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Matutinal Soliloquics Of A Young Man

Matutinal Soliloquics Of A Young Man image
Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
March
Year
1887
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Heigho! So this is London, and ft eniokey, foggy, dismal metropolis it is, to say the least of it. Keminds me of yonng Simpkins, of our class, who undertook to write an apostropke to the ocean - a la Byron - and completed one line : "Oh , thou prodigious dampness!" Simpkins stuck there ar.d couldn't get any farther; but there is no such limit to London dampness. By the great ponda of Michigan, the air here scems to nold water in solution ! One runs a risk of being drowned in breathing! I snppose this is what Mr. Gnppy oalled a "London particular," but with all due respect, I don 't think London is particular, or she wouldn't have such au atmosphere. Fine showing, this, for an April morning ! Ho, hum 1 I really must get up and comm ence my pilgrimage. I oan't undcrstand why I should have started on this European tour, and condemned myself to wandering about look ing at thiugs I don 't want to see, climbing mountains I don't want to climb, rummaging around through nasty streets wliere I don't want to rumraage, and inhaing oders that I decidedly object to. What is the nse now of my "doing" London, and subjectiog myself to fatigue, odors, and 'acknoy coaches, wlen I accomplish it kil o miifih mor nlrasuntlv with one of Diokeos' novela at home in a liammock, or drifting down the Chesapoake ? I can't understand why I ahould want to eee the Tower because the princes were murdered there, nor the Avon because Shakespeare was born there, nor a hundred and ono other places because ■omething waa done or wasn't done there I If a man tolls me tliat his father was hanged, I aia quite satisfled (o blievo him without rushing off immcdiately to see the place and bringing away a piece of the gallowa or a ■hred of the rope. Thank lieavcn, when I'm through with London my occupation's gone, and I can go home in peace. Constantinople, Venice, Rome, Switzerland, Paris - I've done them all, and pretty thovonghly, I hope, though niy people at home will be sure to think of some confounded place that I ought to have seen but didn't see. Something that I have omitted which they have been dying to see for goodness knows how long. Think I'd better coach up on the gtiide book, and - that reminds me I gave mino to the pretty girl whom I rescued in "Venice from the gondoliers - those fellows are as bad as London 'ackney-coachmen - and who was so charmingly grateful. Said she hoped ■we might meet again, and she was ever and ever so much obliged to me, and it was so nice to meet a conntryman, for sbe was American. I would have known that if she had stopped alter "nice" - and a great deal more to the ■ame effect, all in the s weet est voice and with the cordial, confiding way which belongs alone to our girls. Bless 'em ! Shook hands with me, smiled more in her soft gray eyes than with her lips, and left me standing there with my lint off, a spectacle for those rascally boat-. men! Made a memorandum on a blank leaf of my guide-book to this effect: Prettiest picture in Venice. Stndy in gray. Gray eyes, grey robe, name Gray. Worth a fortune, but by the right person to be had for the asking. N. B.- Would that I dared to ask. Tuen I gave the nearest gondolier a twenty franc piece to overtake her and retrieve to Mademoiselle the book she did neglect. And that's all. By Jove, I must get up ! SOLILOQUT THE SECOND. Three weeks in London! Well, London isn't so bad af ter all, and I am really interested in huuting up queer placea. I'd give a farm just to find Mrs. Todgers' lodging-house, and Miss Gray ia constntly looking íor a Curiosity Shop. That I should meet her again, and especially in this human labyrinth, ia a piece of good fortune little short of latality. Her mother and 14-year-old brother conetituted the party, and the old lady says Bhe really doesn't know how they would have managcd to see