St. Landry democrat., 1885-01-10
MORNING MUSINGS.
A Romantic Love Story. Told in
SIX soliloquies.
soLMoQUY THE FIRST.

sOLmOQUY THE FIRST.
Heigho! So this is London, and
smoky, foggy, dismal metropolis it is,
to say the least of it.
Reminds me Of young Sirnpkins of
our class who undertook to write an
:apostrophe to the ocean, la Byron
and completed one line: e'Oh, thou pro-
.digious dampness!" Simpkins stuck
there and couldn't get any further, but
there is no such limit to London damp
ness.
By the great ponds of Michigan, the
air here seems to hold water in solution!
One runs a risk of being drowned in
breathing!
suppose this is what Mr.. Guppy
called London Particular but with
all due respect, I don't think London is
particular, or she wouldn't have such
an atmosphere.
Fine showing, this, for an April morn
ing! Ho, hum! / really must get up
and commence my pilgrimage,
/ can't understand why Ishould have
started on this European tour, and con-
-demned myself to wandering about
looking at things / don't want to see,
climbing mountains / don't want to
climb, rummaging around through
nasty streets where / don't want to rum
mage, and inhaling odors that I de-
,cidedly object to. What is the use now
of my doing London and subjecting
myself to fatigue, odors and 'ackney
coaches when can accomplish it all so
! much more pleasantly with one of Dick
lens novels at home in hammock, or
drifting down the Chesapeake? Ican't
understand why should want to see
the Tower because the Princes were
murdered there, nor the Avon because
Shakespeare was born there, nor hum
.dred and one other places because
something was done or wasn't done
there! If a man tells me his father was
hanged, am quite satisfied to believe
him without rushing off Immediately to
see the place and bring away piece Of
the gaIlows. or shred of the rope.
Thank Heaven, when I'm through
with London my occupations gone,
sI1llSk Cttl ~ III pGhSCs NOL1-
stantinople, Venice, Rome, Switzer-
land, Paris done them all, and
pretty thoroughly, | hope, though my
people at home will be sure to think OF
some COMPOUNDED place that ought to
have seen, but didn't see. Something
that have omitted which they have
been dying to see for goodness knows
how long!
Think I'd better coach up on the
guide-book, and-that reminds me, /
gave mine away to the pretty girl
whom I rescued in Venice from the
gondoliers those fellows are as bad as
London ackneY coachmen and who
was so charmingly grateful. She said
= she hoped we might meet again, and
she was ever SO much obliged to me,
and it was so nice to meet a country
man, for she was AmericanI would
have known that if she had stopped
after nice and a great deal more to
the same effect, and in the sweetest
voice and with the cordial eonfding
way which belongs alone to our girls.
Bless 'emi Shook hands with me,
smiled more in her soft gray eyes than
with her lips, gave me her card and left
me standing there with my hat of, a
spectacle for those rascally boatmen!
Made memorandum on blank leaf
of my guide-book to this effect:
ssFretbiest picture in Venice. Study
In gray. Gray eyes, gray robe, name
GRAY. Worth fortune, but by the
right person to be had for the asking.
IN. B.-Would that dared to ask. =
Then I gave the nearest gondolier
swenty-franc piece to oYertake her and
retrieve to manemoiselle the book she
did neglect And that's all.
BY Joye, I must get up!
soLMooUY THE SECOND.
Three weeks In London! Well,
london ism so bad after all, and I'm
feaIly interested in hunting up queer
faces.