The presence of the Tweedys has been most agreeable and has
contributed in no small degree to break the shock of removal to
these new rooms, which are not near so cosy as the old; especially
with the smoking of my stove, which went on all the first two days.
That has been stopped, however, and the only trouble is now to get
the fire alight at all. I have generally to start it 3 or 4 times,
and the removal of the material of each failure from the grate is a
fearful business. I have also to descend to the cellar myself to
get my coal, and my "hod," as Ma Sweetser, my land-lady, calls it,
not being very much bigger than a milk-pitcher, doesn't add to the
charm. The coal is apt to drop on the stairs, and I have to pick it
all up. At present the stove fills the room with a nephitic and
pestilential gas, so that I have to keep the window open. I went
last night with the Tweedys to the concert for which they came up,
and with them this morning to hear Wendell Phillips. This Sweetser
family is worthy of Dickens. It consists of a Mr. and Miss S., Mr.
S.'s three gushing girls, a parrot and a maniac. The maniac is very
obstreperous. Her husband left her boarding here 3 months ago and
went to Cuba. When she got mad he was written to, but has sent no
reply, and they are keeping her. For the Aunt's sake I keep my
drawer locked against her at night. Old Sweetser is a riddle I hope
to do justice to at some future time, but can't begin on now. His
sister shakes like an aspen whenever she is spoken to. Oh I forgot
the most important character of all, the black wench who "does" the
room. She is about 20 years old and wears short frocks, but talks
like Alice Robeson and has an antediluvian face about as large as
the top of a flour-barrel.
I can really keep my hand from nothing, of whatever connection, that
causes his intensity of animation and spontaneity of expression to
revive. On a Sunday evening early in 1862 he had
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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