The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 13, September, 1835Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 13, September, 1835
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
He evidently prided himself much upon every inch of his personal
appearance, but took more especial delight in calling attention to his
gaudy colored surcoat. This, to say the truth, must have cost no
little money, and was made to fit him exceedingly well--being
fashioned from one of the curiously embroidered silken covers
appertaining to those glorious escutcheons which, in England and
elsewhere, are customarily hung up in some conspicuous place upon the
dwellings of departed aristocracy.
Next to him, and at the right hand of the president, was a gentleman
in long white hose and cotton drawers. His frame shook in a ludicrous
manner, with a fit of what Tarpaulin called "the horrors." His jaws,
which had been newly shaved, were tightly tied up by a bandage of
muslin; and his arms being fastened in a similar way at the wrists,
prevented him from helping himself too freely to the liquors upon the
table; a precaution rendered necessary, in the opinion of Legs, by the
peculiarly sottish and wine-bibbing cast of his visage. A pair of
prodigious ears, nevertheless, which it was no doubt found impossible
to confine, towered away into the atmosphere of the apartment, and
were occasionally pricked up, or depressed, as the sounds of bursting
bottles increased, or died away, in the cellars underneath.
Fronting him, sixthly and lastly, was situated a singularly
stiff-looking personage, who, being afflicted with paralysis, must, to
speak seriously, have felt very ill at ease in his unaccommodating
habiliments. He was habited, somewhat uniquely, in a new and handsome
mahogany coffin.
The top or head-piece of the coffin pressed upon the scull of the
wearer, and extended over it in the fashion of a hood, giving to the
entire face an air of indescribable interest. Arm-holes had been cut
in the sides, for the sake not more of elegance than of
convenience--but the dress, nevertheless, prevented its proprietor
from sitting as erect as his associates; and as he lay reclining
against his tressel, at an angle of forty-five degrees, a pair of huge
goggle eyes rolled up their awful whites towards the ceiling in
absolute amazement at their own enormity.
Before each of the party lay a portion of a scull which was used as a
drinking cup. Overhead was suspended an enormous human skeleton, by
means of a rope tied round one of the legs and fastened to a ring in
the ceiling. The other limb, confined by no such fetter, stuck off
from the body at right angles, causing the whole loose and rattling
frame to dangle and twirl about in a singular manner, at the caprice
of every occasional puff of wind which found its way into the
apartment. In the cranium of this hideous thing lay a quantity of
ignited and glowing charcoal, which threw a fitful but vivid light
over the entire scene; while coffins, and other wares appertaining to
the shop of an undertaker, were piled high up around the room, and
against the windows, preventing any straggling ray from escaping into
the street.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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