Phœnixiana; Or, Sketches and Burlesques

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D. Appleton & Company, 1870 - California - 274 pages

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Page 76 - Ligeia! Ligeia! My beautiful one! Whose harshest idea Will to melody run, O! is it thy will On the breezes to toss? Or, capriciously still, Like the lone Albatross, Incumbent on night (As she on the air) To keep watch with delight On the harmony there?
Page 86 - How sharper than a serpent's thanks it is to have a toothless child," as Pope beautifully remarks in his Paradise Lost. One individual characterized my letter as
Page 47 - ... consisting of seven families, with forty-six wagons, each drawn by thirteen oxen; each family consists of a man in butternutcolored clothing driving the oxen; a wife in butternut-colored clothing riding in the wagon, holding a butternut baby, and seventeen butternut children running promiscuously about the establishment; all are barefooted, dusty, and smell unpleasantly. (All these circumstances are expressed by pretty rapid fiddling for some minutes, winding up with a puff from the orpheclide,...
Page 34 - I have abandoned the use of their language, in the belief that for me it is hyas. cultus., or as the Spaniard hath it, no me vale nada. Despairing, therefore, of making new discoveries in foreign languages, I have set myself seriously to work to reform our own ; and have, I think, made an important discovery, which, when developed into a system and universally adopted, will give a precision of expression, and a consequent clearness of idea, that will leave little to be desired, and will, I modestly...
Page 26 - OLD Mother Hubbard Went to the cupboard, To get her poor dog a bone: But when she got there The cupboard was bare, And so the poor dog had none.
Page 36 - ' hair was getting very thin on the top," placed in my hand one of the yellow-covered books, which I found to be an almanac containing anecdotes about the virtues of Dodge's Hair Invigorator, and recommending it to my perusal, he remarked that he was agent for the sale of this wonderful fluid, and urged me to purchase a bottle — price two dollars. Stating my willingness to do so, the Professor produced it from a hair trunk that stood in a corner of the room, which he stated, by the way, was originally...
Page 33 - Smith's health, for he has made the same reply to me on a hundred different occasions, on every one of which there must have been some slight shade of difference in his physical economy, and of course a corresponding change in his feelings. To a man of a mathematical turn of mind — to a student and lover of the exact sciences, these inaccuracies of expression — this inability to understand exactly how things are, must be a constant source of annoyance ; and to one who, like myself, unites this...
Page 114 - We rose, and with an unfaltering voice said: "Well, Judge, how do you do?" He made no reply, but commenced taking off his coat. We removed ours, also our cravat. ******** ******** The sixth and last round, is described by the pressman and compositors, as having been fearfully scientific. We held "the Judge" down over the Press by our nose (which we had inserted between his teeth for that purpose), and while our hair was employed in holding one of his hands, we held the other in our left, and with...
Page 195 - O Woman ! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made, When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou ! — Scarce were the piteous accents said, When, with the Baron's casque, the maid To the nigh streamlet ran.
Page 112 - I was well aware of all this, and have been as dull and prosy as possible to avoid it. Very little news will be found in the Herald this week: the fact is, there never is much news in it, and it is very well that it is so; the climate here is so delightful that residents, in the enjoyment of their dolce far niente, care very little about what is going on elsewhere, and residents in other places care very little about what is going on in San Diego, so all parties are likely to be gratified with the...

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