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An opinion no less severe and even more dangerous was beginning to find currency an opinion assured of success by reason of its illustrious origin: it was said that, at the Palace, whither Christophe still went upon his official duties, he had had the bad taste in conversation with the Grand Duke himself, with revolting lack of decency, to give vent to his ideas concerning the illustrious masters: it was said that he had called Mendelssohn's Elijah "a clerical humbug's paternoster," and he had called certain Lieder of Schumann "Backfisch Musik": and that in the face of the declared preference of the august Princess for those works!
Well, I don't murmur; indeed, when they embellish it, To tell the truth, my friends, I rather relish it, Since your true humbug's be, who as a host, For the least money entertains you most. In this sense I'm a "humbug," I succumb! Who as a "General" thing brought out Tom Thumb? Who brought you Living Whales from Labrador? The Family of Albinos? the Giraffe?
Why should two people who've done each other the best turn they could by getting out of each other's way at the right moment behave like sworn enemies ever afterward? It's too absurd; the humbug's too flagrant. Whatever our generation has failed to do, it's got rid of humbug; and that's enough to immortalize it. I daresay Nelson and Ellie never liked each other better than they do to-day.
'The humbug's just the conventional mask of his profession necessary enough, I suppose, for people who are really going to live successfully in the world as we find it: the heart within him's a thousand times warmer and truer and more unspoiled than one could ever have imagined from the outer covering.
Lowell had the dialect in his very bones, and loved it, but took pains to confirm his knowledge of it by studying on the sod. "An' yit I love the unhighschooled ways Ol' farmers hed when I was younger Their talk wuz meatier and would stay, While book-froth seems to whet your hunger. For puttin' in a downright lick 'twixt humbug's eyes, there's few can metch it.
Nothing but the good old-fashioned 'moo-cow' style could possibly have suited him. I believe I can boast a tolerable imitation of that antiquated elocutionary method, and I certainly spared no effort. 'And you, Isabel, the daughter of an earl! how have you fallen! That is one of the gems of the old humbug's speech, and I mouthed it as it was made to be mouthed.
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