United States or Belgium ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A good instance of this occurs in 'Heroes and Heroworship. After describing the way in which Burns was sacrificed to the idle curiosity of Lion-hunters people who came not out of sympathy, but merely to see him people who sought a little amusement, and who got their amusement while "the Hero's life went for it!"
SWEETLY picturesque as was their new steed, our lion-hunters had to give it up, purely out of consideration for the red cap, of course. So they continued the journey on foot as before, the caravan tranquilly proceeding southwardly by short stages, the Tarasconian in the van, the Montenegrin in the rear, and the camel, with the weapons in their cases, in the ranks.
Again, I had been led rather to fear American hospitality as being apt to become importunate and exacting. I found it no less considerate than cordial. Probably I was too small game to bring the lion-hunters upon my trail. The alleged habit of speech-making and speech-demanding on every possible occasion I found to be merely mythical.
By homely methods, this unerring diagnostician of the human soul had been reading him, liking him, and making him feel a heart-warming sympathy. The man who shrunk from lion-hunters, and who could return the churl's answer to the advances of sycophant and flatterer, enthusiastically poured out for the ungainly mountain boy all the rare quality and bouquet of his seasoned personal charm.
In the van were the huge, lumbering waggons with hordes of hullabalooing natives cracking their long raw-hide whips and urging the sleek, long-horned oxen forward through the mud. Following the waggon-train came the cavalcade of armed lion-hunters, grim and determined-looking enough from a distance, but most peaceful and inoffensive when once they understood the stranger's motives.
The leaders of the lions seemed to have forgotten that they had lion-hunters as their opponents, and the farmers neglected to take into account the fact that the lion tribe was exceedingly numerous and spread over the whole earth.
Indeed, it became so attractive to strangers and lion-hunters, that some of those whose entrée was quite legitimate and acceptable refrained, especially during the last two years, from adding to the heavy tax which casual visitors began to levy upon the quiet hours of the host. Ten years ago, when Mr.
In no other house where it was my pleasure to meet him did he seem to me to show to such advantage. In his own home I thought him overburdened by the scheme of decoration he had planned for it. In many houses to which he was asked he was amiable enough to assume the pose expected of him. The lion-hunters hoped that Beardsley would be like his drawings.
"Did you notice the way Grassini bowed when the Cardinal's carriage drove up? It's all one to them who a man is, so long as he's talked about. I never saw such lion-hunters in my life. Only last August it was the Gadfly; now it's Montanelli. I hope His Eminence feels flattered at the attention; a precious lot of adventurers have shared it with him."
An uncongenial caller would instantly unhorse Carlyle, and Tennyson had a hatred of all lion-hunters not merely because they were lion-hunters, but because they broke in upon his paradise and snapped the thread of inspiration. Mrs. Grote tells us that Scheffer's wife was intelligent and devoted in fact, she was too devoted. She would bring her sewing and watch the artist at his work.
Word Of The Day