MihaElla > Recent Status Updates

As long ago as 1860 it was the proper thing to be born at home […]
The Buttons held an enviable position,both social and financial,in ante-bellum Baltimore.They were related to the This Family & the That Family,which,as every Southerner knew,entitled them to membership in that enormous peerage which largely populated the Confederacy.This was their first experience with the charming old custom of having babies—

"...Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in the administration... Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? "

“Are you looking for the silent man?” said another turnkey passing me. “Yonder he lies—sleeping in the yard there. ’Tis not twenty minutes since I saw him lie down.”
The yard was entirely quiet. It was not accessible to the common prisoners.
Strangely huddled at the base of the wall, his knees drawn up, and lying on his side, his head touching the cold stones, I saw the wasted Bartleby. But nothing stirred.”

Well then,would you like to travel through the country collecting bills for the merchants?That would improve your health
No, I would prefer to be doing something else
How then would going as a companion to Europe,to entertain some young gentleman with your conversation,—how would that suit you?
Not at all.It does not strike me that there is any thing definite about that.I like to be stationary.But I am not particular

“Nevertheless, next morning, upon awakening, I had my doubts,—I had somehow slept off the fumes of vanity. One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.”

He lives,then,on ginger-nuts,thought I; never eats a dinner,properly speaking;he must be a vegetarian then;but no;he never eats even vegetables,he eats nothing but ginger-nuts.My mind then ran on in reveries concerning the probable effects upon the human constitution of living entirely on ginger-nuts.Ginger-nuts are so called because they contain ginger as one of their peculiar constituents,& the final flavoring one

“At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents. There was no pause for digestion. He ran a day and night line, copying by sun-light and by candle-light. I should have been quite delighted with his application, had he been cheerfully industrious. But he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically.”

No wonder, while able, that she was always writing, since thus only of late could she employ that time, which heretofore, from the long days she made, caused so many beautiful works to spring from her fingers. It is my opinion, that there never was a woman so young, who wrote so much, and with such celerity.

“I never heard of such a woman in my life. What great matters has she suffered, that grief should kill her thus?
I wish the poor fellow had never known her. From first to last, what troubles she has cost him! The charming fellow has been half lost to us ever since he pursued her. And what is there in one woman more than another, for matter of that?”

And now, sir, when I survey this long letter, [Note: And here, by way of note, permit me to say, that no sermon I ever composed cost me half the pains that this letter hath done—but I knew your great appetite after, as well as admiration of, the ancient wisdom, which you so justly prefer to the modern—and indeed I join with you to think, that the modern is only borrowed, (as the moon doth its light from the sun)

“I pretend to be (now by use) the swiftest shorthand writer in England, next to yourself. But were matter to arise every hour to write upon, and I had nothing else to do, I cannot write so fast as you expect. And let it be remembered, that your servants cannot bring letters or messages before they are written or sent.

J. Belford.”

“There is something owing to constitution, I own; and that this is the laughing-time of my life. For what a woe must that be, which for an hour together can mortify a man of six or seven-and-twenty, in high blood and spirits, of a naturally gay disposition; who can sing, dance, and scribble, and take and give delight in them all?”

“The dear soul used to love humour. I remember the time that she knew how to smile at a piece of a-propos humour. And, let me tell thee, a smile upon the lips, or a sparkling in the eye, must have had its correspondent cheerfulness in a heart so sincere as hers.”

“A jest I call all that has passed between her and me; a mere jest to die for—For has not her triumph over me, from first to last, been infinitely greater than her sufferings from me?”

“While I waited for a chair, Mrs Smith came down, and told me that there were devices and inscriptions upon the lid. Lord bless me! is a coffin a proper subject to display fancy upon?—But these great minds cannot avoid doing extraordinary things!”

I, in a manner, am stunned 😳 know not why, except, at the unusualness of the thing

“I love to do everything for myself that I can do. I ever did.”

Wow! This young lady outdid herself: she ordered a coffin and they brought it to her room during day time. A shocking scene to all… Well, I guess that’s a very extensive meaning for “I love to do everything for myself that I can do…”!

