Wise Saws and Modern Instances, Volume 2 (of 2)Cooper, Thomas
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Wise Saws and Modern Instances, Volume 2 (of 2)
Cooper, Thomas
English fiction -- 19th century; Short stories, English
If all Mr. Mortimer's thinkings were to be related, his story would be
a very long one. Suffice it to say, that he, forthwith, set out for
Lewisham, when he had breakfasted, and paid his bill, and bidden the
landlord good-morning. From Lewisham Mr. Mortimer strode on to Bromley;
and from Bromley, per stage-coach, he went to Sevenoaks, and the next
day to Tunbridge, and to the Wells the following day. This was the route
Mr. Mortimer had most sagaciously chalked out for himself,--he being
thoroughly bent on making the complete circuit of the county. The
"Intellectual Lever" he took care to mention whereever he went,--for he
had now fully resolved to give his projected newspaper that name,--and
he thought every one looked as pleased with it as he felt himself.
Indeed, every one was delighted during the whole of this part of Mr.
Mortimer's tour with the idea of a newspaper that was to take up the
interests of parts of the county which, they assured him, had been so
much neglected, notwithstanding they were so highly important.
Equal delight and similar assurances greeted the ears of the
projector at Cranbrook, and Tenterden, and Ashford, and Hythe, and
Folkestone,--insomuch that Mr. Mortimer began to feel more than ever
puzzled with the task of arranging, in his own mind, the astounding
claims of importance preferred by the respectable denizens of the towns
through which he passed,--ever announcing his design of planting the
"Intellectual Lever"--when he should have found a "fulcrum."
At Dover, Mr. Mortimer made a longer halt, finding a most agreeable
lodging at the Gun Hotel, and meeting, moreover, advisers of a
determined character for "planting the Intellectual Lever" there: it was
the key of England, these counsellors assured Mr. Mortimer: it was,
really, the only natural "fulcrum" for the lever, seeing that it
received the first continental news: it was, anciently, of so much
importance; it was about to become of so much importance, by the
formation of a grand new harbour, and by its new railway connection with
London; and, above all, it sent two members to parliament. Mr. Mortimer
was troubled, for the Dover counsellors assured him _they_ would have
nothing to do with a Greenwich paper: Greenwich was nothing to them; and
as for the other towns through which the projector had passed, they only
laughed to hear them mentioned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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