Adventure stories; England -- Fiction; Romanies -- Fiction
fidget lest they should be thought to mix with low society, or to bestow
a moment's attention on publications which are not what is called of a
perfectly unobjectionable character. Had not Lavengro formed the
acquaintance of the apple-woman on London Bridge, he would not have had
an opportunity of reading the life of Mary Flanders; and, consequently,
of storing in a memory, which never forgets anything, a passage which
contained a balm for the agonized mind of poor Peter Williams. The best
medicines are not always found in the finest shops. Suppose, for
example, if, instead of going to London Bridge to read, he had gone to
Albemarle Street, and had received from the proprietors of the literary
establishment in that very fashionable street, permission to read the
publications on the tables of the saloons there, does the reader think he
would have met any balm in those publications for the case of Peter
Williams? does the reader suppose that he would have found Mary Flanders
there? He would certainly have found that highly unobjectionable
publication, "Rasselas," and the "Spectator," or "Lives of Royal and
Illustrious Personages," but, of a surety, no Mary Flanders; so when
Lavengro met with Peter Williams, he would have been unprovided with a
balm to cure his ulcerated mind, and have parted from him in a way not
quite so satisfactory as the manner in which he took his leave of him;
for it is certain that he might have read "Rasselas," and all other
unexceptionable works to be found in the library of Albemarle Street,
over and over again, before he would have found any cure in them for the
case of Peter Williams. Therefore the author requests the reader to drop
any squeamish nonsense he may wish to utter about Mary Flanders, and the
manner in which Peter Williams was cured.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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