England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century; Young men -- England
From this moment we perceived, in the phraseology of the fancy, that it
was ‘all up’ with the bashful young gentleman, and so indeed it was.
Several benevolent persons endeavoured to relieve his embarrassment by
taking wine with him, but finding that it only augmented his sufferings,
and that after mingling sherry, champagne, hock, and moselle together, he
applied the greater part of the mixture externally, instead of
internally, they gradually dropped off, and left him to the exclusive
care of the talkative lady, who, not noting the wildness of his eye,
firmly believed she had secured a listener. He broke a glass or two in
the course of the meal, and disappeared shortly afterwards; it is
inferred that he went away in some confusion, inasmuch as he left the
house in another gentleman’s coat, and the footman’s hat.
This little incident led us to reflect upon the most prominent
characteristics of bashful young gentlemen in the abstract; and as this
portable volume will be the great text-book of young ladies in all future
generations, we record them here for their guidance and behoof.
If the bashful young gentleman, in turning a street corner, chance to
stumble suddenly upon two or three young ladies of his acquaintance,
nothing can exceed his confusion and agitation. His first impulse is to
make a great variety of bows, and dart past them, which he does until,
observing that they wish to stop, but are uncertain whether to do so or
not, he makes several feints of returning, which causes them to do the
same; and at length, after a great quantity of unnecessary dodging and
falling up against the other passengers, he returns and shakes hands most
affectionately with all of them, in doing which he knocks out of their
grasp sundry little parcels, which he hastily picks up, and returns very
muddy and disordered. The chances are that the bashful young gentleman
then observes it is very fine weather, and being reminded that it has
only just left off raining for the first time these three days, he
blushes very much, and smiles as if he had said a very good thing. The
young lady who was most anxious to speak, here inquires, with an air of
great commiseration, how his dear sister Harriet is to-day; to which the
young gentleman, without the slightest consideration, replies with many
thanks, that she is remarkably well. ‘Well, Mr. Hopkins!’ cries the
young lady, ‘why, we heard she was bled yesterday evening, and have been
perfectly miserable about her.’ ‘Oh, ah,’ says the young gentleman, ‘so
she was. Oh, she’s very ill, very ill indeed.’ The young gentleman then
shakes his head, and looks very desponding (he has been smiling
perpetually up to this time), and after a short pause, gives his glove a
great wrench at the wrist, and says, with a strong emphasis on the
adjective, ‘_Good_ morning, _good_ morning.’ And making a great number
of bows in acknowledgment of several little messages to his sister, walks
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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