"Ha! ha! ha! --ha! ha! ha!" --laughed the proprietor, motioning me
to a seat as I entered the room, and throwing himself back at full
length upon an ottoman. "I see," said he, perceiving that I could
not immediately reconcile myself to the bienseance of so singular a
welcome --"I see you are astonished at my apartment --at my statues
--my pictures --my originality of conception in architecture and
upholstery --absolutely drunk, eh? with my magnificence? But pardon
me, my dear sir, (here his tone of voice dropped to the very spirit of
cordiality,) pardon me for my uncharitable laughter. You appeared so
utterly astonished. Besides, some things are so completely ludicrous
that a man must laugh or die. To die laughing must be the most
glorious of all glorious deaths! Sir Thomas More --a very fine man was
Sir Thomas More --Sir Thomas More died laughing, you remember. Also in
the Absurdities of Ravisius Textor, there is a long list of characters
who came to the same magnificent end. Do you know, however," continued
he musingly, "that at Sparta (which is now Palaeochori,) at Sparta,
I say, to the west of the citadel, among a chaos of scarcely visible
ruins, is a kind of socle, upon which are still legible the letters
'LASM'.
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