[…] She is to send me a letter after she is in Heaven, is she? The devil take such allegories, and the devil take thee for calling this absurdity an innocent artifice!

Nor think me, my dear cousin, blameable for refusing him. I had given Mr Lovelace no reason to think me a weak creature. If I had, a man of his character might have thought himself warranted to endeavour to take ungenerous advantage of the weakness he had been able to inspire. The consciousness of my own weakness (in that case) might have brought me to a composition with his wickedness.

One word more as to a matter of erudition, which you greatly love to hear me start and dwell upon. Dr Lewen once, in your presence, (as you, my good patron, cannot but remember,) in a smartish kind of debate between him and me, took upon him to censure the parenthetical style, as I call it. He was a very learned and judicious man, to be sure, and an ornament to our function;

The length of my letter you will excuse; for I need not tell you, sir, what narrative, complex, and conversation letters (such a one as mine) require. Every one to his talent. Letter-writing is mine, I will be bold to say; and that my correspondence was much coveted at the university, on that account, by tyros, and even by sophs, when I was hardly a soph myself.

Yet she goeth often out in a chair, to prayers (as it is said.) But my friend's wife told me, that nothing is more common in London, than that the frequenting of the church at morning prayers is made the pretence and cover for private assignations. What a sad thing is this! that what was designed for wholesome nourishment to the poor soul, should be turned into rank poison!

Charlotte, in a whim of delicacy, is displeased that I send the enclosed letter to you—that her hand-writing, forsooth! should go into the hands of a single man!
There's encouragement for thee, Belford! This is a certain sign that thou may'st have her if thou wilt. And yet, till she had given me this unerring demonstration of her glancing towards thee, I could not have thought it.

Returned without a letter!—This d—d fellow is returned without a letter!—Yet tells me that he hears you have been writing to me these two days!
Plague confound thee,who must know my impatience, and the reason for it!
To send a man & horse on purpose;as I did! My imagination chained to the belly of the beast,in order to keep pace with him!—Now he is got to this place; now to that; now to London; now to thee!

And thus am I blamed for every one's faults!—When her brutal father curses her, it is I. I upbraid her with her severe mother. The implacableness of her stupid uncles is all mine. The virulence of her brother, and the spite and envy of her sister, are entirely owing to me. The letter of this rascal Brand is of my writing—O Jack, what a wretch is thy Lovelace!

Col. Such an artifice would better become the Italian subtilty than the English simplicity. Your lordship has been in Italy, I presume?

Lovel. My lord has read Boccacio, perhaps; and that's as well, as to the hint he gives, which may be borrowed from one of that author's stories. But Miss Clarissa Harlowe is above all artifice. She must have some meaning I cannot fathom.

So thou seest, Belford, that it is but glossing over one part of a story, and omitting another, that will make a bad cause a good one at any time. What an admirable lawyer should I have made! And what a poor hand would this charming creature, with all her innocence, have made of it in a court of justice against a man, who had so much to say and to show for himself!

Lord M. But what is all this, but more sacks upon the mill? more coals upon the fire? You have a mind to quarrel both of you, I see that. Are you not willing—nephew, are you not most willing, to marry this lady, if she can be prevailed upon to have you?

Lovel. D—n me, my lord, if I'd marry an empress upon such treatment as this.

He said, that men had generally too many advantages, from the weakness, credulity, and inexperience of the fair sex; that their early learning, which chiefly consisted in inflaming novels, and idle and improbable romances, contributed to enervate and weaken their minds;

What I mean by all this,is,to let thee see what a stupid figure I shall make to all my own family,if my Clarissa has been capable,as Gulliver in his abominable Yahoo story phrases it,of saying the thing that is not.By my soul,Jack,if it were only that I should be outwitted by such a novice at plotting,& that it would make me look silly to my kinswomen here,who know I value myself upon my contrivances,

But, madam, were all the world to have been of a different opinion, it could never have altered mine. I ever loved you; I ever must love you. Yet have I endeavoured to resign to my hard fate. When I had so many ways, in vain, sought to move you in my favour, I sat down seemingly contented. I even wrote to you that I would sit down contented. And I endeavoured to make all my friends and companions think I was.