The Journal to Stella eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 853 pages of information about The Journal to Stella.

The Journal to Stella eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 853 pages of information about The Journal to Stella.
they were with him!  I knew the mother; she is the greatest Overdo[3] upon earth; and the sister, they say, is worse; the poor man will relapse again among them.  Here was the scoundrel brother always crying in the outer room till Sir Andrew was in danger; and the dog was to have all his estate if he died; and it is an ignorant, worthless, scoundrel-rake:  and the nurses were comforting him, and desiring he would not take on so.  I dined to-day the first time with Ophy Butler[4] and his wife; and you supped with the Dean, and lost two-and-twenty pence at cards.  And so Mrs. Walls is brought to bed of a girl, who died two days after it was christened; and, betwixt you and me, she is not very sorry:  she loves her ease and diversions too well to be troubled with children.  I will go to bed.

6.  Morning.  I went last night to put some coals on my fire after Patrick was gone to bed; and there I saw in a closet a poor linnet he has bought to bring over to Dingley:  it cost him sixpence, and is as tame as a dormouse.  I believe he does not know he is a bird:  where you put him, there he stands, and seems to have neither hope nor fear; I suppose in a week he will die of the spleen.  Patrick advised with me before he bought him.  I laid fairly before him the greatness of the sum, and the rashness of the attempt; showed how impossible it was to carry him safe over the salt sea:  but he would not take my counsel; and he will repent it.  ’Tis very cold this morning in bed; and I hear there is a good fire in the room without (what do you call it?), the dining-room.  I hope it will be good weather, and so let me rise, sirrahs, do so.—­At night.  I was this morning to visit the Dean,[5] or Mr. Prolocutor, I think you call him, don’t you?  Why should not I go to the Dean’s as well as you?  A little, black man, of pretty near fifty?  Ay, the same.  A good, pleasant man?  Ay, the same.  Cunning enough?  Yes.  One that understands his own interests?  As well as anybody.  How comes it MD and I don’t meet there sometimes?  A very good face, and abundance of wit?  Do you know his lady?  O Lord! whom do you mean?[6] I mean Dr. Atterbury, Dean of Carlisle and Prolocutor.  Pshaw, Presto, you are a fool:  I thought you had meant our Dean of St. Patrick’s.—­Silly, silly, silly, you are silly, both are silly, every kind of thing is silly.  As I walked into the city I was stopped with clusters of boys and wenches buzzing about the cake-shops like flies.[7] There had the fools let out their shops two yards forward into the streets, all spread with great cakes frothed with sugar, and stuck with streamers of tinsel.  And then I went to Bateman’s the bookseller, and laid out eight-and-forty shillings for books.  I bought three little volumes of Lucian in French for our Stella, and so and so.  Then I went to Garraway’s[8] to meet Stratford and dine with him; but it was an idle day with the merchants, and he was gone to our end of the town:  so I dined with Sir Thomas Frankland at the Post Office, and we drank your Manley’s health.  It was in a newspaper that he was turned out; but Secretary St. John told me it was false:  only that newswriter is a plaguy Tory.  I have not seen one bit of Christmas merriment.

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The Journal to Stella from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.