The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

“And what did you do, then, upon making such a discovery as that in so very odd and unexpected a manner?” “Do? What do you suppose I did?” “T really cannot say, as you are rather an eccentric fellow.” “Well then, I’ ll tell you. I went up to the house, and just popped in my head, and says I, ‘Angelina, I find out that all cats have claws after all; good-evening, and no more from your humble servant, who don’t mind the job of taming a wild animal, but a woman;’ and then off I walked, and I never heard of her afterwards.” “Ah, Ben, it’s true enough! You never know them beforehand; but, after a little time, as you say, then out come the claws.” “They does—they does.” “And I suppose you since then made up your mind to be a bachelor for the rest of your life, Ben?” “Of course I did. After such experience as that I should have deserved all I got, and no mistake, I can tell you; and if you ever catches me paying any attention to a female woman, just put me in mind of Angelina Day, and you’|l see how I shall be off at once like a shot.” “Ah!” said Mr. Oakley, with a sigh, “everybody, Ben, ain’t born with your good luck, I can tell you. You are a most fortunate man, Ben, and that’s a fact. You must have been born under some lucky planet I think, Ben, or else you never would have had such a warning as you have had about the claws. I found ’em out, Ben, but it was a deal too late; so I had to put up with my fate, and put the best face I could upon the matter.” “Yes, that’s what learned folks call—what’s its name—fill—fill—something.” “Philosophy, I suppose you mean, Ben.” “Ah, that’s it—you must put up with what you can’t help, it means, I take it. It’s a fine name for saying you must grin and bear it.” “T suppose that is about the truth, Ben.” It cannot, however, be exactly said that the little incident connected with Mr. Lupin had no good effect upon Mrs. Oakley, for it certainly shook most alarmingly her confidence in that pious individual. In the first place, it was quite clear that he shrank from the horrors of martyrdom; and, indeed, to escape any bodily inconvenience was perfectly willing to put up with any amount of degradation or humiliation that he could be subjected to; and that was, to the apprehension of Mrs. Oakley, a great departure from what a saint ought to be. Then again, her faith in the fact that Mr. Lupin was such a chosen morsel as he had represented himself, was shaken from the circumstance that no miracle in the shape of a judgement had taken place to save him from the malevolence of Big Ben, the beef-eater; so that, taking one thing in connexion with another, Mrs. Oakley was not near so religious a character after that evening as she had been before it, and that was something gained. Then circumstances soon occurred, of which the reader will very shortly be fully aware, which were calculated to awaken all the feelings of Mrs. Oakley, if she really had any feelings to awaken, and to force her to make common cause with her husband in an affair that touched him to the very soul, and did succeed in awakening some feelings in her heart that had lain dormant for a long time, but which were still far from being completely destroyed. These circumstances were closely connected with the fate of one in whom we hope that, by this time, the reader has taken a deep and kindly interest—we mean Johanna—that young and beautiful, and artless creature, who seemed to have been created to be so very happy, and yet whose fate had become so clouded by misfortune, and who appears now to be doomed through her best affections to suffer so great an amount of sorrow, and to go through so many sad difficulties. Alas, poor Johanna Oakley! Better had you loved some one of less aspiring feelings, and of less ardent imagination, than him to whom you have given your heart’s young affections. It is true that Mark Ingestrie possessed genius, and perhaps it was the glorious light that hovers around that fatal gift which prompted you to love him. But genius is not only a blight and a desolation to its possessor, but it is so to all who are bound to the gifted being by the ties of fond affection. It brings with it that unhappy restlessness of intellect which is ever straining after the unattainable, and which is never content to know the end and ultimatum of earthly hopes and wishes; no, the whole life of such persons is spent in one long struggle for a fancied happiness, which like the ignis-fatuus® of the swamp glitters but to betray those who trust to its delusive and flickering beams. @9OOO0GOOO CORniclooo S CO)