No fractious operants ever turned out for half the
tyranny, which this necessity exercised upon us. Half-a-dozen jests
in a day, (bating Sundays too,) why, it seems nothing! We make
twice the number every day in our lives as a matter of course, and
claim no Sabbatical exemptions. But then they come into our head.
But when the head has to go out to them--when the mountain must go
to Mahomet. Readers, try it for once, only for some short
twelvemonth."
Lamb, however, only obtained this undesirable appointment by a
coincidence he thus relates,--
"A fashion of flesh--or rather pink-coloured hose for the ladies
luckily coming up when we were on our probation for the place of
Chief Jester to Stuart's Paper, established our reputation. We were
pronounced a 'capital hand.' O! the conceits that we varied upon
_red_ in all its prismatic differences!... Then there was the
collateral topic of ankles, what an occasion to a truly chaste
writer like ourself of touching that nice brink and yet never
tumbling over it, of a seemingly ever approximating something 'not
quite proper,' while like a skilful posture master, balancing
between decorums and their opposites, he keeps the line from which
a hair's breadth deviation is destruction.
Pages:
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211