Mrs. Shenstone smiled complacently in return; and shortly after retired
from the room, when the two "little cherubs" approached their prodigious
admirer, with a view to make friends and impress upon her the solicited
kiss. She instantly put them at arm's length from her, saying to Mrs.
Teague, who sat next her, "_What pests these little things are, treading
on my dress, and obtruding their presence on me like this. I do wish
Mrs. Shenstone had taken them out of the room with her_."
"I am deeply grieved to learn," said Farmer Shirley one day to his
neighbour, Farmer Stout, "that your circumstances are such as they are.
Now, if you think I can help you in any way, do not be backward in
sending to me. You shall always find a friend in me."
That very afternoon this same farmer Shirley was heard to say in a
company of farmers at the "Queen's Head" that Stout had brought all his
difficulties upon himself, and _he was not sorry for him a bit_. The
next day Stout availed himself of the "great kindness" offered him by
Shirley, and sent to ask the loan of a pound to pay the baker's bill, in
order to keep the "staff of life" in the house for his family; when
Shirley sent word back to him that he had "no pounds to lend anybody,
much less one _who had by his own extravagance brought himself into such
difficult circumstances_."
This double-tongued talker is not unfrequently met with in public
meetings. Especially is he heard in "moving votes of thanks," and
"drinking toasts." Fulsome praises and glowing eulogiums are poured out
by him in rich abundance, which, as soon as the meetings are over, are
eaten up again by the same person, but of course in the absence of his
much-admired gods.
It would not be difficult to go on with instances illustrative of these
double-tongued exercises. They are almost as universal as the
multifarious phases of society. They are met with in the street, in the
shop, in the family, in the church, in the court, in the palace and
cottage, among the rich and poor.
Addison, in writing of this fault in talking in his times, gives a
letter which he says was written in King Charles the Second's reign by
the "ambassador of Bantam to his royal master a little after his arrival
in England." The following is a copy, which will show how in those days
the double-tongued talked, and how the writer, a stranger in this
country, was impressed by it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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