Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 — John Shaqi
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873Various
Science
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
A large cart drew up before the door, containing twelve kegs, thoroughly
bunged. Any stranger would take the load for one of beer, but a tub
among the kegs acted as interpreter. The young man from the baths in the
first place saw to his horse. He walked around it: the drive having
heated the animal, he covered it with a cloth, and guaranteed its head
against the flies with several plumes of foliage, beneath which Dobbin,
blinded but content, showed only the paralytic flapping of his
pendulous, negro-like lips. These indispensable cares despatched, the
young man from the baths brought up the tub after a short gossip with
the kitchen-maid, who was going out to market. He asked her if there
were a stable attached where he could put up the horse during the taking
of the bath: being answered in the negative, he then, with an almost
painful inconsequence of argument, chucked the girl under the chin. He
next inquired if she had any soap-fat. At length he consented to lumber
up the steps with one of his little kegs: the tenacity of the bung was
so exemplary that a long time was consumed in getting the advantage
over it, and the water on its part was but tardy in leaping toward the
tub in a series of strangulations. This formula, interrupted by minute
attentions to the horse, had to be repeated twelve times, and the bath,
which commenced as a warm bath, received its guest as a cold one. Such
was the result when to the languor of the individual was added the
national complication of apparatus.
[Illustration: GANYMEDE.]
The deliberate spectator--or, if you will, the imprisoned spectator like
myself, with his artificial leisure--asks himself how long a time was
consumed by this little country of Baden, by this people so lumpish in
its labor, so restricted in its movements, so friendly to its own ease,
in building its elegant metropolis of mansions and palaces? There is
something piquant in learning that the city is the hastiest construction
on the continent. It only dates from the year 1715.
[Illustration: ARRESTED MOTION.]
Carlsruhe reminds the American traveler of Washington. In place of the
tortuous plan and picturesque inconvenience of the antique capitals, it
offers a predetermined and courteous radiation of broad streets from the
grand-ducal palace, much like the fan of avenues that spreads away from
the Capitol building. Formal as it is, and recent as it is, Carlsruhe
affords as pretty a legend as any fairy-founded city of dimmest
ancestry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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