He Had The
Talk To Himself That Night, We Were All So Glad To Listen.
The
best talkers usually address themselves to some particular society;
there they are kings, elsewhere camp-followers, as a
Man may know
Russian and yet be ignorant of Spanish; but this fellow had a
frank, headlong power of style, and a broad, human choice of
subject, that would have turned any circle in the world into a
circle of hearers. He was a Homeric talker, plain, strong, and
cheerful; and the things and the people of which he spoke became
readily and clearly present to the minds of those who heard him.
This, with a certain added colouring of rhetoric and rodomontade,
must have been the style of Burns, who equally charmed the ears of
duchesses and hostlers.
Yet freely and personally as he spoke, many points remained obscure
in his narration. The Engineers, for instance, was a service which
he praised highly; it is true there would be trouble with the
sergeants; but then the officers were gentlemen, and his own, in
particular, one among ten thousand. It sounded so far exactly like
an episode in the rakish, topsy-turvy life of such an one as I had
imagined. But then there came incidents more doubtful, which
showed an almost impudent greed after gratuities, and a truly
impudent disregard for truth. And then there was the tale of his
departure. He had wearied, it seems, of Woolwich, and one fine
day, with a companion, slipped up to London for a spree.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 58 of 262
Words from 15240 to 15496
of 70588
