Peter Simple (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Frederick Marryat

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1331506719 ISBN 13: 9781331506713

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2018

Synopsis

Excerpt from Peter Simple

At last I tore myself away. I had blubbered till my eyes were so red and swollen, that the pupils were scarcely to be distinguished, and tears and dirt had veined my cheeks like the marble of the chimney-piece. My handkerchief was soaked through with wiping my eyes and blowing my nose, before the scene was over. My brother Tom, with a kind ness which did honour to his heart, exchanged his for mine, saying, with fraternal regard, Here, Peter, take mine, it's as dry as a bone. But my father would not wait for a second handkerchief to perform its duty. He led me away through the ball, when, having shaken hands with all the men, and kissed all the maids, who stood in a row with their aprons to their eyes, I quitted my paternal roof.

The coachman accompanied me to the place from whence the stage was to start. Having seen me securely wedged between two fat old women, and having put my parcel inside, he took his leave, and in a few minutes I was on my road to London.

I was too much depressed to take notice of any thing during my journey. Ivhen we arrived in London, they drove to the Blue Boar (in a street, the name of which I have forgotten). I had never seen or heard of such an animal, and certainly it did appear very formidable; its mouth was Open and teeth very large. What surprised me still more was to observe that its teeth and hoofs were of pure gold. Who knows, thought I, that in some of the strange countries which I am doomed to visit, but that I may fall in with, and shoot one of these terrific monsters? With what haste shall I select those precious parts, and with what joy should I, on my return, pour them as an offering of filial affection into my mother's lap l - and then, as I thought of my mother, the tears again gushed into my eyes.

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Product Description

Excerpt from Peter Simple The Great advantage of being the fool of the family - My Destiny is Decided, and I am Consigned to a Stock-Broker as part of his majesty's Sea-Stock -Unfortunately for me Mr. Handycock is a Bear, and I get very Little Dinner. If I cannot narrate a life of adventurous and daring exploits, fortunately 1 have no heavy crimes to confess: and, if I do not rise in the estimation of the reader for acts of gallantry and devotion in my country's cause, at least I may claim the merit of zealous and persevering continuance in my vocation. We are all of us variously gifted from Above, and he who is content to walk, instead of to run, on his allotted path through life, although he may not so rapidly attain the goal, has the advantage of not being out of breath upon his arrival. Not that I mean to infer that my life has not been one of adventure. As well as I can recollect and analyse my early propensities, I think that, had I been permitted to select ray own profession, I should in all probability have bound myself apprentice to a tailor; for 1 always envied the comfortable seat which they appeared to enjoy upon the shopboard, and their elevated position, which enabled them to look down upon the constant succession of the idle or the busy, who passed in review before them in the main street of the country town, near to which I passed the first fourteen years of my existence. But my father, who was a clergyman of the Church of England and the youngest brother of a noble family, and a lucrative, and a 'soul above buttons, ' if his son had not. It has been from time immemorial the hearthenish custom to sacrifice the greatest fool of the family to the prosperity and naval superiority of the country, and, at the age of fourteen, I was selected as the victim. If the custom be judicious, I had no reason to complain. There was not one dissentient voice, when it was proposed before all the varities of my aunts and cousins, invited to partake of our New-year's fe

About the Author

1792-1848

Edition details

• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1331506719
• ISBN 13: 9781331506713
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 468