The Adventures of Peregrine PickleSmollett, T. (Tobias)
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The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle
Smollett, T. (Tobias)
Adventure stories; Fiction; Picaresque literature
The painter was transported with joy, when he learned that he ran
no risk of being retaken, and, far from repining at the terms of his
enlargement, would have willingly set out on his return to England that
same afternoon; for the Bastille had made such an impression upon him,
that he started at the sound of every coach, and turned pale at the
sight of a French soldier. In the fulness of his heart, he complained of
the doctor's indifference, and related what had passed at their meeting
with evident marks of resentment and disrespect; which were not at all
diminished, when Jolter informed him of the physician's behaviour
when he sent for him, to confer about the means of abridging their
confinement. Pickle himself was incensed at his want of bowels; and,
perceiving how much he had sank in the opinion of his fellow-traveller,
resolved to encourage these sentiments of disgust, and occasionally
foment the division to a downright quarrel, which he foresaw would
produce some diversion, and perhaps expose the poet's character in
such a light, as would effectually punish him for his arrogance and
barbarity. With this view, he leveled several satirical jokes at the
doctor's pedantry and want of taste, which had appeared so conspicuous
in the quotation he had got by heart, from ancient authors; in his
affected disdain of the best pictures of the world, which, had he been
endowed with the least share of discernment, he could not have beheld
with such insensibility; and, lastly, in his ridiculous banquet, which
none but an egregious coxcomb, devoid of all elegance and sense, would
have prepared, or presented to rational beings. In a word, our young
gentleman played the artillery of his wit against him with such success,
that the painter seemed to wake from a dream, and went home with the
most hearty contempt for the person he had formerly adored.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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