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One day Lester happened to run across Berry Dodge, the millionaire head of Dodge, Holbrook & Kingsbury, a firm that stood in the dry-goods world, where the Kane Company stood in the carriage world. Dodge had been one of Lester's best friends. He knew him as intimately as he knew Henry Bracebridge, of Cleveland, and George Knowles, of Cincinnati.
"Diedrich Knickerbocker" is a near relation of some of Scott's characters; "Bracebridge Hall" might have been written by an Englishman; while "Ichabod Crane" and "Rip Van Winkle" are American to their marrow. The English naturally found Irving too much like their own writers in his English subjects, and they could not thoroughly relish his purely American pictures and characters.
Irving's own experience was duplicated: Murray refused to take "The Spy," but was glad to publish Cooper's later work. He now gave Irving a thousand guineas for the English rights in "Bracebridge Hall." It was less than he might have given, but Irving could never be persuaded to haggle over prices. He seems to have agreed with Peter, who wrote cheerfully, "A thousand guineas has a golden sound."
There was the beautiful manner, but the thought seemed thin; and I do not remember having been much amused by 'Bracebridge Hall', though I read it devoutly, and with a full sense that it would be very 'comme il faut' to like it.
He proved as staunch, however, with two heavy boys on his shoulders, as any of the most practised players, and his side were much oftener riders than horses. "I say, though, you don't mean to say, Bracebridge, that you have never been to school before?" said Buttar, as they were summoned away to their bedrooms. "I should have thought, from the way you do things, that you were an old boy."
The rest of the train had been metamorphosed in various ways; the girls trussed up in the finery of the ancient belles of the Bracebridge line, and the striplings bewhiskered with burnt cork, and gravely clad in broad skirts, hanging sleeves, and full-bottomed wigs, to represent the character of Roast Beef, Plum Pudding, and other worthies celebrated in ancient maskings.
I could not help smiling at this display of small erudition on so whimsical a subject; but I found that the peacocks were birds of some consequence at the hall, for Frank Bracebridge informed me that they were great favorites with his father, who was extremely careful to keep up the breed; partly because they belonged to chivalry, and were in great request at the stately banquets of the olden time, and partly because they had a pomp and magnificence about them highly becoming an old family mansion.
'Would you tell Mrs Herbert that I begged she would let me see frequently the accounts she receives from Miss Nightingale or Mrs Bracebridge, as I hear no details of the wounded, though I see so many from officers, &c., about the battlefield; and naturally the former must interest me more than any one.
The rest of the train had been metamorphosed in various ways; the girls trussed up in the finery of the ancient belles of the Bracebridge line, and the striplings bewhiskered with burnt cork, and gravely clad in broad skirts, hanging sleeves, and full-bottomed wigs, to represent the characters of Roast Beef, Plum Pudding, and other worthies celebrated in ancient maskings.
Quinn was the Indian agent for that district well fitted in every particular for the position he held. Mr. Dill kept a general store and at one time lived at Bracebridge, was a brother of the member of Muskoka in the local house. Mr. Williscraft came from Owen Sound where his friends reside. C. Gouin was a native of the north-west.
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