Envy, after all, is the death of love!
Mr. Harley was the Launcelot Gobbo in "The Merchant of Venice"--an old
gentleman, and almost as great a fop as Mr. Byrn. He was always smiling;
his two large rows of teeth were so _very_ good! And he had pompous,
grandiloquent manners, and wore white gaiters and a long hanging
eye-glass. His appearance I should never have forgotten anyhow, but he
is also connected in my mind with my first experience of terror.
It came to me in the greenroom, the window-seat of which was a favorite
haunt of mine. Curled up in the deep recess I had been asleep one
evening, when I was awakened by a strange noise, and, peeping out, saw
Mr. Harley stretched on the sofa in a fit. One side of his face was
working convulsively, and he was gibbering and mowing the air with his
hand. When he saw me, he called out: "Little Nelly! oh, little Nelly!" I
stood transfixed with horror. He was still dressed as Launcelot Gobbo,
and this made it all the more terrible. A doctor was sent for, and Mr.
Harley was looked after, but he never recovered from his seizure and
died a few days afterwards.
Although so much of my early life is vague and indistinct, I can always
see and hear Mr. Harley as I saw and heard him that night, and I can
always recollect the view from the greenroom window.
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