FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144  
145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   >>   >|  
s have done the like. I am in great health and spirits and powdering away at Chuzzlewit, with all manner of facetiousness rising up before me as I go on. As to news, I have really none, saving that ---- (who never took any exercise in his life) has been laid up with rheumatism for weeks past, but is now, I hope, getting better. My little captain, as I call him,--he who took me out, I mean, and with whom I had that adventure of the cork soles,--has been in London too, and seeing all the lions under my escort. Good heavens! I wish you could have seen certain other mahogany-faced men (also captains) who used to call here for him in the morning, and bear him off to docks and rivers and all sorts of queer places, whence he always returned late at night, with rum-and-water tear-drops in his eyes, and a complication of punchy smells in his mouth! He was better than a comedy to us, having marvellous ways of tying his pocket-handkerchief round his neck at dinner-time in a kind of jolly embarrassment, and then forgetting what he had done with it; also of singing songs to wrong tunes, and calling land objects by sea names, and never knowing what o'clock it was, but taking midnight for seven in the evening; with many other sailor oddities, all full of honesty, manliness, and good temper. We took him to Drury Lane Theatre to see Much Ado About Nothing. But I never could find out what he meant by turning round, after he had watched the first two scenes with great attention, and inquiring "whether it was a Polish piece." ... On the 4th of April I am going to preside at a public dinner for the benefit of the printers; and if you were a guest at that table, wouldn't I smite you on the shoulder, harder than ever I rapped the well-beloved back of Washington Irving at the City Hotel in New York! You were asking me--I love to say asking, as if we could talk together--about Maclise. He is such a discursive fellow, and so eccentric in his might, that on a mental review of his pictures I can hardly tell you of them as leading to any one strong purpose. But the annual Exhibition of the Royal Academy comes off in May, and then I will endeavor to give you some notion of him. He is a tremendous creature, and might do anything. But, like all tremendous creatures, he takes his own way, and flies off at
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144  
145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
dinner
 

tremendous

 

public

 

wouldn

 

oddities

 
preside
 
benefit
 

printers

 
temper
 

shoulder


Nothing

 

Theatre

 
scenes
 

attention

 
inquiring
 

honesty

 
manliness
 
turning
 

watched

 

Polish


Exhibition

 

annual

 

Academy

 

purpose

 

strong

 

leading

 

creatures

 

endeavor

 

notion

 

creature


pictures

 
Irving
 

Washington

 

rapped

 

beloved

 
fellow
 

eccentric

 
mental
 

review

 
discursive

sailor
 

Maclise

 
harder
 
London
 

adventure

 

captain

 
mahogany
 

captains

 
escort
 

heavens