White Sulphur papers; or, Life at the springs of Western Virginia

JOURNAL OF A LADY. 91
Friday, .
Captain Marryat, the celebrated novelist, has
been here for some days. We had a long conversation
yesterday upon many pleasant topics, and I
was agreeably disappointed from v^hat had been
said of his rough manners and address. He is
perhaps not very prepossessing in his appearance at
first, being a thick set, gruflf-looking man, and having
a reserved look to a stranger ; but this soon wears
ofl:'on an acquaintance, and his eye has a sparkle of
life
and humor; and he has much anecdote.
In speaking yesterday, of one of the great poets
of England of the present day, he said it was somewhat
curious, that the person to whom he went to
school in his young days, and by whom he had been
flogged so often, that after he had become the editor
of the Metropolitan, he should then have had the
pleasure of paying him back in coin, at the rate of
so many guineas for each flagellation.
The phrenologists here have been to request an
examination of his head. He showed us the chart:
Ideality, very large—Humor, large—Wit, very little.
It also makes him out a very modest and diffident
man, which the captain says, is about the only point
on which the disciples of Combe agree in relation
to him.
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