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Updated: May 28, 2025
A clerk or two, noiselessly opening and shutting the door, from time to time, fetching fresh bundles of letters and taking away others all written and composed by secretaries or high functionaries and all to be scrawled over in the margin by the diligent old man in a big schoolboy's hand and style if ever schoolboy, even in the sixteenth century, could write so illegibly or express himself so awkwardly; couriers in the court-yard arriving from or departing for the uttermost parts of earth-Asia, Africa America, Europe-to fetch and carry these interminable epistles which contained the irresponsible commands of this one individual, and were freighted with the doom and destiny of countless millions of the world's inhabitants such was the system of government against which the Netherlands had protested and revolted.
More dead than alive, I sat a mass of wet clothes, like nothing under heaven except it be that morsel of black and spongy wet cotton at the bottom of a schoolboy's ink bottle, saturated with rain, and the black dye of my coat.
Somewhat "priggish" most of them might be; but, on the whole, they were far more interesting than mere idle men of pleasure. There was about them, as features of a general family likeness, a redundant activity of life, a gay exuberance of ambition, a light-hearted earnestness when at work, a schoolboy's enjoyment of the hours of play.
Then it is that, as we look back upon our worldly career, we become convinced how truly is the child the father of the man, how frequently are the projects of our manhood the fruit of some boyish predilection; and that in the emulative ardor that stirs the schoolboy's heart, we may read the prestige of that high daring that makes a hero of its possessor.
Yet the sensation served to revive my scattered senses, and just as I was awakening to a lively sense of amazement, an incredible doubt of my own emotions, and an eager desire to know what had happened, my strange conveyance oscillated once or twice, undulated lightly up and down, like a woodpecker flying from tree to tree, and then grounded, bows first, rolled over several times, then steadied again, and, coming at last to rest, the next minute the infernal rug opened, quivering along all its borders in its peculiar way, and humping up in the middle shot me five feet into the air like a cat tossed from a schoolboy's blanket.
It seems almost too ridiculous to believe that we have here the exact equivalent of the schoolboy's demonstrative "Do you see any green in my eye?" nevertheless it looks wonderfully like it! Chitapangwa's parting oath. Course laid for Lake Tanganyika. Moamba's village. Another watershed. The Babemba tribe. Ill with fever. Threatening attitude of Chibué's people. Continued illness.
De la Riviere, as he went down the hill, thought with irritation of how ill things were going with him and Madame Chalice so different from two years ago, when their friendship had first begun. He had remembered her with a singular persistency; he had looked forward to her coming back; and when she came, his heart had fluttered like a schoolboy's. But things had changed.
I wish I could take all the misery and bear it for you. Is your heart quite broken, you dear old lad?" "No, Peg, it is not. I feel miserable enough, but I don't delude myself that I have received a life-long wound. It has been a dream, you know, a schoolboy's dream, but I always realised that the princess was not for me.
Yes, it was the very same seat in which their father used to sit; and Lilias could hardly repress her tears as she saw his initials, with a date many years back, carved in the dark wood before her. The psalm-book, too, which he had used, had never been removed; and his name, in a large schoolboy's hand, was written many times on its blank leaves.
Wandering breezes of balm and spice lightly stirred the flowers on the table, and seemed to fan his hair and forehead with softly healing breath. Looking up in an interval of silence, he caught Bradley's gray eyes fixed upon him with a subdued light of amusement and affection, as of an elder brother regarding a schoolboy's boisterous appetite at some feast.
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