There never was a
greater mistake. Horseleech, to be candid, far from being a clever fellow,
is one of the most barren rascals on record. Vampyre, whether drawn out or
held in, is a poor creature, not a great creature--opaque, not luminous--in
a word, by nature, a very dull dog indeed.
But you see the necessity of appearing otherwise.--Hunger may be said to
be a moral Mechi, which invents a strop upon which the bluntest wits are
sharpened to admiration. Believe me, by industry and perseverance--which
necessity will inevitably superinduce--the most dreary dullard that ever
carried timber between his shoulders in the shape of a head, may speedily
convert himself into a seeming Sheridan--a substitutional Sydney Smith--a
second Sam Rogers, without the drawback of having written Jacqueline.
Take it for granted that no professed diner-out ever possessed a particle
of native wit. His stock-in-trade, like that of Field-lane chapmen, is all
plunder. Not a joke issues from his mouth, but has shaken sides long since
quiescent. Whoso would be a diner-out must do likewise.
The real diner-out is he whose card-rack or mantelpiece (I was going to say
groans, but) laughingly rejoices in respectful well-worded invitations to
luxuriously-appointed tables. I count not him, hapless wretch! as one who,
singling out "a friend," drops in just at pudding-time, and ravens horrible
remnants of last Tuesday's joint, cognizant of curses in the throat of his
host, and of intensest sable on the brows of his hostess.
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