| | 1 | Author: | Mitchell
Donald Grant
1822-1908 | Add | | | Title: | Seven stories, with basement and attic  | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | IN an out of the way corner of my library are five
plethoric little note-books of Travel. One of them,
and it is the earliest, is bound in smart red leather, and
has altogether a dapper British air; its paper is firm
and evenly lined, and it came a great many years ago
(I will not say how many) out of a stationer's shop
upon Lord street in Liverpool. A second, in stiff
boards, marbled, and backed with muslin, wears a
soldierly primness in its aspect that always calls to mind
the bugles, and the drums, and the brazen helmets of
Berlin—where, once upon a time, I added it to my
little stock of travelling companions. A third, in limp
morocco, bought under the Hotel de l'Ecu at Geneva,
shows a great deal of the Swiss affection of British
wares, and has borne bravely the hard knapsack service,
and the many stains which belonged to those glorious
mountain tramps that live again whenever I turn
over its sweaty pages. Another is tattered, dingy—the
paper frail, and a half of its cover gone; yet I think it
is a fair specimen of what the Roman stationers could
do, in the days when the Sixteenth Gregory was Pope.
The fifth and last, is coquettish, jaunty—as prim as the
Prussian, limp like the Genevese, and only less solid
than the English: it is all over French; and the fellows
to it may very likely have served a tidy grisette to write
down her tale of finery, or some learned member of the
Institute to record his note-takings in the Imperial
Library. “You must have thought I treated you very
scurvily. Annie thought it best however that I should
not call at your lodgings. We had been privately married
a year before. Though I ought not to say it, the
colonel's return to life was something of a damper to me;
but he knows it all now, and is thoroughly reconciled.
I can show him a rent-roll from my little ventures hereabout,
that is larger than his colonel's pay. We are all
at Clumber Cottage—happy of course. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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