It became necessary therefore, however painful to himself,
to put an end to his valuable animadversions for the present and he
accordingly concluded with an air of dignified candor, thus:--
"Notwithstanding the observations which I have thought it my duty to make,
it is by no means my wish to discourage the young man:--so far from it
indeed that if he will but totally alter his style of writing and thinking
I have very little doubt that I shall be vastly pleased with him."
Some days elapsed after this harangue of the Great Chamberlain before
LALLA ROOKH could venture to ask for another story. The youth was still a
welcome guest in the pavilion--to _one_ heart perhaps too dangerously
welcome;--but all mention of poetry was as if by common consent avoided.
Though none of the party had much respect for FADLADEEN, yet his censures
thus magisterially delivered evidently made an impression on them all. The
Poet himself to whom criticism was quite a new operation, (being wholly
unknown in that Paradise of the Indies, Cashmere,) felt the shock as it is
generally felt at first, till use has made it more tolerable to the
patient;--the Ladies began to suspect that they ought not to be pleased
and seemed to conclude that there must have been much good sense in what
FADLADEEN said from its having set them all so soundly to sleep;--while
the self-complacent Chamberlain was left to triumph in the idea of having
for the hundred and fiftieth time in his life extinguished a Poet.
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