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French slang is no exception to this, theory: the two hundred and thirty double-columned pages of M. Larcher's Dictionnaire historique, etymologique et anecdotique de l'argot parisien tell us that the two grand sources and inspirations of our American slang are entirely wanting: there is not a humorous word or phrase from beginning to end; and hardly an instance of that incongruous exaggeration which is so salient a picture of our best-known and most original slang phrases.
Do I not remember that glorious moment when the late Mr. we won't say who, editor of the we won't say what, offered me the sum of fifty cents per double-columned quarto page for shaking my young boughs over his foolscap apron? Was it not an intoxicating vision of gold and glory?
How we venerate, with what awe we regard the name of Timothy Pitkin, and know that he lived to read through that vast folio the first ever printed in America the "Complete Body of Divinity," a folio of over nine hundred double-columned, compactly printed pages! And yet, why should not Timothy Pitkin live through reading it when Samuel Willard lived through writing it?
It gratifies me to learn that a complete edition of his works, in a double-columned octavo volume, is shortly to issue from the press at Philadelphia. Tell him that no American writer enjoys a more classic reputation on this side of the water. Is old Joel Barlow yet alive? Unconscionable man! Why, he must have nearly fulfilled his century.
I was curious to learn something of the etchings of Rembrandt, and where should I find it but under the head "Low Countries, Engravers of the," an elaborate and most valuable article of a hundred double-columned close-printed quarto pages, to which no reference, even, is made under the title Rembrandt.
Well, this wiseacre, after his portentous introduction, fills the rest of his sixteen loosely printed double-columned octavo pages with a farrago of the most indescribable character, made up of brags, lies, promises, forged recommendations and letters, boasts of systematic charity, funny scraps of stuff in the form of little disquisitions, advertisements of remedies, hair-oils, cosmetics, liquors, groceries, thistle-killers, anti-bug mixtures, recipes for soap, ink, honey, and the Old Harry only knows what.
Percy and West into the very best society, and recording all their sayings and doings in double-columned close-printed pages . . . I recollect, when I was a child, getting hold of some antiquated volumes, and reading them by stealth with the most exquisite pleasure. You give a correct description of the patient Grisels of those days.
Do I not remember that glorious moment when the late Mr. we won't say who, editor of the we won't say what, offered me the sum of fifty cents per double-columned quarto page for shaking my young boughs over his foolscap apron? Was it not an intoxicating vision of gold and glory?
Out of all the years of my life, I can recall but one home-coming to compare with these, and that was on the night when I brought back with me the ARABIAN ENTERTAINMENTS in the fat, old, double-columned volume with the prints. I grew blind with terror. But instead of ordering the book away, he said he envied me. Ah, well he might! The purchase and the first half-hour at home, that was the summit.
I can hear that laughter still. Out of all the years of my life, I can recall but one home-coming to compare with these, and that was on the night when I brought back with me the "Arabian Entertainments" in the fat, old, double-columned volume with the prints. I grew blind with terror. But instead of ordering the book away, he said he envied me. Ah, well he might!
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