Knowing all the posters that were yet legible, intimately, and pondering
on their ubiquitous nature, I was led into the reflections with which I
began this paper, by considering what an awful thing it would be, ever to
have wronged—say M. JULLIEN for example—and to have his avenging name in
characters of fire incessantly before my eyes. Or to have injured MADAME
TUSSAUD, and undergo a similar retribution. Has any man a
self-reproachful thought associated with pills, or ointment? What an
avenging spirit to that man is PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY! Have I sinned in oil?
CABBURN pursues me. Have I a dark remembrance associated with any
gentlemanly garments, bespoke or ready made? MOSES and SON are on my
track. Did I ever aim a blow at a defenceless fellow-creature’s head?
That head eternally being measured for a wig, or that worse head which
was bald before it used the balsam, and hirsute afterwards—enforcing the
benevolent moral, ‘Better to be bald as a Dutch cheese than come to
this,’—undoes me. Have I no sore places in my mind which MECHI
touches—which NICOLL probes—which no registered article whatever
lacerates? Does no discordant note within me thrill responsive to
mysterious watchwords, as ‘Revalenta Arabica,’ or ‘Number One St. Paul’s
Churchyard’? Then may I enjoy life, and be happy.
Lifting up my eyes, as I was musing to this effect, I beheld advancing
towards me (I was then on Cornhill, near to the Royal Exchange), a solemn
procession of three advertising vans, of first-class dimensions, each
drawn by a very little horse. As the cavalcade approached, I was at a
loss to reconcile the careless deportment of the drivers of these
vehicles, with the terrific announcements they conducted through the
city, which being a summary of the contents of a Sunday newspaper, were
of the most thrilling kind. Robbery, fire, murder, and the ruin of the
United Kingdom—each discharged in a line by itself, like a separate
broad-side of red-hot shot—were among the least of the warnings addressed
to an unthinking people. Yet, the Ministers of Fate who drove the awful
cars, leaned forward with their arms upon their knees in a state of
extreme lassitude, for want of any subject of interest. The first man,
whose hair I might naturally have expected to see standing on end,
scratched his head—one of the smoothest I ever beheld—with profound
indifference. The second whistled. The third yawned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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