one o’clock
It was Covent Garden Theatre that I chose ; and there , from the back of a centre box , I saw Julius Caesar and the new Pantomime . To have all those noble Romans alive before me , and walking in and out for my entertainment , instead of being the stern taskmasters they had been at school , was a most novel and delightful effect . But the mingled reality and mystery of the whole show , the influence upon me of the poetry , the lights , the music , the company , the smooth stupendous changes of glittering and brilliant scenery , were so dazzling , and opened up such illimitable regions of delight , that when I came out into the rainy street , at twelve o'clock at night , I felt as if I had come from the clouds , where I had been leading a romantic life for ages , to a bawling , splashing , link-lighted , umbrella-struggling , hackney-coach-jostling , patten-clinking , muddy , miserable world . I had emerged by another door , and stood in the street for a little while , as if I really were a stranger upon earth : but the unceremonious pushing and hustling that I received , soon recalled me to myself , and put me in the road back to the hotel ; whither I went , revolving the glorious vision all the way ; and where , after some porter and oysters , I sat revolving it still , at past one o'clock , with my eyes on the coffee-room fire . I was so filled with the play , and with the past -- for it was , in a manner , like a shining transparency , through which I saw my earlier life moving along -- that I do n't know when the figure of a handsome well-formed young man dressed with a tasteful easy negligence which I have reason to remember very well , became a real presence to me . But I recollect being conscious of his company without having noticed his coming in -- and my still sitting , musing , over the coffee-room fire . At last I rose to go to bed , much to the relief of the sleepy waiter , who had got the fidgets in his legs , and was twisting them , and hitting them , and putting them through all kinds of contortions in his small pantry .