Some anatomists, it is said, have, during the operation of dissection, caught from the subject the disease. I feel myself in danger at this moment,--a secret horror thrills through my veins. Often have I remarked that persons who undergo certain transformations are unconscious of the commencement and progress in themselves, though quicksighted, when their enemies, friends, or neighbours, are beginning to turn into bores. Husband and wife,--no creatures sooner!--perceive each other’s metamorphoses,--not Baucis and Philemon more surely, seldom like them before the transformation be complete. Are we in time to say the last adieu! I feel that I am--I fear that I have long been, A BORE ORMOND CHAPTER I. “What! no music, no dancing at Castle Hermitage to-night; and all the ladies sitting in a formal circle, petrifying into perfect statues?” cried Sir Ulick O’Shane as he entered the drawing-room, between ten and eleven o’clock at night, accompanied by what he called his _rear-guard_, veterans of the old school of good fellows, who at those times in Ireland--times long since past--deemed it essential to health, happiness, and manly character, to swallow, and show themselves able to stand after swallowing, a certain number of bottles of claret per day or night. “Now, then,” continued Sir Ulick, “of all the figures in nature or art, the formal circle is universally the most obnoxious to conversation, and, to me, the most formidable; all my faculties are spell-bound--here I am like a bird in a circle of chalk, that dare not move so much as its head or its eyes, and can’t, for the life of it, take to its legs.” A titter ran round that part of the circle where the young ladies sat--Sir Ulick was a favourite, and they rejoiced when he came among them; because, as they observed, “he always said something pleasant, or set something pleasant a-going.” “Lady O’Shane, for mercy’s sake let us have no more of these permanent circle sittings at Castle Hermitage, my dear!” “Sir Ulick, I am sure I should be very glad if it were possible,” replied Lady O’Shane, “to have no more _permanent sittings_ at Castle Hermitage; but when gentlemen are at their bottle, I really don’t know what the ladies can do but sit in a circle.” “Can’t they dance in a circle, or any way? or have not they an elegant resource in their music? There’s many here who, to my knowledge, can caper as well as they modulate,” said Sir Ulick, “to say nothing of cards for those that like them.” “Lady Annaly does not like cards,” said Lady O’Shane, “and I could not ask any of these young ladies to waste their breath and their execution, singing and playing before the gentlemen came out.” “These young ladies would not, I’m sure, do us old fellows the honour of waiting for us; and the young beaux deserted to your tea-table a long hour ago--so why you have not been dancing is a mystery beyond my comprehension.”