Ascend then,
gentlemen the travellers, for Hazebroucke, Lille, Douai, Bruxelles,
Arras, Amiens, and Paris! I, humble representative of the uncommercial
interest, ascend with the rest. The train is light to-night, and I share
my compartment with but two fellow-travellers; one, a compatriot in an
obsolete cravat, who thinks it a quite unaccountable thing that they
don't keep "London time" on a French railway, and who is made angry by
my modestly suggesting the possibility of Paris time being more in their
way; the other, a young priest, with a very small bird in a very small
cage, who feeds the small bird with a quill, and then puts him up in the
network above his head, where he advances twittering to his front wires,
and seems to address me in an electioneering manner. The compatriot (who
crossed in the boat, and whom I judge to be some person of distinction,
as he was shut up, like a stately species of rabbit, in a private hutch
on deck) and the young priest (who joined us at Calais) are soon asleep,
and then the bird and I have it all to ourselves....
LETTERS
[Sidenote: _Walter Bagehot_]
The complete letter-writer is now an unknown animal. In the last
century, when communications were difficult, and epistles rare, there
were a great many valuable people who devoted a good deal of time to
writing elaborate letters.
Pages:
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217