Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 20th December 1851, Edition Country of 2, Page 18, 11 IN DOST AN. The Asiatic Gallery, a ne...

Page 18
Page 18
18 of 24

On this page

  • Departments (1)
    • €h %xts. — _^
  • Text (4)
  • Transcript

    • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

      Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

      This New Dracjon Ok Wanti.Ky. A Social R...

      bosom , fell back fainting on the floor ? Of course she did this , and I respect her for it . It was a natural and dignified and femininely proper mode of proceeding . Could she know that the snake was harmless , was asleep on her parapet in the sun , and had only started up and hissed in fear at the sudden noise of the opening window ? Certainly not . It was her business , under the circumstances , to scream and faint : and she did her business .

      Now let us shift the scene again . Mr . Frostick is returning in the evening from his office—returning eager for domestic enjoyment , impatient to fondle his wife and child . The servant opens the door to him , pale as if all her blood had been turned to whitewash ; and muttering fearfully about "Missus" and a serpent . He rushes into the parlour—there is his beloved partner , as nearly as possible raving mad , pressing the baby convulsively to her bosom . She has been attacked by a boa constrictortwenty feet long , who lives in the roof

      , of the house—nothing shall induce her to sleep up stairg again , or to let the baby sleep up stairsno ! no ! it is of no earthly use for Mr . Frostick to tare , and taunt her about dreaming in broad day * ight , her mind is made up : she would infinitely prefer going to the workhouse , or roaming the streets all night , to setting foot on the bedroom floor again . It is in vain for her husband to soothe , and promise , and expostulate—she is determined to pass the night on a chair in the back parlour ; and she sticks to her determination .

      I am soon made aware that I have unconsciously introduced a serpent into a domestic garden of Eden . I have already told my mother that I have a snake ; my mother tells our servant ; our servant tells Mr . Frostick ' s servant ; and I get a message , requesting to know what I mean by ruining for ever the tranquillity of a whole household . I apologise , explain , and prove from natural history that the snake is perfectly harmless . In answer to this I get another message . Mrs . Frostick has consented to sleep up stairs again , provided the whole

      roof of the house is taken off , to assure her that there is no snake in it : Mr . Frostick , as in connubial duty hound , has consented to this tremendous course of proceeding , conceiving at the same time the diabolically revengeful design of bringing an action against me to pay expenses . I laugh contemptuously at this , and dare him to meet me before our country ' s tribunals ; but serious considerations soon overcome me again , when I hear that the house roof has really been taken off , and no reptile found in any part of it .

      Where is the snake ? is the momentous question I now ask myself . What scrape will he get me into next ? Whose house will he visit , now he has done with Mr . Frostick ' s house ? What babies will he frighten into fits , what mothers into swoons , what old gentlemen into apoplexies ? From the Church pulpit to the workhouse dustholc , there is no place in Stoke Muddleton into which he may not at this moment be introducing himself ; and there is no individual in Stoke Muddleton who will

      not know him , by this time , to be my property whenever he appears . Talk about Frankenstein and the Monster , that's all stuff and fiction ! here ' s an appalling reality for you that no novelist of the lot of them can have the smallest conception of ! here I am , expecting every minute to be told that 1 have , innocently frightened to death some fellow parishioner ; and all because I have bought , a snake , price four shillings , and failed to persuade the ungrateful reptile that my best hat-box was a comfortable lodging for him !

      1 have not . omitted making some attempt at putting an end to this frightful state of suspense . The oilier day 1 paid two labouring men to become provisionally . snake-hunters , and to . search all Stoke Muddleton for the missing reptile . This proceeding mollified even the furious Frostiek ( who is putting on a brim-new slate roof to lii . s bouse ); but it produced no other effect . Once * , indeed , my two labouring men—1 > abbs and Clutton— . saw the ( snake crossing the road ; changing his quarters , perhaps , from a baby ' s cradle to an old woman ' s nightcap . I ) abhs gave chase , while Clutton stood . still and called for extra help . The tsnake got away , and has not been seen since . I ) ahhs felt certain that he

      was on bis way home to bis native wood---Clutton firmly believed that be was directing his eourne utraight to the . house , of the , Reverend Morbus Lipscut ; Stretch , <> n » ' respected minister , who has twelve children . to be frightened out of . their wits , and one more hooii expected , for the snalw > to begin , upon ugaju . when he has done with , the fir , Kt dozen . ,

      In the mean time , public opinion assumes , day by day , a more threatening aspect towards me . I am already , socially speaking , the Pariah of Stoke Muddleton . The reports circulated—especially among my poorer neighbours—about my snake , are worthy of the Dark Ages , or the Cannibal Islands . In some quarters it is believed , that I have let loose a boa constrictor , whose breath can poison people , yards and yards off . In others , it is averred that my so called snake was in reality an alligator from " foreign parts , " accustomed in his native country to feed exclusively on human flesh .

