His white mice live
in a little pagoda of gaily-painted wirework, designed and made by
himself. They are almost as tame as the canaries, and they are
perpetually let out like the canaries. They crawl all over him,
popping in and out of his waistcoat, and sitting in couples, white
as snow, on his capacious shoulders. He seems to be even fonder
of his mice than of his other pets, smiles at them, and kisses
them, and calls them by all sorts of endearing names. If it be
possible to suppose an Englishman with any taste for such childish
interests and amusements as these, that Englishman would certainly
feel rather ashamed of them, and would be anxious to apologise for
them, in the company of grown-up people. But the Count,
apparently, sees nothing ridiculous in the amazing contrast
between his colossal self and his frail little pets. He would
blandly kiss his white mice and twitter to his canary-birds amid
an assembly of English fox-hunters, and would only pity them as
barbarians when they were all laughing their loudest at him.
It seems hardly credible while I am writing it down, but it is
certainly true, that this same man, who has all the fondness of an
old maid for his cockatoo, and all the small dexterities of an
organ-boy in managing his white mice, can talk, when anything
happens to rouse him, with a daring independence of thought, a
knowledge of books in every language, and an experience of society
in half the capitals of Europe, which would make him the prominent
personage of any assembly in the civilised world.
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