so much of London but for my valuable aid. I'ru a disinterested party ,1 am ! Hanged if I don't believe I'm getting too mnch absorbed in the flesli tinta, and the perspective, and tlie foreshortening, and the coloring of my study in Gray. Bhe has not said a word about my guide-book, not even whether she receiTed it or not ; but she seemed glad to ■ee me, and I - pshaw ! I'm too old to lie abed and day-dreatn like a sehoolboy ! I think 111 go home. I've seen enough yellow fog and black smoke. Mrs. Gray sajs they are going to Scotlsnd, and the Hebrides, and all those moist dem'd nnplcasant places that William Black rejoices in- and, indeed, when on 3 can ait by a warm flre and read abont rain and wind, leaden sky and dewy heather, it isn't bad ; but exense from participating, as the rnan said when he was going to be hanged ïet I can be with her by going. She aid her mamma wanted me to go so noch. I wonder whether shespoaksto me with mamma's hps? Girls do, I know, particularly wlusn they are afraid tD let a ffillow see that they take nny interest. For example, if her mother wanted me to go as an escort, and she herself didn.t care a straw whether I went or not, she would have said: "I want yon to go so much." It'sagood ign when mother comes to the front. Bah! I'm trying to construe nothing into something - a practice I thought I had abandoned ever since the days when I persuaded myself that a certain school-girl returned my youthfal pasion, because she permitted me to carry her bookstrap to school, a dream that was dispelled by her subsequently conferring that privilege on another young But still I should like to see Scotlund nd the places ao "clustored around with historical associations" - 1 believa that's the phrase - whiofa one roads bout ie - in Sir Walter and- and other historians. At home they'll be sure to ask me about Auld Reekie, St. Ronan's Well, Corrie Nan Shian, and Coilan Togle, and what bhall I say? It is clearly my duty to go to Scotland, beeause - Harry Olden, you are pulling the wool over your own eyes ! You don't care a jot more for ordinary places with extraordinury names tlian you do ior extraordinary places with ordinary names! Now acknowledge it's the girl. Well, confound your impertinence, suppose it is the girl ! I am going to Scotland. 8OLILOQDY THE THIKD. Ah - grrr - krrr - gnooch! By Jove, how I must have been snoring! I nevar feit so little like getting up in my life, thcugh the sun is pouring in at the window, and the whistle of the partridge comes from the hilleide like a morning matin : Th breezy callof incease-liroatliing moni, Tk iwallow twittering froni Uiü straw built shad. I'm glad I carne to Scotland - glad w left the beaten track of tourists and took up our quarters at this Highland kwteLry. I don't think I ever eujoyed rambling throngh woodö, and picking ferns, or sketching hill-tops, half so much, even on the banks of the old Susquehana - my beuison on herbroad bosom! I'm sure theio mnat bo sornething about these Highland brae that nourishea rhyme, romaneo and all that sort of thing, for a fellow seems to drop into poetry as naturally as Mr. Silas Wegg. Laurel - I beg pardon, Miss Laurel - my study in Gray - saya sha knows I am of a poetio temperament, and 1 am so foolish as tö go hammering up verses to prove it! Ah, woll! When it is happiness to be foolish, 'tis f oolishness not to be happy! Seems to mo I'vo board some qnotation like that, nly briefer. Heigho ! Yesterday was a red-letter day in my existenoe. To be soleguide, nssistanco, counselor and protector of the dearest girl in tha world for a wholc day of rambling through forest and glen, is what I cali a blesBed privilege! We explored Ben Voirlich - all tho mountains in this country seem to be afflicted with Christian name of Benjamin - spoke our little pieoe over Monan's Bill, and ate our luncheon in "Lone Glenarty's hazel shado." I tüink I must Jiavo spouted a wholo canto of "Tlio Lady of tho Lake" at diñerent times, and how spirited she was over the defiant stag - how her beautiful eyea flll up at the death of "my gallant gray." Well, it's a blessing I know Scott by heartl It is precious littla else I know besides poetry and novéis, but she defera to me as if I -ore an emporium of information. Saidshe: "Mr. Olden, you seera to feel poetry, while other peoplo. just say it. You give it a ring of reality that is mors aifecting than finished declamation." I - "It must be because yon are my auditor then. Genorally I regard poetry as a combination of fantastically elevated words and ideas - a liyperbolioal expression of ultra-humau sentimenta in a listener, it see:ns almost appropriate, so high a rank do I give you." She (arokly) - "I wonder if I have anything to do with the feelings which prompt you to wind up an impassioned poem with sonio absurd parody or burlesque. " I - "Oh, that is done for the pnrpose of taking the odge off what you might otherwise consider sentimentality - and partir to convince myself that 1 um not growing sentimental in reality." She - "Is sentiment such a crime in your eves?" I - "Kot a crime, but a source for ridiculo. Promise me not to laugh - not to think me abmrd - and I'll play at romance like tlie veriest lover of them all. 'I havo a mighty leaning to it !' " She - "Some day you'll play at it in earnest, and be the 'veriest lover of them all. or I am no phrophetess." I - "Metliinks the day has come - the hour and the woman ! Can you not seo that sinco I have known you - since that happy day in - " She (naively) - "When you returned my book?" I- "Ah! You did get the book? Then it has told you that from the first I have set up your picture in my heart, and fallen down before it " She - "'All on a Summer's day!' Are you not getting dangerously near the brink, Mr. Olden - of the ialte, I mean ? Yon might wet your feet." I - "Do you think I saythis in a vein which justifies fliopant interruptions, Miss Gray ?" She - "Do yon think I treatyon in a way which justifies flippant gallantry, Mr. Olden?" I - "You wrong me when youtreat as gallantry tlio homage of a man " She - "Is quite a serious as he nsually permits himself to be, or as he has been during any summer vacation for the past 1 alf a dozen years. Who parodies Rosalind and says, 'Come, I'll woo thee, for I'm in a holiday_ humor, and lite enough to be ensnared' '" I - "Yon regard me as a triflev, Isee." She (regretfully) - "And only think what you might have been ! Let us go home." ïsow, what does all this mean? Am I in love? And is there a chance for me? As to the first, yes; and the second- - Well, she scorned the manner and not the matter of my wooing. Thero's some comfort in that. If you can Convince a woman that you were a triflei until you succumhed to her, she is picpared to forgive tho first, and to regard the last as very natural. "Only to think what you might havo been. " She said it almost mournfully. Now, I don't think I might have been anything in particular ; but I shall try to be it f rom this time forth, and : she shall be the judge. How beautiful j slie is ! I'd give a king's ransom to [ hear lier say There's the breakfast belll SOLILOQUY THE FODRTH. Janglo, jangle, jangle! Confonnd the chuvcli bells! A fellow can never sloep on Sunday mornings with their ! Back to Edinburgh from the Hebridee - back from the land of mist, and clouds, and romance, with a full dctormination to read abont, but not visit it henceiorward. Too niuch fish and Gaelic to snit me, Threo montlis gone and the giotind covered with Autumn leavos sineo I've beon dangling in her train ; and - and I fear I've been ruaking a fooi of mvself ! Doe.s she care for me at all? Well. I'm a sanguino, self-persuasivo man : but putting all tliat aside, I think I am Raming groimd a little. Why am I not ccstatically liappy then ? I expeotcd to be, and - by Jove, Iwillbe! I have livcd a (juaiter oí h century without having noen any woman bo beautiful, so lovable; and I know she's far too good for me. What a ooncoited idiot I am! I dare nay it'a all my egotsui, and slie really never gives me a second thought. And yet wlion I pulled that recklesa youug scapegrace bvotlier