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There were times, however, when with a chicken and a bottle of brandy, purchased secretly from old Benny, and smuggled, at great hazard, into the room, Edgar Goodfellow could, with zest join his rolicking room-mates in making merry, and in spite of his strict adherence to the single glass, generally out-do them at their own games.
He has often told me, that at his coming to his estate he found his parishioners very irregular; and that, in order to make them kneel and join in the responses, he gave every one of them a hassock and a common-prayer-book; and at the same time employed an itinerant singing-master, who goes about the country for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the psalms; upon which they now very much value themselves, and indeed out-do most of the country churches that I have ever heard.
I am told, in some Parts of China, they had arriv'd to such a Perfection of Knowledge, as to understand one anothers Thoughts; and that it was found to be an excellent Preservative to humane Society, against all sorts of Frauds, Cheats, Sharping, and many Thousand European Inventions of that Nature, at which only we can be said to out-do those Nations.
Matisse and Picasso, great modernists, could not out-do those cows. The cigarette men are particularly interesting. A bit over done. One cannot help wonder what enthusiasm they would have left for a gorgeous sunset having spent so much on, a cigarette. But I expect they are good men at heart and not so sensuous as they appear.
Now as they saw her whirling on the tips of her toes, dipping, swaying, doing steps of wondrous grace, they marveled at the skill with which she did it. At home, at the Stone House, Dorothy had often played for her, but to-night she seemed to out-do herself.
We glory in the fact that we can talk a thousand miles, but we ignore the greater question, whether when we thus out-do Stentor, we have anything worth saying.
Now, if it be true as is hinted before, That the Chinese Empire was Peopled long before the Flood; and that they were not destroyed in the General Deluge in the Days of Noah; 'tis no such strange thing, that they should so much out-do us in this sort of Eye-sight we call General Knowledge, since the Perfections bestow'd on Nature, when in her Youth and Prime met with no General Suffocation by that Calamity.
But it will be taken in the lump; that here is Mr. B , with such and such an estate, has married his mother's waiting-maid: not considering there is not a lady in the kingdom that can out-do her, or better support the condition to which she will be raised, if I should marry her.
My lord duke clapped hearty praise of the singer, and we all did the same; all save Junker Henning, who had not failed to mark that Herdegen had striven to out-do his modest warble, and likewise the ardent eyes he turned on the lady of his choice. Hence he moved not.
His first design was only to be initiated into the mysteries of those fortunate and happy inhabitants: that is to say, by changing his name and dress, to gain admittance to their feasts and entertainments; and, as occasion offered, to those of their loving spouses; as he was able to adapt himself to all capacities and humours, he soon deeply insinuated himself into the esteem of the substantial wealthy aldermen, and into he affections of their more delicate, magnificent, and tender ladies: he made one in all their feasts, and at all their assemblies; and, whilst in the company of the husbands, he declaimed against the faults and mistakes of government, he joined their wives in railing against the profligacy of the court ladies, and in inveighing against the king's mistresses: he agreed with them, that the industrious poor were to pay for these cursed extravagances; that the city beauties were not inferior to those of the other end of the town, and yet a sober husband in this quarter of the town was satisfied with one wife; after which, to out-do their murmurings, he said, that he wondered Whitehall was not yet consumed by fire from heaven, since such rakes as Rochester, Killegrew, and Sidney were suffered there, who had the impudence to assert that all married men in the city were cuckolds, and all their wives painted.
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