Miss Martineau's Ear Tube

"And you left them there sure answered Ann, with

J. were up stairs in my room. alone!" exclaimed I. "To be her usual nonchalance. I have never been introduced to them and they asked me to show them to a chamber." "And you let them go in alone!" "To be sure,” I hastened up stairs and found them combing their hair. They had taken off their bonnets and large capes. "You see," said Miss M., "we have complied with your request and come sociably to pass the day with you. We have been walking all the morning, our lodgings were too distant to return, so we have done as those who have no carriages do in England, when they go to pass a social day." I offered her combs, brushes, etc. but showing me the enormous pockets in her french dress, said they were provided with all that was necessary, and pulled out nice little silk shoes, silk stockings, a scarf for her neck, little lace mits, a gold chain and some other jewelry, and soon without changing her dress was prettily equipped for dinner or evening company. We were all as perfectly at our ease as if old friends. Miss M.'s toillette was soonest completed, and sitting down by me on the sopha, and handing me the tube, we had a nice social chat before we went down stairs. I introduced Mr. Smith, my nephews, and son &c. Mr. S. took a seat on the sopha by her, and I on a chair on her other side, to be near to introduce others. It was quite amusing to see Mr. S. He took the tube and at first applied its wrong cup to his lips, but in the warmth of conversation perpetually forgot it, and as he always gesticulates a great deal with his hands, he was waving about the cup, quite forgetful of its use, except when I said, as I continually had to do, “Put it to your lips." But Miss M. had admirable tact and filled up the gaps of his part of the conversation, made by the waving of the tube, by her intuitive perception and talked as fluently of Lord Brougham,

Lord Durham and other political personages, of whom Mr.

S. inquired as if she had heard every word . . Mrs. Coolidge managed better, and conversed with perfect ease and great fluency until dinner, which was not served until five o'clock, when the curtains being drawn and shutters closed, the candles on the table were lit and made everything look better. . . . Dinner went off very well. I conversed a great deal with Miss M., as Mrs. R. would not. Our conversation was very interesting and carried on in a tone that all the rest of the company could hear. . . . It was a rich treat to hear her. Her words flow in a continual stream, her voice pleasing, her manners quiet and lady-like, her face full of intelligence, benevolence and animation. . . . It was II o'clock before the party broke up. Every one gratified at an opportunity of meeting Miss M. in such a quiet, social manner.

Washington Irving denies both

·A

(To James K. Paulding, Jan. 3, 1833)

S to rumors, they are as numerous as they are absurd. Gouverneur's particular friend, Bankhead, the British chargé d'affaires, has just returned from New York, very gravely charged with one concerning myself; viz., that I was to marry Miss —, and receive the appointment of Postmaster of New York!! Now either the lady or the office would be a sufficient blessing for a marrying or an office-craving man; but God help me! should be as much bothered with the one as with the other. . . .

A Serious Situation

James Russell Lowell prepares to buy a doll

MY

(To Mrs. William Wetmore Story)

HÔTEL DE FRANCE, RUE LAFITTE,

PARIS, July 16th, 1856

Y DEAR EMELYN,- Here I am back again just where I was a year ago at this time and as delighted to hear of your being in England as I was then disappointed to find that you had decamped thither for in England I shall be in a few days. It is rumoured in diplomatic circles that you are at the White Hart, Windsor which has a very comfortable sound. But are you to stay there? Shall we go and see another cathedral or two together?

What I wish you particularly to do now is to write and tell me where you got the doll which has so excited Mabel's cupidity. If you can't remember the exact address can you tell the street or the quarter? Also whether it is a gal of wax? Moves her eyes? About how big? Cost environ how much? Has a wardrobe ? I see ruin staring me in the face, and have just got a letter from M. ordering shoes, stockings and what not for the young foreigner. You see what a predicament I should be in were I to go home with the wrong baby. It is not a case for a warming-pan, for the features of the child are already known to the expectant mother by vision touch of the twin sister of elder birth. posititious child would answer. . .

- nay by actual Not every sup

So the Longfellows are coming? Won't they have a nice time! Over here it is more of a reputation to know Longfellow than to have written various immortal works. Gather your laurels while ye may, old Time is still a-flying! and old times, too, more's the pity. We will have one more, though, in England, I trust.

...

"The broken circle

IT

January 30, 1859

is Sunday afternoon. You know, then, how the old house looks, the shadow in the library, and the sunshine in the study, where I stand at my desk and write you this. Two little girls are playing about the room, A. counting with great noise the brass handles on my secretary, "nine, eight, five, one," and E. insisting upon having some paper box, long promised but never found, and informing me that I am not a man of my word!

And I stand here at my desk by the window, thinking of you, and hoping you will open some other letter from Boston before you do mine, so that I may not be the first to break to you the sad news of Prescott's death. Yes, he is dead, from a stroke of paralysis, on Friday last at two o'clock. Up to half past twelve he was well, and occupied as usual; at two he was dead. We shall see that cheerful, sunny face no more! Ah me! what a loss this is to us all, and how much sunshine it will take out of the social life of Boston! ....

Henry D. Thoreau on "that glorious society called Solitude"

[R. BLAKE,

MR.

CONCORD, January 1, 1859

I have lately got back to that glorious society called Solitude, where we meet our friends continually, and can imagine the outside world also to be peopled. Yet some of my acquaintance would fain hustle me into the almshouse for the sake of society, as if I were pining

for that diet. when I seem to myself a most befriended

Indigestion of Society

man, and find constant employment. They have got a club,1 the handle of which is in the Parker House at Boston, and with this they beat me from time to time, expecting to make me tender or minced meat, so fit for a club to dine off.

"Hercules with his club
The Dragon did drub;

But More of More Hall
With nothing at all,

He slew the Dragon of Wantley."

Ah! that More of More Hall knew what fair play was. Channing, who wrote to me about it once, brandishing the club vigorously (being set on by another, probably), says now, seriously, he is sorry to find by my letters that I am "absorbed in politics," and adds, begging my pardon for his plainness, "Beware of an extraneous life!" and so he does his duty, and washes his hands of me. I tell him that it is as if he should say to the sloth, that fellow that creeps so slowly along a tree, and cries ai from time to time, “Beware of dancing!"

The doctors are all agreed that I am suffering for want of society. Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering at all. Secondly, as an Irishman might say, I had thought it was indigestion of the society I got.

As for the Parker House, I went there once, when the Club was away, but I found it hard to see through the cigar smoke, and men were deposited about in chairs over the marble floor, as thick as legs of bacon in a smoke-house. It was all smoke, and no salt, Attic or other. The only room in Boston which I visit with alacrity is the Gentlemen's Room at the Fitchburg Depot, where I wait for the 1 The Saturday Club.