Eugene Aram — Volume 04Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
General
Eugene Aram — Volume 04
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
Aram, Eugene, 1704-1759 -- Fiction
"The lying knaves! Don't they say one's well when one's ill--ill when
one's well?--profess to know what don't know?--thrust solemn phizzes into
every abomination, as if larning lay hid in a--? and all for their
neighbours' money, or their own reputation, which makes money--augh! In
short, Sir--look where will, impossible to see so much cheating allowed,
praised, encouraged, and feel very angry with a cheat who has only made a
mistake. But when I sees a man butter his bread carefully--knife steady--
butter thick, and hungry fellows looking on and licking chops--mothers
stopping their brats--'See, child--respectable man--how thick his
bread's buttered!--pull off your hat to him:'--When I sees that, my heart
warms: there's the true man of the world--augh!"
"Well, Bunting," said Walter, laughing, "though you are thus lenient to
those unfortunate gentlemen whom others call rogues, and thus laudatory
of gentlemen who are at best discreetly selfish, I suppose you admit the
possibility of virtue, and your heart warms as much when you see a man of
worth as when you see a man of the world?"
"Why, you knows, your honour," answered the Corporal, "so far as vartue's
concerned, there's a deal in constitution; but as for knowledge of the
world, one gets it oneself!"
"I don't wonder, Bunting--as your opinion of women is much the same as
your opinion of men--that you are still unmarried."
"Augh! but your honour mistakes!--I am no mice-and-trope. Men are neither
one thing nor t'other--neither good nor bad. A prudent parson has nothing
to fear from 'em--nor a foolish one any thing to gain--baugh! As to the
women creturs, your honour, as I said, vartue's a deal in the
constitution. Would not ask what a lassie's mind be--nor what her
eddycation;--but see what her habits be, that's all--habits and
constitution all one--play into one another's hands."
"And what sort of signs, Bunting, would you mostly esteem in a lady?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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