      One select party , headed by the cheesemonger ' s overgrown errand boy , stoutly assert that my vagabond reptile has been seen crossing the high road , in the shape of a winged serpent . This last superstition gains ground immensely among all who remember that the snake not only escaped , nobody knew how , from a hatbox into a garden , but extended his wanderings still further , from a garden to the top of a house . In spite of the trellis-work that runs up the back of Mr . Frostick ' s abode ,

      many people are still determined to believe that my snake could only have got to the parapet outside the nursery window by flying there . This is a fact—I am exposing the bare truth , without adding one atom of embroidery . I am not writing for effect ; and , being no author , I could not do so if I would . The present is a serious statement , seriously intended—if I thought anybody would laugh at it , I should be utterly disgusted and disappointed . When a man has become , as I have , the accredited

      perpetrator of a perfectly original species of public nuisance , his position is far too solemn to be joked about either by himself or by others . No ! persecuted and proscribed by a whole parish , publicly charged with predilections for keeping monsters , and letting them loose on society , ribald feelings are not the feelings which accompany such a revelation as mine . When I

      remember that the outrageous reports which I have described are spread abroad and firmly believed in this nineteenth century of education and cheap literature , by people who live within a sixpenny ride of the great metropolis , I really cannot accuse myself of revolutionary tendencies in crying aloud for social reform , in calling lamentably and imperatively for an immediate supply of Missionaries of the Brotherhood of Common Sense to

      convert Stoke Muddleton . The social disease is laid bare in these unpretending pages ; let the remedy be forthwith applied , and I shall not have been ignorantly " sent to Coventry" by all my neighbours without some good coining from it , after all . Beyond this , I don ' t think I have much more to to say . Up to the present time I have not beard of my snake again ; he has either wriggled himself back to his native wood , or is lurking in impervious concealment in somebodv else ' s house . Mr . and

      Mrs . Frostiek have toned down , under their new roof , into a state of dignified sullenness . Among the Stoke Muddleton mob opinion is still violently exasperated against me . The last proof that was given of the estimation in which 1 am held by the populace generally , came from our own maul servant , who gave us warning yesterday , assigning as the reason that the bare idea of her living in the same house with a gent who was fond of serpents made the affectionate young lead-smelter ' s journeyman with whom she " kep' company" so nervous about her that she was compelled to leave her place ,

      in common regard for her lover ' s peace of mind . Insults such as these have long ceased to move me ; persecutions , public or private , strike vainly at my tranquillity . I may have lost , my snake ; and lost my character ; but i have not lost my ardent interest in reptile creation . While this survives , I can calmly expose my suH ' crings from the ignorance and malevolences of a large parochial neighbourhood , and feel all the better for it—I can boldly claim the . sympathies of my nat . iirali . sf . brethren throughout the world—and , best of all , 1 can still conscientiously sign myself ( certain that I am as good as my name ) , I ' iiilo-Skiii'Knh .

      I open my paper again to say that I have jusl received a letter from my brother Tom , who is in the navy , and now with bis whip at . Borneo . Tom ( bless him !) writes word that , knowing my peculiar tastes , and anxious to gratify them , be has secured a , live baa constrictor for me (!) and has Nent it oil' to my addrcs . s bero by a hoiucwurdbound ship (! !) Need I nay that I shall receive it joyfully--receive it as a rod of chastisement opportunely arriving to scourge ; t calummotiH neighbour , hood ? Welcome ,, avengu ^ repti le I WujkioMif Uu jcu welcome , to tin ; villuge of JStoJko Muddleton i

      1214 Qzf)V 3lt&1ftv* [Saturday ,...._.. ...

      1214 QZf ) V 3 Lt & 1 ftV * [ Saturday , .... _ .. i ^ ii m ^ ——¦—a—a ^^——^— - - ^ ^ „ _____

      €H %Xts. — _^

      € h % xts . _^

      The Lyceum Reopened. On Monday Evening L...

