With one more short extract I will leave this
diary and proceed with my story. During his stay in Florence Mr Pontifex
wrote: "I have just seen the Grand Duke and his family pass by in two
carriages and six, but little more notice is taken of them than if I, who
am utterly unknown here, were to pass by." I don't think that he half
believed in his being utterly unknown in Florence or anywhere else!
CHAPTER V
Fortune, we are told, is a blind and fickle foster-mother, who showers
her gifts at random upon her nurslings. But we do her a grave injustice
if we believe such an accusation. Trace a man's career from his cradle
to his grave and mark how Fortune has treated him. You will find that
when he is once dead she can for the most part be vindicated from the
charge of any but very superficial fickleness. Her blindness is the
merest fable; she can espy her favourites long before they are born. We
are as days and have had our parents for our yesterdays, but through all
the fair weather of a clear parental sky the eye of Fortune can discern
the coming storm, and she laughs as she places her favourites it may be
in a London alley or those whom she is resolved to ruin in kings'
palaces.
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