`` Truly , I hope not , '' said the merchant . `` Now , as touching this Great Carbuncle , I am free to own that I have never had a glimpse of it , but , be it only the hundredth part so bright as people tell , it will surely outvalue the Great Mogul 's best diamond , which he holds at an incalculable sum ; wherefore I am minded to put the Great Carbuncle on shipboard and voyage with it to England , France , Spain , Italy , or into heathendom if Providence should send me thither , and , in a word , dispose of the gem to the best bidder among the potentates of the earth , that he may place it among his crown-jewels . If any of ye have a wiser plan , let him expound it . '' `` That have I , thou sordid man ! '' exclaimed the poet . `` Dost thou desire nothing brighter than gold , that thou wouldst transmute all this ethereal lustre into such dross as thou wallowest in already ? For myself , hiding the jewel under my cloak , I shall hie me back to my attic-chamber in one of the darksome alleys of London . There night and day will I gaze upon it . My soul shall drink its radiance ; it shall be diffused throughout my intellectual powers and gleam brightly in every line of poesy that I indite . Thus long ages after I am gone the splendor of the Great Carbuncle will blaze around my name . '' `` Well said , Master Poet ! '' cried he of the spectacles . `` Hide it under thy cloak , sayest thou ? Why , it will gleam through the holes and make thee look like a jack-o ' - lantern ! '' `` To think , '' ejaculated the lord De Vere , rather to himself than his companions , the best of whom he held utterly unworthy of his intercourse -- `` to think that a fellow in a tattered cloak should talk of conveying the Great Carbuncle to a garret in Grubb street ! Have not I resolved within myself that the whole earth contains no fitter ornament for the great hall of my ancestral castle ? There shall it flame for ages , making a noonday of midnight , glittering on the suits of armor , the banners and escutcheons , that hang around the wall , and keeping bright the memory of heroes . Wherefore have all other adventurers sought the prize in vain but that I might win it and make it a symbol of the glories of our lofty line ? And never on the diadem of the White Mountains did the Great Carbuncle hold a place half so honored as is reserved for it in the hall of the De Veres . '' `` It is a noble thought , '' said the cynic , with an obsequious sneer .
`` Yet , might I presume XXXXX say so , the gem would make a rare sepulchral lamp , and would display the glories of Your Lordship 's progenitors more truly in the ancestral vault than in the castle-hall . ''
If after as in into that to under upon within