      THE LYCEUM REOPENED . On Monday evening last , I found myself in what the American language designates by an " almi ehtv fix " : and as many of my fellow-bachelors will probably understand the blissful tumult of mv thoughts , I shall not hesitate to take them into confidence . The case is this . I had passed Sun - day with the stately Harriet , and never before had I been so near making a fool of mys elf by offering my hand and copyrights where I had alread y given my heart . Justly alarmed and duly grateful for the escape , I resolved to fortify myself against a

      relapse by a severe perusal of Te rtullian Ad Uxorem ; the remarks of the Christian Father upon marriage were to be the antidote to Harriet ' s eyes I had a dim remembrance of his argument that St " Paul's counsel was far from intimating marriage to be a good thing in itself , but only good in comparison with something worse . I remembered also the splendid phrase of savage discernment in which he characterizes " that very bitter pleasure of children—liberorum amarissima voluptate" not to mention " weekly bills" ! With Tertullian I felt there was safety .

      But as the chair was wheeled to the fire , who should present himself but that mysterious and dirty entity the Devil ( the printer ' s !) , with an intimation that my presence was needed at the L yceum Theatre , which was to reopen that night . Tertullian —the Lyceum—which was I to choose ? In the pages of the one lay perhaps the destiny' of my future life—in the boxes of the other lay my duty ( and engagement on the Leader ) . Intellect was on the side of the quarto—the affections on the side of the theatre . Buridan ' s Ass , the schoolmen say , when placed between the two equally attractive temptations of water and hay , perished because the attractions were so equalized that he could not decide . But he was an ass . Vivian , being a

      philosopher , decided , and decided to let his affections gain the victory over his interest—he went to the Lyceum . Gay and brilliant was the house in its new decorations , happy the smiling faces of the audience pleased to be once more comfortably within its elegant walls . The comedy of my lucky , but overestimated friend , Slingsby Lawrence was played with great verve and finish ; and Charles Mathews , when he first presented himself as Affable Hawk , received the hearty friendly salute of a public that has no such accomplished actor among its favourites . Frank Mathews was as mordant and effective as ever in the begging creditor ; and lloxby , in spite

      of nervousness ( they were all nervous !) , greatly improved in Sir Harry Lester . Every body had a " reception " ; every body was made to feel at home by an audience that felt itself pleased to sec its friends . After the comedy " God save the Queen was sung by the company , which brought more old friends upon the stage , among them Madamb , who sang her verse with immense effect ; Julia M . George , who improves daily ; Mrs . Frank Mat hews , a deserved favourite ; and , beside the old familiar faces , there were new faces-Mrs . Chatterley , who returns to the stage after many years absence , to nil a place long vacant ; Laura Keene from the Olympic ; and Miss Lanza , whose singing will be an acquisition . Vivian .

      11 In Dost An. The Asiatic Gallery, A Ne...

      11 IN DOST AN . The Asiatic Gallery , a new and capacious room adjoining the waxwork show in Baker-street , contains the last new colossal picture on rollers ; an thither we went last week to assist at . the gatli « " » 'h of notables , private ; acquaintances , and literary imwith which these thing . s are usually mauKUiai | < The ramparts of Fort William , the citadel of ^ cutta , formed the starling point , wliem * " - ascended the Ganges toils source among the arn ^ y regions of the Himalaya ,. The first transition I n > m the Hut , even range of Doric respectability , I <> wi ball , Government-house , and . Mint ; , to «> ' »« ' . ' ^ Bengal cottage scenery on the opposite or i itf ^ bank of the river , was . sinking and agreeable > > without doubt , ( . bought Louis Ilaghe the ng . painter ; his clever group of o / IicerH and < : a ( 1 ( _ , t , he first , scene is completely eclipsed by the I' «>» " >' . of unconstrained native life which follows Anou artistic bit of painting , creditable alike to tlm i < J same painter , Mr . IMuilips , and to the great a .-Us ' have named , is a sunset , and would have b < rn |>« ¦• perfect , even us a dlonaniv rJfWi , but for tins «" of ihu iimcliiiusU .-who Jim * amtnv « d , Ao . r . m « J j light and atmosphere by tho v « no « t spectre ¦ *>*

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 20, 1851, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_20121851/page/18/