American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
The opera is to tinkle in our ears again—with the symphony of Steffanone,
Benedetti, and the rest. The town takes music quietly this winter, and the
old fashion of listening has almost grown into a habit of appreciation.
The town is building up into a Paris-sided company of streets; and the
seven stories of freestone and marble will soon darken down Broadway into
a European duskiness of hue. The street lights glimmer on such nights as
the almanac tells no story of the moon; and on other nights we draggle as
we may, between clouds and rain—consoling ourselves with the rich city
economy, and hopeful of some future and freer dispensation—of gas.
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For want of some piquancy, which our eye does not catch in the French
journals, we sum up our chit-chat with this pleasant whim-wham of English
flavor:
My man Davis is a bit of a character. If he’s not up to a thing or two, I
should like to know who is. I am often puzzled to know how a man who has
seen so much of life as he has should condescend to have “no objection to
the country,” and to take service with a retired linen-draper, which I am.
I keep a dog-cart, and, not being much of a whip, Davis generally drives.
He has some capital stories; at least I think so; but perhaps it is his
manner of telling them; or perhaps I’m very easily pleased. However,
here’s one of them.
HOW MR. COPER SOLD A HORSE.
“Mr. Coper, as kept the Red Lion Yard, in —— street, was the best to sell
a horse I ever know’d, sir; and I know’d some good ’uns, I have; but he
_was_ the best. He’d look at you as tho’ butter wouldn’t melt in his
mouth, and his small wall-eyes seemed to have no more life in ’em than a
dead whiting’s. My master, Capt. ——, stood his hosses there, and, o’
course, I saw a good deal of Mr. Coper. One day a gent came to look at the
stable, and see if he could buy a hoss. Coper saw in a minute that he knew
nothing about horseflesh, and so was uncommon civil. The first thing he
showed him was a great gray coach-hoss, about seventeen hands and a inch,
with a shoulder like a Erkilus.”
“I suppose you mean Hercules?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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