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University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875[X]
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1Author:  Curtis George William 1824-1892Add
 Title:  The Potiphar papers  
 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: It is surely unnecessary to call the attention of so astute an observer, and so austere a critic, as yourself, to the fact that the title of the leading essay in this little volume (of which, permit me to say, you are so essential an ornament) is marked as a quotation; and a quotation, as you will very well remember, from the lips of our friend, Mrs. Potiphar, herself. If gilt were only gold, or sugar-candy common sense, what a fine thing our society would be! If to lavish money upon objets de vertu, to wear the most costly dresses, and always to have them cut in the height of the fashion; to build houses thirty feet broad, as if they were palaces; to furnish them with all the luxurious devices of Parisian genius; to give superb banquets, at which your guests laugh, and which make you miserable; to drive a fine carriage and ape European liveries, and crests, and coats-of-arms; to resent the friendly advances of your baker's wife, and the lady of your butcher (you being yourself a cobbler's daughter); to talk much of the “old families” and of your aristocratic foreign friends; to despise labour; to prate of “good society;” to travesty and parody, in every conceivable way, a society which we know only in books and by the superficial observation of foreign travel, which arises out of a social organization entirely unknown to us, and which is opposed to our fundamental and essential principles; if all this were fine, what a prodigiously fine society would ours be! My dear Caroline,—Lent came so frightfully early this year, that I was very much afraid my new bonnet à l'Impératrice would not be out from Paris soon enough. But fortunately it arrived just in time, and I had the satisfaction of taking down the pride of Mrs. Crœsus, who fancied hers would be the only stylish hat in church the first Sunday. She could not keep her eyes away from me, and I sat so unmoved, and so calmly looking at the Doctor, that she was quite vexed. But, whenever she turned away, I ran my eyes over the whole congregation, and would you believe that, almost without an exception, people had their old things? However, I suppose they forgot how soon Lent was coming. As I was passing out of church, Mrs. Croesus brushed by me: It certainly is not papa's fault that he doesn't understand French; but he ought not to pretend to. It does put one in such uncomfortable situations occasionally. In fact, I think it would be quite as well if we could sometimes “sink the paternal,” as Timon Crœsus says. I suppose every body has heard of the awful speech pa made in the parlor at Saratoga. My dearest friend, Tabby Dormouse, told me she had heard of it every where, and that it was ten times as absurd each time it was repeated. By the by, Tabby is a dear creature, isn't she? It's so nice to have a spy in the enemy's camp, as it were, and to hear every thing that every body says about you. She is not handsome,—poor, dear Tabby! There's no denying it, but she can't help it. I was obliged to tell young Downe so, quite decidedly, for I really think he had an idea she was good-looking. The idea of Tabby Dormouse being handsome! But she is a useful little thing in her way; one of my intimates. My Dear Mrs. Downe,—Here we are at last! I can hardly believe it. Our coming was so sudden that it seems like a delightful dream. You know at Mrs. Potiphar's supper last August in Newport, she was piqued by Gauche Boosey's saying, in his smiling, sarcastic way: I hear and obey. You said to me, Go, and I went. You now say, come, and I am coming, with the readiness that befis a slave, and the cheerfulness that marks the philosopher. I am very anxious that you should allow me to receive your son Frederic as a pupil, at my parsonage, here in the country. I have not lived in the city without knowing something about it, despite my cloth, and I am concerned at the peril to which every young man is there exposed. There is a proud philosophy in vogue that every thing that can be injured had better be destroyed as rapidly as possible, and put out of the way at once. But I recall a deeper and tenderer wisdom which declared, “A bruised reed will he not break.” The world is not made for the prosperous alone, nor for the strong. We may wince at the truth, but we must at length believe it,—that the poor in spirit, and the poor in will, and the poor in success, are appointed as pensioners upon our care.
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