Life — April 14, 1887 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

» LIFE: FRENCH PHRASES FOR YOUNG BEGINNERS. Pas te Quatre, . THE YEARN OF THE INSOLVENT SWELL. H, for a lodge in the Pribydor Islands! Shaded, secluded and far from the world ; Oh, for a home in the Thibetan highlands ! Where Nature her forces chaotic has hurled. Mine be a cot, far in wilds Patagonian, Swept by the surges of ocean and storm, Or a cave in the depths of some island Ionian, Out of all sight of a curst human form ! Or a dreamy air-castle, wherein to take leave of The earth and its turmoil, its sorrows and fits— In short any refuge that mind can conceive of Which tailors’ can't reach with their d— ‘* Please, remits.” Albert Comstock, THE DIARY OF A PROFESSIONAL DINER-OUT. L FEBRUARY torH.—Dined at the Morgan's last night. The Mor- gans are pretty new people, and have had a rather tough struggle in climbing the giddy heights of society. They still show a lack of “form” and knowledge of the world by a tendency to be religious, and old man Morgan actually said grace before dinner began! This was an entirely new experience to me, and as it was a very faintly mumbled affair, I did not realize what was going on, and started off in the middle of it upon a delightful anecdote about a Bos- ton lady who married a New Yorker for her first husband, a Balti- morean for her second, a Charleston man for her third, and was in hopes of so adjusting matters that she would be able to pass her declining years in the balmy air of Florida, The rather awkward silence that followed this contretemps was at last broken by Mrs. | Morgan, who said to me by way of reproof, “« Mr. Carroll, I heard some people talking you over the ‘other day, and they all agreed that you ought to get married.” Whereupon I explained that I should only be too happy to do so, but I had unfortunately bought too many horses at auction—horses that were apparently perfect, both physically | and dispositionally, but which had turned out on closer acquaintance to be utterly worthless. I was called “horrid,” and voted a brute for | this comparison, and so for the moment was obliged to subside and turn my attention to the young lady who I had “taken in.” She was, as I soon discovered, a child of the Quaker City, and—ah, me! is there anything in the wide world so charming as a Philadelphia girl ? It is extremely odd that a town who's name is synonymous for death and oblivion, whose streets are grass-grown, and where the tram-cars run in only one direction, should give rise to such delightful creatures. | Pa de Two, dus de Tre, Let me add that I am a judge in the matter, having enjoyed profound experience of all the various species, beginning with the Boston girl, who is so high-bred, but so much like her own hard rock-bound coast. It is a never-ceasing pleasure to me to watch a thermometer as a Boston girl approaches, and see the mercury scuttle down into the bulb as fast as ever its legs can carry it. And then one turns to the New York girls for relief; it is impossible, however, to classify them, for there are so many of the dear creatures, and so many crosses and breeds and goodness knows what not, that you can only buckle on your stoutest armor and pray to escape with a few remnants of your heart remaining to you. But I am dragging the anchor of my discourse most inexcusably; let me come back to my haven beside the Sanctissima from Phila- delphia. Ah, me! she was so charming, so unconscious, such a little patrician, and so cordial and sympathetic in her dignified refined little way! And when I was wicked and brutal enough to ask her if Phila- delphia wasn't the place where the chestnuts went when they died, she replied by inquiring if I intended to go to Philadelphia when I was gathered in. And then she gave me such a mischievous, pleading, oh,-don't-be-angry-with-me sort of look, with her great brown eyes, that I felt—oh, dear! ob, dear! A glass of ice-water and a fan, quick, please! Hullo! quarter to seven! I must dress and go to the McWhirters’, and be bored to death. However, it's better than paying for a dinner at the club; so adios! Tr Fepruary 11TH.—Went to McWhirters' last night. Thanks to my Waterbury I arrived there twenty minutes too early, and felt about as dreary as a Canadian orange grove as I waited in a dark parlor for the old people to come down. Bah! how I hate to be too early for a dinner; it has such a hungry look about it ! The McWhirters are an awfully old family. The first McW. was, I believe, a sutler in William the Conqueror’s army, and the family ought to have died out long ago, for they have been going on altogether too long, and are the stupidest lot of jays that I ever had the misfortune to fall in with, I think, by the way, that all old families, barring my own, ought to die out, for their brains seem to have gotten discouraged and weary, and the older they are the more appalling is their stupidity. However, that is neither here nor there ; so let me come to the surface once more. ‘The McWhirters' party was composed of a lot of old goats just like themselves, ;and it was pretty hard work keeping awake as I ‘took in” an elderly young lady from Baltimore who had red hair and very little to say for herself. I began with her by asking—afropos de rien if she had read the “* Princess Casamassima." She replied that she didn't remember whether she had or not, and wanted to know who wrote it, and when I said it was by James, she said sneeringly, Oh, 211 comicbooks.com