Blondelle [By Sir H.D. Wolff]. (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1852. Excerpt: ... Thus do they year after year, thus will they do till London ceases to exist. Gentry without land repair abroad or take some shooting. Marriages negociating are arranged or interrupted. Tailors are busily engaged in making travelling or shooting-suits, which Messrs. E. Moses and Son advertise cheap. Waiters are dismissed from hotels, and cooks by Gunter. In fact, Madam, London is emptied, only a few, whose poverty, and not whose will, compels them to remain, wander moping and morose, like the monks we read of, who, being expelled from the Spanish monastery, still lingered round the scene of their former happiness. It is needless for us to inform you of all this, old friend; for you, who have never missed the finale of a season for forty years (Heavens is it as much as that?) well know all the circumstances that attend the emptying of this vast cistern, and the channels through which its contents are poured forth into various parts of the world. You read the "Morning Post," and see whither most of the said contents, ay, and discontents, wend their way, and having seen them all pack up and depart, you yourself wend your way to Leamington, or watch flirtations at the country houses of your various friends. Yes, Madam, you watch them, and we fear that you intrigue, and plot, and foster them, acting the blind or deaf chaperon, while all your senses are awake to catch every word or action of those whose loves you favour. We have long given up shooting. Our eyes are weak, our hands tremble, and we can no longer knock down the partridge on the wing, nor the swift hare as he runs along the meadow. Our legs are shaky, and though we may don the leather gaiter and the brown shooting-jacket, they have not that seven-league effect of days of yore. Therefore, when, tire...