Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 edition. Excerpt: ... "Service begins at eleven, but the door will be open at ten: " That means a crush to get in, with screaming of women, and men Barely just kept from swearing by dread of the Sabbath day, And swearing the more in their hearts, it were better for women to stay At home, and see to their children, instead of losing their wits Crushed in a trampling crowd, till they go off in fainting fits. No, I'll not face it. How should I sit still in a narrow pew For an hour, with my legs a-cramp, and with nothing on earth to do But stare at the white-washed walls, and gasp for a mouthful of air, And smell the hot peppermint breaths, and the oil in the young buck's hair, And watch how faces grow purple, and bald heads are smoking like, censers? Nay, I will sit by the fire here, and read that last volume of Spencer's. There's more in a sentence of his than in all that this fellow can say, Though he preach for an hour by the clock." So he kicked his boots out of the way. That was his first thought. But hardly had he reached out for his book, And settled him down in an easy chair in the cosiest nook, With a big cigar in his mouth, and the cloud-smoke round his head Curling in wavy rings, when once more he looked up and said;-- "Yet we were fellows at College together, and friends too once, This famous preacher and I, and he was not a bit of a dunce, But fairly well up in his classics, though Logic was always his forte; A rare, good hand at debate, ever prompt with a clever retort; Not very strong in science, but skilled with his pen to write, And making his half-dark thinking clearer than other men's light; [his head, A smart rhetorician truly, with a ready tongue in Though he looked so clumsy and loutish and homespun and country-bred. He is starring it here, ...
