Читать книгу Reveries of a Bachelor; or, A Book of the Heart онлайн

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When Ned spoke of love, she staved it off with the prettiest of sly looks that only bewildered him the more. A charming creature to be sure; coy as a dove!

So he went on, poor fool, until one day—he told me of it with the blood mounting to his temples, and his eye shooting flame—he suffered his feelings to run out in passionate avowal—entreaty—everything. She gave a pleasant, noisy laugh, and manifested—such pretty surprise!

He was looking for the intense glow of passion; and lo, there was nothing but the shifting sparkle of a sea-coal flame.

I wrote him a letter of condolence—for I was his senior by a year; “My dear fellow,” said I, “diet yourself; you can find greens at the uptown market; eat a little fish with your dinner; abstain from heating drinks; don’t put too much butter to your cauliflower; read one of Jeremy Taylor’s sermons, and translate all the quotations at sight; run carefully over that exquisite picture of George Dandin in your Molière, and my word for it, in a week you will be a sound man.”