Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Roundabout Paperspresently a light comes to a window. There is the shadowof a lady who passes. He stands there till the light goesout. Now he is in a room scribbling on a piece of paper,and kissing a miniature every now and then. They seemto be lines each pretty much of a length. I can readheart, smart, dart; Mary, fairy; Cupid, stupid; true, you;and never mind what more. Bah! it is bosh. Now see, hehas got a gown on again, and a wig of white hair on hishead, and he is sitting with other dervishes in a greatroom full of them, and on a throne in the middle is anold Sultan in scarlet, sitting before a desk, and he wearsa wig too—and the young man gets up and speaks tohim. And now what is here? He is in a room with ever somany children, and the miniature hanging up. Can it bea likeness of that woman who is sitting before thatcopper urn, with a silver vase in her hand, from whichshe is pouring hot liquor into cups? Was she ever a fairy?She is as fat as a hippopotamus now. He is sitting on adivan by the fire. He has a paper on his knees. Read thename of the paper. It is the Superfine Review. It inclinesto think that Mr. Dickens is not a true gentleman,that Mr. Thackeray is not a true gentleman, andthat when the one is pert and the other is arch, we, thegentlemen of the Superfine Review, think, and thinkrightly, that we have some cause to be indignant. Thegreat cause why modern humor and modern sentimentalismrepel us, is that they are unwarrantably familiar.Now, Mr. Sterne, the Superfine Reviewer thinks, “was atrue sentimentalist, because he was above all things atrue gentleman.” The flattering inference is obvious:let us be thankful for having an elegant moralist watchingover us, and learn, if not too old, to imitate hishigh-bred politeness and catch his unobtrusive grace.If we are unwarrantably familiar, we know who is not. Ifwe repel by pertness, we know who never does. If ourlanguage offends, we know whose is always modest. Opity! The vision has disappeared off the silver, the imagesof youth and the past are vanishing away! We whohave lived before railways were made, belong to anotherworld. In how many hours could the Prince ofWales drive from Brighton to London, with a light carriagebuilt expressly, and relays of horses longing to66