Sick-bed homilies and pious reflections are, to be sure, out of place in mere story-books, and we are not going（after the fashion of some novelists of the present day）to cajole the public into a sermon, when it is only a comedy that the reader pays his money to witness.
But, without preaching, the truth may surely be borne in mind, that the bustle, and triumph, and laughter, and gaiety which Vanity Fair exhibits in public, do not always pursue the performer into private life, and that the most dreary depression of spirits and dismal repentances sometimes overcome him.recollection of the best ordained banquets will scarcely cheer sick epicures.reminiscences of the most becoming dresses and brilliant ball triumphs will go very little way to console faded beauties.Perhaps statesmen, at a particular period of existence, are not much gratified at thinking over the most triumphant divisions；and the success or the pleasure of yesterday becomes of very small account when a certain（albeit uncertain）morrow is in view, about which all of us must some day or other be speculating.O brother wearers of motley！Are there not moments when one grows sick of grinning and tumbling, and the jingling of cap and bells?This, dear friends and companions, is my amiable object—to walk with you through the Fair, to examine the shops and the shows there；and that we should all come home after the fare, and the noise, and the gaiety, and be perfectly miserable in private.
