The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition)Ward, Artemus
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The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition)
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
The present Gov'ner Gin'ral of Canady is Lord MONK. I saw him review
some volunteers at Montreal. He was accompanied by some other lords
and dukes and generals and those sort of things. He rode a little bay
horse, and his close wasn't any better than mine. You'll always notiss,
by the way, that the higher up in the world a man is, the less good
harness he puts on. Hence Gin'ral HALLECK walks the streets in plain
citizen's dress, while the second lieutenant of a volunteer regiment
piles all the brass things he can find onto his back, and drags a
forty-pound sword after him.
Monk has been in the lord bisniss some time, and I understand it pays,
tho' I don't know what a lord's wages is.
The wages of sin is death and postage stamps. But this has nothing to
do with MONK.
One of Lord MONK'S daughters rode with him on the field. She has golden
hair, a kind, good face, and wore a red hat. I should be very happy to
have her pay me and my family a visit at Baldinsville. Come and bring
your knittin', Miss MONK. Mrs. WARD will do the fair thing by you.
She makes the best slap-jacks in America. As a slap-jackist, she has no
ekal. She wears the Belt.
What the review was all about, I don't know. I haven't a gigantic
intelleck, which can grasp great questions at onct. I am not a WEBSTER
or a SEYMOUR. I am not a WASHINGTON or a OLD ABE. Fur from it. I am
not as gifted a man as HENRY WARD BEECHER. Even the congregation of
Plymouth Meetin'-House in Brooklyn will admit that. Yes, I should think
so. But while I don't have the slitest idee as to what the review was
fur, I will state that the sojers looked pooty scrumptious in their red
and green close.
Come with me, jentle reader, to Quebeck. Quebeck was surveyed and laid
out by a gentleman who had been afflicted with the delirium tremens from
childhood, and hence his idees of things was a little irreg'ler. The
streets don't lead anywheres in partic'ler, but everywheres in gin'ral.
The city is bilt on a variety of perpendicler hills, each hill bein'
a trifle wuss nor t'other one. Quebeck is full of stone walls, and
arches, and citadels and things. It is said no foe could ever git into
Quebeck, and I guess they couldn't. And I don't see what they'd want to
get in there for.
Quebeck has seen lively times in a warlike way. The French and
Britishers had a set-to there in 1759. JIM WOLFE commanded the latters,
and JO. MONTCALM the formers. Both were hunky boys, and fit nobly.
But WOLFE was too many measles for MONTCALM, and the French was slew'd.
WOLFE and MONTCALM was both killed. In arter years a common monyment
was erected by the gen'rous people of Quebeck, aided by a bully Earl
named GEORGE DALHOUSIE, to these noble fellows. That was well done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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