The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-BabyKingsley, Charles
General
The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
Kingsley, Charles
Chimney sweeps -- Juvenile fiction; Fairy tales -- England
And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three or more
languages at once; words derived from two languages having become so
common that there was no more hope of rooting out them than of rooting
out peth-winds.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a man of sense,
jumped at the notion; for he saw in it the one and only plan for
abolishing Schedule D: but when he brought in his bill, most of the
Irish members, and (I am sorry to say) some of the Scotch likewise,
opposed it most strongly, on the ground that in a free country no man
was bound either to understand himself or to let others understand him.
So the bill fell through on the first reading; and the Chancellor,
being a philosopher, comforted himself with the thought that it was not
the first time that a woman had hit off a grand idea and the men turned
up their stupid noses thereat.
Now the doctors had it all their own way; and to work they went in
earnest, and they gave the poor professor divers and sundry medicines,
as prescribed by the ancients and moderns, from Hippocrates to
Feuchtersleben, as below, viz.--
1. _Hellebore, to wit_--
_Hellebore of Æta._
_Hellebore of Galatia._
_Hellebore of Sicily._
_And all other Hellebores, after the method of the
Helleborising Helleborists of the Helleboric era.
But that would not do. Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles
would not stir an inch out of his encephalo digital
region._
2. _Trying to find out what was the matter with him, after the
method of_
_Hippocrates_,
_Aretæus_,
_Celsus_,
_C[oe]lius Aurelianus_,
_And Galen_.
But they found that a great deal too much trouble, as most people have
since; and so had recourse to--
3. _Borage._
_Cauteries._
Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says Gordonius)
"will, without doubt, do much good." But it didn't.
_Bezoar stone._
_Diamargaritum._
_A ram's brain boiled in spice._
_Oil of wormwood._
_Water of Nile._
_Capers._
_Good wine (but there was none to be got)._
_The water of a smith's forge._
_Hops._
_Ambergris._
_Mandrake pillows._
_Dormouse fat._
_Hares' ears._
_Starvation._
_Camphor._
_Salts and senna._
_Musk._
_Opium._
_Strait-waistcoats._
_Bullyings._
_Bumpings._
_Blisterings._
_Bleedings._
_Bucketings with cold water._
_Knockings down._
_Kneeling on his chest till they broke it in,
etc. etc.; after the mediæval or monkish
method: but that would not do. Bumpsterhausen's
blue follicles stuck there still._
Then--
4. _Coaxing._
_Kissing._
_Champagne and turtle._
_Red herrings and soda water._
_Good advice._
_Gardening._
_Croquet._
_Musical soirées._
_Aunt Sally._
_Mild tobacco._
_The Saturday Review._
_A carriage with outriders, etc. etc._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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