I need hardly ask whether you have known, my reader, what it is to feel
yourself _gloppened_, as when in boyhood (if feminine, please ask your
brother), you had just finished your first pipe of the herb called shag,
and on your face a tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced, as
represented in that marvellous sketch by John Leech, "Old Bagshawe under
the influence of tobacco"; when you went forth with your mother for an
innings, as you hoped, at the confectioner's, and a second ditto at the
toyshop, and saw her ringing the dentist's bell; when you had carefully
adjusted that cracker to Mr. Nabal's knocker, and were lighting the
lucifer within the quiet seclusion of your cap, and suddenly the
knuckles of Mr. Nabal's left pressed rudely on your nape, and the thumb
and finger of his right essayed to meet each other through the lobe of
your ear; when your dearest friend, in the strictest confidence, and
having sworn you to secrecy, showed you a lock of gleaming hair, given
to him by the girl whom you adored.
And it was you, my Thomas, you,
The friend in whom my soul confided,
Who dared to gaze on her--to do,
I may say, much the same as I did.
Or when, in after-years, unequally mated, you groaned, with Parolles,
under the subjection of a stronger will, "a man that's married is a man
that's marred"; and it might be said of you, as once it was said by a
labourer of one of his neighbours (so have I read in a book about roses,
a charming volume, which should be on every table), "Bill has been and
married his mestur, and she has _gloppened_ him a goodish bit.
Pages:
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175