A Memoir of the REV. Sydney Smith Volume 1 (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. 1855 Excerpt: ...Many weeks before he set off he used to receive invitations; and I have known him engaged every night during his stay, for three weeks beforehand. But in the midst of all this dissipation and popularity he never forgot his home and family. Every morning, at breakfast, appeared his letter to my mother, giving an account of his daily proceedings, together with minute directions about the farm and parish; not always, it must be admitted, in the most legible writing. A family council was often held over his directions; once, so entirely without success, that, after many endeavours on our part to decipher them, as they seemed urgent, my mother cut out the passage and enclosed it to him; he returned it, saying, "he must decline ever reading his own handwriting four-and-twenty hours after he had written it." He was so aware of the badness of his writing, that in a letter to Mr. Travers, who wished to see one of his sermons, he says, "I would send it to you with pleasure, but my writing is as if a swarm of ants, escaping from an ink-bottle, had walked over a sheet of paper without wiping their legs." The handwriting of his friend Lord Jeffrey was, if possible, still more illegible; my father wrote to him, on receiving one of his letters, "My dear Jeffrey, --We are much obliged by your letter, but should be still more so were it legible. I have tried to read it from left to right, and Mrs. Sydney from right to left, and we neither of us can decipher a single word of it." The interests of his villagers, too, were not neglected. On one occasion, in a broiling sun, with no other equipage than his umbrella, he paced down to one of the public offices to obtain some information about a young soldier, the only son of a poor labourer and his wif...