Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 edition. Excerpt: ... remember me to Roberts; tell him he must be content to take me by the hand, though he should not discover a pipe in my mouth, or mustachios on it--the first makes me sick, and the last makes Jane so. Bring with you any new books you may have. There is a Mrs. B. here, with a litter of seven daughters: she is the gayest lady, and the only one who gives dances, for the young squaws are arriving at that age when, as Lord Byron says, they must waltz for their livelihood. When a man gets on this strain, the sooner he concludes his letter the better. Addio. Believe me Very truly yours, E. E. Williams. c CHAPTER III. For nobody can write the life of a man but those who have ate and drank, and lived in social intercourse with him.--Dr. Johnson. Men can be estimated by those who knew them not, only as they are represented by those who knew them.--Ibid. I Was not accustomed to the town life I was then leading, and became as tired of society as townfolks are of solitude. The great evil in solitude is, that your brain lies idle; your muscles expand by exercise, and your wits contract from the want of it. To obviate this evil and maintain the just equilibrium between the body and the brain, I determined to pass the coming winter in the wildest part of Italy, the Maremma, in the midst of the marshes and malaria, with my friends Roberts and Williams; keen sportsmen both--that part of the country being well stocked with woodcocks and wild fowl. For this purpose, I shipped an ample supply of dogs, guns, and other implements of the chase to Leghorn. For the exercise of my brain, I proposed passing my summer with Shelley and Byron, boating in the Mediterranean. After completing my arrangements, I started in the autumn by the French malleposte, from Paris to...