Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902 -- Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
“O Gaetano,” she exclaimed, “I do love you so very dearly. When you look
at me your eyes are like—they are like the eyes”—here she faltered a
little—“the eyes of a cow.”
Thenceforward he cared not . . .
And so on.
A Divorce Novelette
The hero and heroine are engaged against their wishes. They like one
another very well but each is in love with some one else; nevertheless,
under an uncle’s will, they forfeit large property unless they marry one
another, so they get married, making no secret to one another that they
dislike it very much.
On the evening of their wedding day they broach the subject that has long
been nearest to their hearts—the possibility of being divorced. They
discuss it tearfully, but the obstacles seem insuperable. Nevertheless
they agree that faint heart never yet got rid of fair lady, “None but the
brave,” exclaims the husband, “deserve to lose the fair,” and they plight
their most solemn vows that they will henceforth live but for the object
of getting divorced from one another.
But the course of true divorce never did run smooth, and the plot turns
upon the difficulties that meet them and how they try to overcome them.
At one time they seem almost certain of success, but the cup is dashed
from their lips and is farther off than ever.
At last an opportunity occurs in an unlooked-for manner. They are
divorced and live happily apart ever afterwards.
The Moral Painter—A Tale of Double Personality
Once upon a time there was a painter who divided his life into two
halves; in the one half he painted pot-boilers for the market, setting
every consideration aside except that of doing for his master, the
public, something for which he could get paid the money on which he
lived. He was great at floods and never looked at nature except in order
to see what would make most show with least expense. On the whole he
found nothing so cheap to make and easy to sell as veiled heads.
The other half of his time he studied and painted with the sincerity of
Giovanni Bellini, Rembrandt, Holbein or De Hooghe. He was then his own
master and thought only of doing his work as well as he could, regardless
of whether it would bring him anything but debt and abuse or not. He
gave his best without receiving so much as thanks.
He avoided the temptation of telling either half about the other.
Two Writers
One left little or nothing about himself and the world complained that it
was puzzled. Another, mindful of this, left copious details about
himself, whereon the world said that it was even more puzzled about him
than about the man who had left nothing, till presently it found out that
it was also bored, and troubled itself no more about either.
The Archbishop of Heligoland
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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