A Predicament

What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?

--COMUS.

IT was a quiet and still afternoon when I strolled forth in the
goodly city of Edina. The confusion and bustle in the streets were
terrible. Men were talking. Women were screaming. Children were
choking. Pigs were whistling. Carts they rattled. Bulls they
bellowed. Cows they lowed. Horses they neighed. Cats they
caterwauled. Dogs they danced. Danced! Could it then be possible?
Danced! Alas, thought I, my dancing days are over! Thus it is ever.
What a host of gloomy recollections will ever and anon be awakened in
the mind of genius and imaginative contemplation, especially of a
genius doomed to the everlasting and eternal, and continual, and, as
one might say, the -- continued -- yes, the continued and continuous,
bitter, harassing, disturbing, and, if I may be allowed the
expression, the very disturbing influence of the serene, and godlike,
and heavenly, and exalted, and elevated, and purifying effect of what
may be rightly termed the most enviable, the most truly enviable --
nay! the most benignly beautiful, the most deliciously ethereal, and,
as it were, the most pretty (if I may use so bold an expression)
thing (pardon me, gentle reader!) in the world -- but I am always led
away by my feelings. In such a mind, I repeat, what a host of
recollections are stirred up by a trifle! The dogs danced! I -- I
could not! They frisked -- I wept. They capered -- I sobbed aloud.
Touching circumstances! which cannot fail to bring to the
recollection of the classical reader that exquisite passage in
relation to the fitness of things, which is to be found in the
commencement of the third volume of that admirable and venerable
Chinese novel the Jo-Go-Slow.

In my solitary walk through, the city I had two humble but faithful
companions. Diana, my poodle! sweetest of creatures! She had a
quantity of hair over her one eye, and a blue ribband tied
fashionably around her neck. Diana was not more than five inches in
height, but her head was somewhat bigger than her body, and her tail
being cut off exceedingly close, gave an air of injured innocence to
the interesting animal which rendered her a favorite with all.

And Pompey, my negro! -- sweet Pompey! how shall I ever forget thee?
I had taken Pompey's arm. He was three feet in height (I like to be
particular) and about seventy, or perhaps eighty, years of age. He
had bow-legs and was corpulent. His mouth should not be called small,
nor his ears short. His teeth, however, were like pearl, and his
large full eyes were deliciously white. Nature had endowed him with
no neck, and had placed his ankles (as usual with that race) in the
middle of the upper portion of the feet. He was clad with a striking