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Begbie, Harold, 1871-1929

"The Bed-Book of Happiness"


O Peace! our greatest renovator--
I wonder where I put my waiter.
O Peace!--but here my ode I'll cease!
I have no peace to write of Peace.

LETTERS FROM THACKERAY
[Sidenote: _Thackeray_]
_Tuesday, November 1848_.
GOOD-NIGHT, MY DEAR MADAM,
Since I came home from dining with Mr. Morier, I have been writing a
letter to Mr. T. Carlyle and thinking about other things as well as the
letter all the time; and I have read over a letter I received to-day
which apologizes for everything and whereof the tremulous author
ceaselessly doubts and misgives. Who knows whether she is not converted
by Joseph Bullar by this time. She is a sister of mine, and her name is
God bless her.
_Wednesday_.--I was at work until seven o'clock; not to very much
purpose, but executing with great labour and hardship the day's work.
Then I went to dine with Dr. Hall, the crack doctor here, a literate
man, a traveller, and otherwise a kind bigwig. After dinner we went to
hear Mr. Sortain lecture, of whom you may perhaps have heard me speak,
as a great, remarkable orator and preacher of the Lady Huntingdon
Connexion. (The paper is so greasy that I am forced to try several pens
and manners of handwriting, but none will do.) We had a fine lecture,
with brilliant Irish metaphors and outbursts of rhetoric, addressed to
an assembly of mechanics, shopboys, and young women, who could not, and
perhaps had best not, understand that flashy speaker.


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