I trust that the gallant major became a colonel later and is
still alive. It would eclipse the gayety of nations to lose a man with a
name like that.
Several years ago I read in the sober police reports of "The Pall Mall
Gazette" an account of a young man named George F. Onions, who was
arrested (it ought to have been by "a peeler") for purloining money
from his employers, Messrs. Joseph Pickles & Son, stuff merchants, of
Bradford--_des noms bien idylliques!_ What mortal could have a more
ludicrous name than Onions, unless it were Pickles, or Pickled Onions?
And then for Onions to rob Pickles! Could there be a more incredible
coincidence? As a coincidence it is nearly sublime. No story-writer
would dare to present that fact or those names in his fiction; neither
would be accepted as possible. Meanwhile Olivia Q. Fleabody is _ben
trovato_.
A NOTE ON "L'AIGLON"
THE night-scene on the battlefield of Wagram in "L'Aiglon"--an episode
whose sharp pathos pierces the heart and the imagination like the point
of a rapier--bears a striking resemblance to a picturesque passage in
Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables.
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