Monday, September 17th, I had a long conversation with the Swede, who
spoke with the most poignant contempt of the Dane, whom he described as
a fool, purse-mad; but he confirmed the boasts of the Dane respecting
the largeness of his fortune, which he had acquired in the first
instance as an advocate, and afterwards as a planter. From the Dane and
from himself I collected that he was indeed a Swedish nobleman, who had
squandered a fortune, that was never very large, and had made over his
property to the Dane, on whom he was now utterly dependent. He seemed
to suffer very little pain from the Dane’s insolence. He was in a high
degree humane and attentive to the English lady, who suffered most
fearfully, and for whom he performed many little offices with a
tenderness and delicacy which seemed to prove real goodness of heart.
Indeed his general manners and conversation were not only pleasing,
but even interesting; and I struggled to believe his insensibility
respecting the Dane philosophical fortitude. For though the Dane was
now quite sober, his character oozed out of him at every pore. And after
dinner, when he was again flushed with wine, every quarter of an hour or
perhaps oftener he would shout out to the Swede, “Ho! Nobility, go--do
such a thing! Mr. Nobility!--tell the gentlemen such a story, and
so forth;” with an insolence which must have excited disgust and
detestation, if his vulgar rants on the sacred rights of equality,
joined to his wild havoc of general grammar no less than of the English
language, had not rendered it so irresistibly laughable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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