Bentley's Miscellany, 1844, Vol. 16 (Classic Reprint) PDF Download

Author: William Harrison Ainsworth
Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9781527953062
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 666

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Book Description
Excerpt from Bentley's Miscellany, 1844, Vol. 16 Mr. Barn was one of those men who think that the compilation of punch and salad is the great arcanum of life, known to them alone upon the mighty earth. And on the occasion of' dinner-parties at houses where he was intimate, nervous people, who bolted by mis take into the dining-room instead of going up-stairs, might always see Mr. Barn at the sideboard, with his cuffs turned up strenuously high, mashing a hard boiled egg in a crockery bowl with feverish as siduity, or spooning up the dressing and letting it fall again, for twenty-seven successive times, - that was the exact number; one more or less would have spoilt it, - in order that it might be mixed to the exact point of incorporation. And in making punch, Mv. Bam was so impressed with the grave responsibility of his task, that the attention required in transmuting metals, or preparing the uni versal solvent, was nothing to it. Delicately exact cubes of sugar were rubbed on precisely chosen lemons: tea-spoonfuls were poured into wine-glasses and tasted therefrom every ten seconds: rum was measured out with medical accuracy, and brandy added with alche mical care, until Mr. Barn, radiant with pride, triumphantly an nounced the attainment ofperfection. And if after that any rash and hapless guest timidly suggested the presence of a little more of any thing, he was soon sorry that he had spoken. For Mr. Bam's look of' mingled scorn and anger, when he told him that punch once made was immutable, drove him into obscurity, from which he never more emerged. As far as the transmutation and the universal solvent were concerned, Mr. Bam's punch, when he made it at somebody else's house, bore affinity, in a manner, to them. For then it was so strong, that it transmuted previously dull people into amateurs of parlour magic, and imitators of popular performers; and as a solvent loosened the tongues of' retiring visitors into the perpetration ofcomic songs, interspersed with dialogue illustrative of curious states of society, where people were constantly asking one another questions for the purpose of giving smart answers calculated to wound the feelings, or convey the imputation of exceeding mental inferiority. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.