Theodore Winthrop

“ The poor wretch has a little shrivelled bit of conscience left. It twinges him sometimes, like a dying nerve in a rotten tooth. He sent for me the other day, by Locksley, saying that he was sick, poor, and penitent for a villany he had done against me, and wanted to confess before he died, and before Densdeth could find him again. This is my third visit. He cannot make up his impotent mind to confession. He must speak soon, or concealment will kill him. I am to come down to-night at eleven and watch with him.”
“Till when you will watch with me in Chrysalis.” ”

“ A little quiet show and lavishness on one’s self is a capital thing to get the world’s confidence.
“Besides, Byng,” he continued, “I love luxury for its own sake. I mean to have the best for all my senses. I keep myself in perfect health, you see, for perfect sensitiveness and perfect enjoyment. Why shouldn’t I take the little trouble it requires to have the most delicate wine, and other things the most delicate, always at command? Life is short. Après, le déluge, or worse.”
While I was recalling these remarks, Densdeth’s servant had deposited the wine at my right. ”

“ There was a snarl, however, beneath these mild, measured notes. He soothed you; but you felt that there was a claw curled under the velvet. As to his laugh, it was jackal, — a cruel, traitorous laugh, without sympathy or humor, — a sneer given voice. ”

“ Densdeth was a coxcomb, partly by nature, partly for effect. He liked to call attention to himself as the Great Densdeth. He always had special wines, special dainties, and special service.
“It pays to be conspicuous,” he said to me, on board the steamer. “I don’t attempt to humbug fellows like you, Byng,” — and at this I of course felt a little complimented, — “but we must take men as we find them. They are asses. I treat them as such. Ordinary people adore luxury. They love to see it, whether they share it or not. ”

“ But the bottle was very young for old wine, the label very pretentious for famous wine, and my draught, as I expected, gnawed me cruelly.
In a moment came a bow from Governor Bluffer, also fellow-passenger, and his bottle of the Chuzzlewit champagne, — label prismatic and glowing, bubbles transitory, wine sugary and vapid.
Bluffer was of Indiana, returning from a trip to Europe as a railroad-bond placer. He had placed his bonds, second mortgages of the Muddefontaine Railroad, with great success. His State would now become first in America, first in Christendom. He was sure of it. ”

“ Antagonistic natures do not necessarily make man and woman hostile, even when they are imprisoned for life in matrimony; domestic life stirs and stirs, slow and steady, and at last the two mix, like the oil and mustard in a mayonnaise. But the more contact, the more repulsion, in two men of such different quality as Churm and Densdeth. ”

“ Both were quiet and self-possessed, and yet it seemed to me that, if a thin shell of decorum and restraint between them should be broken by any outer force, the two would clash together like explosive gases, and the weaker be utterly consumed away. ”