Three Men in a Boat

arved oak and life in general.-Sad case of Stivvings, junior.-Musings on antiquity.-I

he dainty sheen of grass and leaf is blushing to a deeper green; and the year seems li

wooded towpath, the trim-kept villas on the other side, Harris, in a red and orange blazer, grunting away at the sculls, the distant glimpses of the grey old palace of the Tudors,

ar crossed the river there, and the Roman legions camped upon its sloping uplands. C?sar, like, in later years, Elizabeth,

ept at, some time or other. I wonder now, supposing Harris, say, turned over a new leaf, and became a great and good man, and got to be Prime Minister, and died, if they would put up signs over

ed that would become famous. "Only house in South London that Harris never had a dr

e boar's head stuffed with sugar-plums did not agree with him (it wouldn't with me, I know), and he had had enou

the calm moonlight on the river, while from the distant halls the bois

uiet room, and hurl coarse insults at the sweet-faced Queen, an

for a time, to rise once more when Hampton Court became the palace of the Tudors and the Stuarts, and the royal barges strained at the

ancing palfreys, and rustling silks and velvets, and fair faces. The large and spacious houses, with their oriel, latticed windows, their huge fireplaces, and their gabled roofs, breathe of the days of hose and doublet, of pearl-embroidered

shop now, in the market-place, but it was evidently once the mansion of some great personage. A friend of mine, who lives at King

sort of thing, asked our hero if he would like to see some fine old carved oak. My friend said he would, and the shopman, thereupon, took him through the shop, and up the

though cheerful paper of a blue ground. There was nothing, however, remarkable about the apartment, and my friend wo

k, right up to the ceiling, just th

riend; "you don't mean to say you have cov

match-board it all over first, of course. But the r

desiring to take life as lightly as possible, and not that of the old-curiosity-shop maniac, there is reason on his side. Carved oak is very pleasant to look

panelled with it, while people who do care for it have to pay enormous prices to get it. It seems to be

t that they can't get them. Poor people who can hardly keep themselves have eight he

without them, that they bother them, and why don't they go and make love to Miss Smith and Miss Brown, who a

ell on these things;

rows for sitting up in bed and reading Greek; and as for French irregular verbs there was simply no keeping him away from them. He was full of weird and unnatural notions about being a credit to his parents and a

ere was any known disease going within ten miles of him, he had it, and had it badly. He would take bronchitis in the dog-days, and have hay-fever at Christm

t turned to neuralgia and ear-ache. He was never without a cold, except once for nine weeks while he had scarlet fever; and he always had chilblains. During the

hot-house grapes; and he would lie there and sob, because they wouldn'

fooled about in draughts, and it did us good, and freshened us up; and we took things to make us sick, and they made us fat, and gave us an appetite. Nothing we could think of seemed to make us ill until the holidays began. Then, on the br

as grass that is cut down, an

beauty in the old soup-plates, beer-mugs, and candle-snuffers that we prize so now, or if it is only the halo of age glowing around them that gives them their charms in our eyes. The "old blue" that we hang about our walls as ornaments were the common every-day household utensils of

be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside (species unkn

fully erect, its expression is amiability carried to verge of imbecility. I do not admire it myself. Considered as a work of art, I may say it irritates me. T

il broken, and will be sold for old china, and put in a glass cabinet. And people will pass it round, and admire it. They will be str

common to our eyes. So it is with that china dog. In 2288 people will gush over it. The making of such dogs will have become a lost art. Our descendants will wonder how we

ent-day roadside inn will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use them for claret cups; and travellers from

at on his back, and stuck his legs in the air. Montmorency howled, and turn

ut I did not lose my temper

what's

that f

been carefully brought up, as I know Harris has been. I was thinking of other things, and forgot, as any one might easily understand, that I was steering, and the consequence was that we had got

bright, sweet old wall; what a charming picture it would make, with the lichen creeping here, and the moss growing there, a shy young vine peeping over the top at this spot, to see what is going on upon the busy river, and the sober old ivy clustering a little farther down! There are fifty shades and tints and hues in ever

sing in the evening, when your lamp cast uncanny shadows on the panelled walls, and the echo of distant feet rang through the c

ough: but in the night, when our Mother Earth has gone to sleep, and left us waking, oh! the world seems so lonesome, and we get frightened, like children in a silent house. Then we sit and sob, and long for the gas-lit streets, and the sound of human voices, and the answering throb of human life. We feel

ap, and it was so simple that it seemed foolish-hardly worth the twopence charged for admission. Harris said he thought that map must have been g

. It's absurd to call it a maze. You keep on taking the first turning to the

, and had had about enough of it. Harris told them they could follow him, if they liked; he was just going in,

ng either in or out, or of ever seeing their home and friends again, plucked up courage at the sight of Harris and his party, and joined the procession, blessing him. Harris said he s

t it seemed a long way, and his cousin

largest in Europ

e cousin, "because we've walk

minutes ago. Harris said: "Oh, impossible!" but the woman with the baby said, "Not at all," as she herself had taken it from the child, and thrown it down there, just before she met Ha

" said one of the party, "if you

of it there was not much enthusiasm; but with regard to the advisability of going back to the entrance there was complete unanimity, and so the

what he had been aiming at; but the crowd looked d

here they were, and the map was once more consulted, and the thing

ater they were back

ple stopped there, and waited for the others to take a walk round, and come back to them. Harris drew out his map again, after a while, but the sight of it only i

s to them. But all their heads were, by this time, in such a confused whirl that they were incapable of grasping anything, and so the

them, and then he got lost. They caught sight of him, every now and then, rushing about the other side of the hedge, and he would see them, and rush to

he old keepers came back from

far as he was a judge; and we agreed that we woul