United States or British Virgin Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But what delighted me more than anything else was the prospect of suiting Owen and Mary exactly. What think you of a Goat Curricle? Goats are regularly trained for draught, and are the prettiest things in the world, trotting in neat harness with two or three children. I shall, if I have time at Rotterdam, see if I can get a pair. Buonaparte was so delighted with them that he ordered 4 for the King of Rome. Amsterdam is a very large, gloomy town, intersected in all directions by water, monotonous in the extreme. Had I not been convinced by the evidence of my senses in looking down from a house top on several objects I had visited in different parts of the town, I should have suspected that our Laquais de place had amused himself by walking up and down the same street where Canals with trees on each side do not keep the houses asunder; high buildings and narrow streets of dark, small brown brick constitute the character of the town, and, having seen one, you have seen the whole. In the course of my walk I heard that two or three Englishmen were settled in the town. I called on one, the Revd. Mr. Lowe, with little of the Englishman left but the language. He had been there 30 years and held a Presbyterian Church. I asked him if Napoleon troubled the English settlers during the war. He said that, provided they conformed quickly to the laws and regulations, they experienced no persecution. Upon my asking if it was at all necessary to conceal his extraction, he exclaimed, "What, conceal my extraction, deny my country? Not for all the Emperors in the world. No, I have too much conscience and independence. To be sure, I was obliged by law to pray for the health and prosperity of Buonaparte every Sunday. But what signified that? God Almighty understood very well what I meant, and that I heartily wished his death all the time." By long residence in Holland, he had adopted a good portion of Dutch impenetrability and slowness. He assured us nothing short of a week could give us the least chance of seeing the curiosities of Amsterdam, and when I told him that we were (according to our common custom of early rising) to be in North Holland by 6 o'clock in the morning, and had seen all by 11 o'clock which occupies a Dutchman's whole day, and gave him a few instances of our mode of operation, he threw himself back, raised his cocked hat to examine us more thoroughly, put his arms akimbo and exclaimed, "How do you support human nature. It must expire under such fatigue," and I found it quite impossible to convince him that my health for the last month had been infinitely better than usual. But, after all, I fear you will find me growing old. I had a compliment paid to my grey hairs, in coming from Utrecht, which must be mentioned. The fat Alchymist, above mentioned, squeezed himself into Edward's place in the Diligence; on remonstrating to a young Dutch gentleman who spoke French, he replied, "Que c'était vraiment impoli mais que c'était un viellard
I have always known it must. Monsieur le Prince knows all the truth. Quelle scène! Incroyable pour un viellard! And I am banished. I have none now but you, mon ami. What shall you do with me, Joseph?" And, as she spoke, her arms crept sinuously about the young man's stiff figure, and she drew him, by degrees, to the couch, at her side.
There was no Englishman present, but myself, and only one or two Americans. I felt at once how out of place my mother, the country matron, and my father, ce respectable viellard, would have been in such a circle. But Mrs. Leare's guests were not the jeunesse dorée nor the dubious nobility I had expected to meet in her salon.
Word Of The Day