Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honey comb; honey
and milk are under thy tongue and the smell of thy garments
is as the smell of Lebanon.
Thy neck is like a tower of ivory. Thine head upon thee
is like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like purple: the
king is held in the galleries. How fair and how pleasant art
thou, O love, for delights !




Dining Cditb Schopenhauer.
WAS dining lately at Mouquin's, alone. You
had better not so dine there, unless you have
reached that melancholy climacteric, "a certain
age" — (I do not plead guilty myself). It is
not good for men to dine alone at Mouquin's
and it is even worse for Mouquin's. All here is planned for
sociability and the sexes — the menu is a paean of sex as
frankly declarative as a poem of Walt Whitman's; the
wines, the suave, lightfooted French waiters (really French),
seeing all and nothing, the softly refulgent electric bulbs,
the very genius of the place, all bespeak that potent instinct
yvhich harks back to the morning of the world. One sees
it in the smallest matters of detail and arrangement. Else-
where there is room and entertainment for the selfish male,
but here — go to ! The tables are not adapted for solitary
dining; at the very tiniest of them there is room for two.
An arrangement that would have moved the irony of Schop-
enhauer and signalizes the grand talent of Monsieur Mou-
quin. To conclude, a solitary diner is an embarrassment, a
reproach, a fly in the ointment of Monsieur Mouquin. I was
all three to him lately, but I make him my most profound
apologies — it shall not occur again. Why, I am now to tell.
