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"Mr. Apropos of slang, why does it sit well on some people? It certainly does not vulgarize them. After all, in many cases, it is what they call 'racy idiom. Perhaps our delicacy is strained?" Now, it was Mr. Barrett's established manner to speak in a deliberately ready fashion upon the introduction of a new topic.
He was scarcely out of sight over the crest of the spur when the advance guard of the mob came boiling up out of the gulch. A squad of three outran the others, and its spokesman made scant show of ceremony. "We want to see what you got in that shaft," he panted. "Yank them boards off and show us." "I guess not," said Gifford, fingering the lock of Barrett's shot-gun.
I shall always remember Barrett's good-natured grin when the meeting was adjourned. "You two will have the hot end of it," he remarked. "You're going to do the hard work, and all you've left me is a chance to do the starving act. Right here is where I see myself giving up this palatial apartment and going into a boarding-house. For heaven's sake, eat light, you two.
"When they meet they talk across a river, and he knows she is going to another man, and does not gripe her wrist and drag her away!" Cornelia, for a mask to her emotions, gave Emilia a gentle, albeit high-worded lecture on the artist's duty toward Art, quoting favourite passages from Mr. Barrett's favourite Art-critic.
This may be taken as a fairly accurate description of the real state of Mr. Barrett's mind on one subject. It is illustrative of the very best and breeziest side of Elizabeth Barrett's character that she could be so genuinely humorous over so tragic a condition of the human mind.
A story relating to Bishop Phillpotts of Exeter, the hero of so many racy anecdotes, is contained in a letter of Miss Barrett's which must have been written about Christmas of either 1838 or 1839:
"My papa couldn't come here, vis summer," he had said gravely to Mr. Barrett, one day. "Will you please be my papa while we stay here?" And Gifford Barrett's smile was not altogether of amusement, as he accepted the adoption. Hope saw it and understood; and hereafter she ranged herself on Cicely's side when Mr. Barrett was being discussed in the family circle.
Various theories to account for these strange hauntings have been formulated, which may be found on pp. 199-200 of Sir William Barrett's Psychical Research, and so need not be given here.
Barrett's battery, moving back by the Corinth road, came into position with McClernand's division in its second position. McDowell's brigade had not yet been engaged, and to get into the new position merely shifted his line to the left along the road. Buckland moved back through his camp in order, his wagons carrying off his dead and wounded and such baggage as they could hold.
With regard to individual poems, the critics did not take kindly to the 'Drama of Exile, and 'Blackwood' in particular criticised it at considerable length, calling it 'the least successful of her works. The subject, while half challenging comparison with Milton, lends itself only too readily to fancifulness and unreality, which were among the most besetting sins of Miss Barrett's genius.
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