Had Sydney Smith Ever Been At Rolla
He Would Have Written Differently.
I could tell at great length how
I fell on my face in the icy snow, how my friend
Stuck in the frozen
mud when he essayed to jump the stream, and how our guide walked on
easily in advance, encouraging us with his voice from a distance.
Why is it that a stout Englishman bordering on fifty finds himself
in such a predicament as that? No Frenchman, no Italian, no German
would so place himself, unless under the stress of insurmountable
circumstances. No American would do so under any circumstances. As
I slipped about on the ice and groaned with that terrible fardle on
my back, burdened with a dozen shirts, and a suit of dress clothes,
and three pair of boots, and four or five thick volumes, and a set
of maps, and a box of cigars, and a washing tub, I confessed to
myself that I was a fool. What was I doing in such a galley as
that? Why had I brought all that useless lumber down to Rolla? Why
had I come to Rolla, with no certain hope even of shelter for a
night? But we did reach the hotel; we did get a room between us
with two bedsteads. And pondering over the matter in my mind, since
that evening, I have been inclined to think that the stout
Englishman is in the right of it. No American of my age and weight
will ever go through what I went through then, but I am not sure
that he does not in his accustomed career go through worse things
even than that.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 160 of 531
Words from 42685 to 42964
of 142339
