappho; Garibaldi and Boadicea; an Arab sheikh and Joan of Arc; Mahomet and Casablanca; Cleopatra and Hannibal--a resurrected world. But the illusion is short and slight. This world is very sordid--of shreds and patches, after all. It is but a pretty masquerade, in which feminine vanity beats hard against strangely-clothed bosoms; and masculine conceit is shown in the work of the barber’s curling-irons and the ship-carpenter’s wooden swords and paper helmets. The pride of these folk is not diminished because Hamlet’s wig gets awry, or a Roman has trouble with his foolish garters. Few men or women can resist mumming; they fancy themselves as somebody else, dead or living. Yet these seem happy in this nonsense. The indolent days appear to have deadened hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. They shall strut and fret their hour upon this little stage. Let that sprightly girl forget the sudden death which made her an orphan; the nervous broker his faithless wife; the grey-haired soldier his silly and haunting sins; the bankrupt his creditors.