After careful
observation of the two lords and the ten ladies of whom this family
consists, I have come to the conclusion that their opinions are
represented by the leading lord and leading lady: the latter, as I
judge, an aged personage, afflicted with a paucity of feathers and
visibility of quill, that gives her the appearance of a bundle of
office-pens. When a railway goods van that would crush an elephant comes
round the corner, tearing over these fowls, they emerge unharmed from
under the horses, perfectly satisfied that the whole rush was a passing
property in the air, which may have left something to eat behind it.
They look upon old shoes, wrecks of kettles and saucepans, and fragments
of bonnets, as a kind of meteoric discharge, for fowls to peck at.
Peg-tops and hoops they account, I think, as a sort of hail;
shuttlecocks, as rain, or dew. Gaslight comes quite as natural to them
as any other light; and I have more than a suspicion that, in the minds
of the two lords, the early public-house at the corner has superseded
the sun.
DRINKING SONG
[Sidenote: _J.K. Stephen_]
There are people, I know, to be found,
Who say and apparently think
That sorrow and care may be drowned
By a timely consumption of drink.
Does not man, these enthusiasts ask,
Most nearly approach the divine
When engaged in the soul-stirring task
Of filling his body with wine?
Have not beggars been frequently known,
When satisfied, soaked and replete,
To imagine their bench was a throne
And the civilised world at their feet?
Lord Byron has finely described
The remarkably soothing effect
Of liquor, profusely imbibed,
On a soul that is shattered and wrecked.
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