Old drinking-glasses, with tall stalks. A black glass
bottle, stamped with the name of Philip English, with a broad bottom.
The baby-linen, etc., of Governor Bradford of Plymouth County. Old
manuscript sermons, some written in short-hand, others in a hand that
seems learnt from print.
Nothing gives a stronger idea of old worm-eaten aristocracy--of a family
being crazy with age, and of its being time that it was extinct--than
these black, dusty, faded, antique-dressed portraits, such as those of
the Oliver family; the identical old white wig of an ancient minister
producing somewhat the impression that his very scalp, or some other
portion of his personal self, would do.
The excruciating agonies which Nature inflicts on men (who break her
laws) to be represented as the work of human tormentors; as the gout, by
screwing the toes. Thus we might find that worse than the tortures of
the Spanish Inquisition are daily suffered without exciting notice.
Suppose a married couple fondly attached to one another, and to think
that they lived solely for one another; then it to be found out that they
were divorced, or that they might separate if they chose.
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