Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 3, March 1849Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 3, March 1849
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
The hours rolled on. The force of habit, I presume, led me to Hyde Park
once more. All the world was abroad. Beauty, rank and fashion were
collected in one splendid, aristocratic mass. Carriages and four, with
servants in gorgeous liveries; every variety of vehicle, from the
dashing tandem to the humbler carriage and pair, tilburies,
buggy-wagons, and cabs thronged and thundered around the ring. Horsemen
dashed along the carriage-ways, and pedestrians crowded the footpaths. I
sat down upon a bench and mechanically surveyed the scene. Every
well-known face, which was wont to greet me with smiles, but which now
bestowed upon me, _en passant_, but a vacant stare, struck a pang to my
heart. My despair would have been uncontrollable, and I should have
groveled and bit the ground with fury, but an innate self-respect, and a
desire to appear to every possible advantage, qualities which I presume
I gained together with my once admired, but now odiously detested
figure, prevented me from making such an exhibition, although I verily
believe that I was haunted with demoniac incitements to perform all
manner of curious antics.
The crowd was now at its thickest. A chariot, with servants in splendid
liveries, which I immediately recognized as my own, whirled onward.
Julia was seated in it by _myself_, or the devil in my shape. There I
was, perfectly plain to behold. The face, the form were the same, but
the dress superlatively exquisite, and beautifully adapted to the
figure. The turn-out of Fitzcrocky dashed by at the same time. He glared
furiously upon my happy representative. With matchless insinuation this
latter ogled and flirted with Julia. She returned his smiles with
eyliads of incipient affection. As they passed me by, the fellow who had
thus impudently usurped my figure and property winked—yes, he
absolutely winked at me. My veins boiled with rage. Shrieking out a
fearful oath, I seized a fragment of paving-stone and hurled it
frantically at him. A scream, a rush, and I turned and fled, without
stopping to ascertain the amount of damage inflicted by my missile, and
ran as if the furies had been after me. But I ran not alone. A dense
crowd of policemen, servants and gentleman on horseback dashed in
pursuit. Never did fugitive from the galleys exert his legs with a
better will, or with more effect, than I did. _Timor additit alas._ On I
rushed, amidst the clamor, and dust, and clatter of the yelling
multitude, as if the avenger of blood had been behind me. I had been a
sportsman, and never did a Leicestershire fox lead a squad of Meltonians
such a circumbendibus as I did my pursuers. One by one they gave in—the
noise died away gradually, and I was safe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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