The Paris Sketch Book of Mr. M. A. TitmarshThackeray, William Makepeace
General
The Paris Sketch Book of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Paris (France) -- Description and travel
I pause for a reply. His lordship took too much turtle and cold punch
for dinner yesterday, and cannot speak just now: but we have, by this
ingenious question, silenced him altogether: let the world wag as it
will, and poor Christians and curates starve as they may, my lord’s
footmen must have their new liveries, and his horses their four feeds a
day.
When we recollect his speech about the Catholics—when we remember his
last charity sermon,—but I say nothing. Here is a poor benighted
superstitious creature, worshipping images, without a rag to her tail,
who has as much faith, and humility, and charity as all the reverend
bench.
This angel is without a place; and for this reason (besides the
pleasure of composing the above slap at episcopacy)—I have indited her
history. If the Bishop is going to Paris, and wants a good honest
maid-of-all-work, he can have her, I have no doubt; or if he chooses to
give a few pounds to her mother, they can be sent to Mr. Titmarsh, at
the publisher’s.
Here is Miss Merger’s last letter and autograph. The note was evidently
composed by an Ecrivain public:—
“Madame,—Ayant apris par ce Monsieur, que vous vous portiez bien, ainsi
que Monsieur, ayant su aussi que vous parliez de moi dans votre lettre
cette nouvelle m’a fait bien plaisir Je profite de l’occasion pour vous
faire passer ce petit billet où Je voudrais pouvoir m’enveloper pour
aller vous voir et pour vous dire que Je suis encore sans place Je
m’ennuye tojours de ne pas vous voir ainsi que Minette (Minette is a
cat) qui semble m’interroger tour a tour et demander où vous êtes. Je
vous envoye aussi la note du linge a blanchir—ah, Madame! Je vais
cesser de vous ecrire mais non de vous regretter.”
Beatrice Merger.
CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY IN PARIS.
Fifty years ago there lived at Munich a poor fellow, by name Aloys
Senefelder, who was in so little repute as an author and artist, that
printers and engravers refused to publish his works at their own
charges, and so set him upon some plan for doing without their aid. In
the first place, Aloys invented a certain kind of ink, which would
resist the action of the acid that is usually employed by engravers,
and with this he made his experiments upon copper-plates, as long as he
could afford to purchase them. He found that to write upon the plates
backwards, after the manner of engravers, required much skill and many
trials; and he thought that, were he to practise upon any other
polished surface—a smooth stone, for instance, the least costly article
imaginable—he might spare the expense of the copper until he had
sufficient skill to use it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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