of hers out of Loch Maylo, sho put both her cold little hands in mine, and whispered some incoherent wovds, of which I could only cutch, "Forgye me - I kniw you botter hotv." l'sliaw! that was ouTy gratitude. Km} vet, when I held her hands, and triad to teil hor how gladly I would takt; far groater rislis for lier nako, s'it! did not take them awav, l)ut ï'aisod hor eves to m.v face so bravely and trustfngly that I trod on air for davs aftcrward. Sho ket'ps my book, too. I saw the leaf on which I wroto that absurd crotcliet thrust into her little silk imrso. She had torn t out mul was luaking a relie oí it. Tliat might bebd-au.se of i ts oddity, and probably means nsthinpr. Tbere oever was ;i (?irJ bo ]roof to flattetj as r.ot to preservé Ruch a spontaneous tributo, treats me jnt the Baiuo as ever - i.s fricmdlj mi} cordial - no more. Uní . tlien, Í3 all I arrive at -nïitêrtaïnty is toherfeelings. nnoosiueus aa to mine, Prettv u-i ..■■ tho Mamo way I feit at LonK Branoh, thiee yoars ago, wlicn I spent a fortui fht tryi g to determine whethor I was in lovc with Lncy Romer, and, if so, whethershe wou;d be pleased tohear it; at tbe end of wbich time she married joung Landlesa, aud, to my aurprise, I v. .■ . t i -.1 to hear itt Supposetliis was to rosult similarly? I tbink I'd bettei' fí lióme. And yet thero will be something lost ont of life wben Ilcave íier. 1 ihould bo wretched, I am afraid ; but nok bo wretched bs I would ba hIiouIJ !u infuse me. taps not so wretched as I miglit be oventually if she accepted me. "Where sball I find the coneord oí this discord?" Apparently, not in this bed, for it looks liko wliat Mis. Fartington calis a "corruption of Mount Vociferous." Ilello, Bools! Bring me some hot water ! Mr. Henry Oldcn, get thee home od tha next steamor. SOLILOQUY THE FIFTH. 0 Lord ! O Lord ! I foel as if I had ust . parted with ray immortal soul, not to meution everythiiig I have eaten for the past twenty four honra. Seaaiekaessl The man who callcditono of tho comic diseases was snrely never seasick ! A. myriad of curses on the reeling, rocking oíd tnb. I could almost Bhe'd go to the bottorn ! 1 wonder how Miss Gray and hcr inother are standing it ! I hope to heaven I shall not sea her asrain until she recovers, or else I'm done with romance foreverl The oíd lady wonld insist on taking this stoamer, and I think it was a 1is)ensation of Providence to cure my malady. How can a nian worship wheu bis diviuity is white aronnd tho lp:, and red arouud the eyes, with u dra n, pinohed look, as if anxiously expecting a catastrophe. How conld I have been such a simpleton as to dwaddle eutimentally through a whole Summer, and start home during the equinoctial stonns? A proper termination this for lovo's young dream, and all its attendant follios! Sweet reverics and nmrmured vows, forsoothl Moonshine all of it, and, as for poetrv - it is a mockery, a grinning skeleton ! O Lord, 111 never be a_fool again ! I suppose Miss Gray loathes the vcry remembrance of all t'aat midsummer madness, and I recall it with the same unbounded satisfaction I derive from recolleeting a meal of cold pork and potatoes. Pork! Ufthl 111 never eat ttgaiu! They say this stoamor will reach New York to-morrow, and I here register a vow that l'll go back home and stay thero - be a misanthropc, philosopher, cynic, hermit- anything but a sentimental fooi ! Amen. SOLILOQUY THE SIXTH. Will the day never break ? Those swallows outside of my window 'nave been chattering for au hour fy if it were their wedding day. The iséth of April - just a year to-day since I landed in Venice - just a year sineO I hc gan stHdying the light and shade of my beautiful picture in Gray, and to-day I place it in my father's hall ! Ah.there comes tho 6un ! How the clouds gathei golden fringes! The birds are singing as if they knew my happiness ! Tue dow is sparkling on the gra-ss. It is springtkne, aud my wedding day. - Bheldou Borden in The Argouaut.

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Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Democrat