LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2019

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      EAN 4057664642592

Table of Contents

       THOUGHTS ON CHEAPNESS AND MY AUNT CHARLOTTE

       THE TROUBLE OF LIFE

       ON THE CHOICE OF A WIFE

       THE HOUSE OF DI SORNO

       OF CONVERSATION

       IN A LITERARY HOUSEHOLD

       ON SCHOOLING AND THE PHASES OF MR. SANDSOME

       THE POET AND THE EMPORIUM

       THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS

       THE LITERARY REGIMEN

       HOUSE-HUNTING AS AN OUTDOOR AMUSEMENT

       OF BLADES AND BLADERY

       OF CLEVERNESS

       THE POSE NOVEL

       THE VETERAN CRICKETER

       CONCERNING A CERTAIN LADY

       THE SHOPMAN

       THE BOOK OF CURSES

       DUNSTONE'S DEAR LADY

       EUPHEMIA'S NEW ENTERTAINMENT

       FOR FREEDOM OF SPELLING

       INCIDENTAL THOUGHTS ON A BALD HEAD

       OF A BOOK UNWRITTEN

       THE EXTINCTION OF MAN

       THE WRITING OF ESSAYS

       THE PARKES MUSEUM

       BLEAK MARCH IN EPPING FOREST

       THE THEORY OF QUOTATION

       ON THE ART OF STAYING AT THE SEASIDE

       CONCERNING CHESS

       THE COAL-SCUTTLE

       BAGARROW

       THE BOOK OF ESSAYS DEDICATORY

       THROUGH A MICROSCOPE

       THE PLEASURE OF QUARRELLING

       THE AMATEUR NATURE-LOVER

       FROM AN OBSERVATORY

       THE MODE IN MONUMENTS

       HOW I DIED

THOUGHTS ON CHEAPNESS AND MY AUNT CHARLOTTE

       Table of Contents

      The world mends. In my younger days people believed in mahogany; some of my readers will remember it—a heavy, shining substance, having a singularly close resemblance to raw liver, exceedingly heavy to move, and esteemed on one or other count the noblest of all woods. Such of us as were very poor and had no mahogany pretended to have mahogany; and the proper hepatite tint was got by veneering. That makes one incline to think it was the colour that pleased people. In those days there was a word "trashy," now almost lost to the world. My dear Aunt Charlotte used that epithet when, in her feminine way, she swore at people she did not like. "Trashy" and "paltry" and "Brummagem" was the very worst she could say of them. And she had, I remember, an intense aversion to plated goods and bronze halfpence. The halfpence of her youth had been vast and corpulent red-brown discs, which it was folly to speak of as small change. They were fine handsome coins, and almost as inconvenient as crown-pieces. I remember she corrected me once when I was very young. "Don't call a penny a copper, dear," she said; "copper is a metal. The pennies they have nowadays are bronze." It is odd how our childish impressions cling to us. I still regard bronze as a kind of upstart intruder, a mere trashy pretender among metals.

      All my Aunt Charlotte's furniture was thoroughly good, and most of it extremely uncomfortable; there was not a thing for a little boy to break and escape damnation in the household. Her china was the only thing with a touch of beauty in it—at least I remember nothing else—and each of her blessed plates was worth the happiness of a mortal for days together. And they dressed me in a Nessus suit of valuable garments. I learned the value of thoroughly good things only too early. I knew the equivalent of a teacup to the very last scowl, and I have hated good, handsome property ever since. For my part I love cheap things, trashy things, things made of the commonest rubbish that money can possibly buy; things as vulgar as primroses,

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