England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century; Young men -- England
In society, at assemblies, balls, and playhouses, these political young
gentlemen are perpetually on the watch for a political allusion, or
anything which can be tortured or construed into being one; when,
thrusting themselves into the very smallest openings for their favourite
discourse, they fall upon the unhappy company tooth and nail. They have
recently had many favourable opportunities of opening in churches, but as
there the clergyman has it all his own way, and must not be contradicted,
whatever politics he preaches, they are fain to hold their tongues until
they reach the outer door, though at the imminent risk of bursting in the
effort.
As such discussions can please nobody but the talkative parties
concerned, we hope they will henceforth take the hint and discontinue
them, otherwise we now give them warning, that the ladies have our advice
to discountenance such talkers altogether.
THE DOMESTIC YOUNG GENTLEMAN
LET us make a slight sketch of our amiable friend, Mr. Felix Nixon. We
are strongly disposed to think, that if we put him in this place, he will
answer our purpose without another word of comment.
Felix, then, is a young gentleman who lives at home with his mother, just
within the twopenny-post office circle of three miles from St.
Martin-le-Grand. He wears Indiarubber goloshes when the weather is at
all damp, and always has a silk handkerchief neatly folded up in the
right-hand pocket of his great-coat, to tie over his mouth when he goes
home at night; moreover, being rather near-sighted, he carries spectacles
for particular occasions, and has a weakish tremulous voice, of which he
makes great use, for he talks as much as any old lady breathing.
The two chief subjects of Felix’s discourse, are himself and his mother,
both of whom would appear to be very wonderful and interesting persons.
As Felix and his mother are seldom apart in body, so Felix and his mother
are scarcely ever separate in spirit. If you ask Felix how he finds
himself to-day, he prefaces his reply with a long and minute bulletin of
his mother’s state of health; and the good lady in her turn, edifies her
acquaintance with a circumstantial and alarming account, how he sneezed
four times and coughed once after being out in the rain the other night,
but having his feet promptly put into hot water, and his head into a
flannel-something, which we will not describe more particularly than by
this delicate allusion, was happily brought round by the next morning,
and enabled to go to business as usual.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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