14.07.2013 Views

212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 509<br />

CHAPTER XXXIII<br />

DESCRIBES A SITUATION INTERESTING BUT NOT UNEXPECTED<br />

ONLY very wilful and silly children cry after the moon.<br />

Sensible people who have shed their sweet tooth can't be<br />

expected to be very much interested about honey. We<br />

may hope Mr. and Mrs. Philip Firmin enjoyed a pleasant wedding<br />

tour and that sort of thing : but as for chronicling its delights<br />

or adventures, Miss Sowerby and I vote that the task is altogether<br />

needless and immoral. Young people are already much<br />

too sentimental, and inclined to idle maudlin reading. Life is<br />

earnest, Miss Sowerby remarks (with a strong inclination to spell<br />

" earnest" with a large E). Life is labour. Life is duty. Life is<br />

rent. Life is taxes. Life brings its ills, bills, doctor's pills. Life<br />

is not a mere calendar of honey and moonshine. Very good. But<br />

without love, Miss Sowerby, life is just death, and I know, my<br />

dear, you would no more care to go on with it, than with a new<br />

chapter of—of our dear friend Boreham's new story.<br />

Between ourselves, Philip's humour is not much more lightsome<br />

than that of the ingenious contemporary above named ; but if it<br />

served to amuse Philip himself, why baulk him of a little sport ?<br />

Well, then : he wrote us a great ream of lumbering pleasantries,<br />

dated Paris, Thursday; Geneva, Saturday. Summit of Mont<br />

Blanc, Monday; Timbuctoo, Wednesday. Pekin, Friday—with<br />

facetious descriptions of those spots and cities. He said that<br />

in the last-named place Charlotte's shoes being worn out, those<br />

which she purchased were rather tight for her, and the high heels<br />

annoyed her. He stated that the beef at Timbuctoo was not<br />

cooked enough for Charlotte's taste, and that the Emperor's<br />

attentions were becoming rather marked, and so forth; whereas<br />

poor little Char's simple postscripts mentioned no travelling at all ;<br />

but averred that they were staying at Saint Germain, and as happy<br />

as the day was long. As happy as the day was long ? As it was<br />

short, alas ! <strong>The</strong>ir little purse was very slenderly furnished ; and<br />

in a very very brief holiday, poor Philip's few napoleons had almost<br />

all rolled away. Luckily, it was pay-day when the young people<br />

came back to London. <strong>The</strong>y were almost reduced to the Little

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!