| | 1 | Author: | Landon
Melville D.
(Melville De Lancey)
1839-1910 | Add | | | Title: | Eli Perkins (at large)  | | | | 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: | PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY.
‘If you get the best of whiskey, Eli, whiskey will get the best of you.”
627EAF. Page 009. In-line Illustration. Image of Uncle Consider with his hand on his chin.
“Shoes are worn high in the neck, flounced with
point aquille lace, cut on the bias. High heels are
common in Saratoga, especially in the hop room. Cotton
hose, open at the top, are very much worn, some
of them having as many as three holes in them. Cotton
plows are not seen. My dear Nevy—Yours received. While your Uncle
Consider was in Afriky your maden Aunt Ruth and I
thot wed get up an expedishun
to New York to do sum Spring
tradin'. The stanza—
“I want to be an angel,”
which you have just
sung will not help
you much unless you
change your course of
life. You must commence dressing more like angels
here in this world if you want to be a real live angel
in the next. You'd make healthy lookin' angels,
wouldn't you? Now, wouldn't you? Angels don't
wear pearl powder, do they? and angels don't wear
false braids. They don't enamel their faces and smell
of Caswell and Hazard's cologne, nor bore holes in
their ears like Injuns and put Tiffany's ear-rings in
them! Angels don't dye their hair, nor wear big diamonds,
and have liveries and footmen, like many of
our “shoddy” people. They— I shall never forget how Donn Pirate, a District
of Columbia brigand, and I fell out and had a big
fight. I shall also long remember the terrible thrashing
he gave me. I knew I had been whipped by Donn
because I saw the marks on Donn's face and also
talked with the doctor who sponged him off and put
liniment on him. But oh, it was a fearful castigation!
I never want to be whipped again. If ever any man
wants to continue to serve humanity—wants to make
a martyr of himself—wants to reduce himself to a
lump of jelly like the boneless man in the circus, by
whipping me, I hope he will read this and reflect. My Darling Julia: First let me tell you all about
myself. I'm just lovely, and having such a time!
Flirting in Saratoga ain't like flirting in New York—
in the horrid box at the opera, or on the atrocious stairs
at a party. We have just the whole back balcony all
to ourselves—and then we walk over to the graveyard,
and pretend to go down to bowl, and stray off into
Congress Spring Park. Then the drives! My lovely
phaeton—and Prancer, she's just too sweet for anything!
Now, the idea of calling a horse sweet! Yes, married Brown's Boys. You will see them in
every large city and at every watering-place—men married
to suffering, neglected wives, but flirting with
scores of young ladies. I will try and see you to-night in the piano corner
of the big parlor—at eight. Manage to be there with
Lizzie and Charley, for they are
spooney and we can “shake” them,
and they will take it as a kindness. “Yours informing me that I am engaged in Pottsville
is received. Very well; if she is young and
wealthy I will keep the engagement. In fact, young
or old I'll keep the engagement at all hazards—or
rather at Pottsville. Have no fears about my being
detained by accidents. I have never yet failed to be
present when I lectured. Everything seems to impel
me to keep this engagement. Everywhere here in
Illinois the people follow me around in great crowds
and enthusiastically invite me to go away. Illinois
railroad presidents say they will cheerfully supply
me with free passage on the trains rather than have
me remain in the State another night; and almost
every railroad president in Ohio and Pennsylvania,
including Mr. Tom Scott, has supplied me with
perpetual free passes—hoping I may be killed on the
trains. Gentlemen: I received your note this morning, inviting
me to go up in the balloon. You say you desire
me to go as the representative of the Daily Bugle—to
be the official historian of the first great aerial voyage
across the Atlantic. You also say: [To the Editor of the Daily Bugle.] | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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