Sketches by Boz

“ It is astonishing that a purely technical sketch like this, whose humours might be relished only by such specialists as Barristers and Attorneys, who would understand the jokes levelled at the Profession, should be so well understanded of the people. All see the point of the legal satire. It is a quite a prodigy. Boz had the art, in an extraordinary degree, of thus vividly commending trade processes, professional allusions, and methods to outsiders, and making them humourous and intelligible. ”

“ In the “memoirs” this is more than supported: “The man who might have earned with ease and comfort from six to seven hundred a year, was reduced to such a dreadful state of destitution and filth . . . In fact, at one time, it was thought he might have succeeded his father.”
It is quite plain, therefore, that Boz was recalling this tragic episode. Boz remarks that pantomime actors—clowns and others “either die early or, by unnaturally taxing their bodily energies, lose prematurely their physical powers.” ”

“ The household gods of such, like Elia’s, strike a deep root.
In his descriptions of the Bardell party’s journey to Hampstead, which ended so disastrously, the art of Boz is shown as usual by supplying the notion of movement—he seems to take us along up the northern heights—we feel the pleasurable anticipations of a party of p. 64pleasure for the lower middle class. ”

“ Things utterly out of the normal always do worry me, and Bo, which was the name Graves had learned for her, was, so far as I know, unique in human experience. In appearance she was like an unusually good-looking island girl observed through the wrong end of an opera-glass, but in habit and action she was different. She would catch flies and little grasshoppers and eat them all alive and kicking, and if you teased her more than she liked her ears would flatten the way a cat's do, and she would hiss like a snapping-turtle, and show her teeth. ”

“ So I read and laugh over my Boswell in the library when the lamps are lit, buried in cushions and surrounded by every sign of civilisation, with the drawn curtains shutting out the garden and the country solitude so much disliked by both sage and disciple. Indeed, it is Bozzy who asserts that in the country the only things that make one happy are meals. "I was happy," he says, when stranded at a place called Corrichatachin in the Island of Skye, and unable to get out of it because of the rain,—"I was happy when tea came. Such I take it is the state of those who live in the country. ”

“ I raised my old gun, and partly getting the scent, he turned his head upwards, and his eyes flashed fire in my face! But afore he could spring on me, I plumped a charge into his face and eyes, and dropped him, as Aunt Polly did the tory. Then Bose made a lunge on the critter; but he warn't dead yet, and in they grappled for life or death! Then dog's hair and painter's hair flew like flax in the brake, I tell you. And then there was growling and craunching, I reckon. I see Bose was going to be worsted, and I closed in to give him a lift. ”

“ It seemed strange to see that fragrant bit of springtime in a gloomy second-hand shop so far from the country where it might have blossomed. As Bobs gazed into the shop, she was suddenly conscious of a movement within, and then, out of the shadows, she saw forms emerging. An old man with a long flowing beard and the tight black skull cap so often worn by elderly men of the East Side was pushing a wheeled chair in which reclined a frail old woman, evidently his wife. In her face there was an expression of suffering patiently borne which touched the heart of the young girl. ”

“ Bob glanced admiringly at his friend. "I believe you just wriggle by on the strength of your grin."
"Well, if you are such a believer in a grin why don't you cultivate one yourself and see how far it will carry you?" chuckled Van. "The trouble with you, Bobbie, is your conscience; you ought to be operated on for it. Why are you so afraid you won't get good marks all the time?"
"I'm not afraid; but I'd be ashamed if I didn't," was the serious reply. "I promised my father that if he'd let me come to Colversham to school I'd do my best, and I mean to. ”

“ No wonder Bozzy’s relatives got tired of his last hobby, his very subject himself got tired. “Sir,” said the sage, “you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.” Yet Bozzy knew what he was about when he stuck to his one topic. After his idol was gone, what was there for him but the bottle? It was one of the earliest recollections of Lord Jeffrey that he had assisted as a boy in putting the biographer to bed in a state of absolute unconsciousness. Next morning Boswell was told of the service rendered: he clapped the lad on the head, and complacently congratulated him. ”

“ He looked around the kitchen with a mischievous air, and stretched out his feet decorated with the defunct Boniface's slippers.
"Upon my word, this is stepping into the old man's shoes with a vengeance! And what a hearty, good-humored looking woman she is! Kind as a kitten," and he leaned forward and stroked the cat and her brood, and then patted old Bose upon the head. The widow, bringing in sundry good things, looked pleased at his attention to her dumb friends.
"It's a wonder Bose does not growl; he generally does if strangers touch him. ”

“ The side show was thus left a little short of first-class freaks. So Stetson, with his customary ingenuity, had arranged for an entirely new sensation,—Bosko, a human snake-eater,—and the attraction, which was only an experiment at first, was now one of the best drawing cards.
Like all other good things in this world, however, it had its disadvantages. Bosko had to be watched constantly. Twice he had smuggled the little black bottle which was his constant companion, when not before the public, into the pen with him. ”

“ They say there's nobody equal to him in the whole college when he chooses to settle down to work—which isn't often, to be sure. And now that terrible old man—!"
"What is he likely to do?" asked Bess, curiously but soberly.
"That's what all Brookfield was asking over the telephone last night. Nobody knows. Of course Bob hasn't done much real harm this time, but he's made a lot of men look perfectly ridiculous, and they're all furious. It's the sort of thing a certain type of man hates more than anything else, and James Mason's of that type. He'll never forgive it. ”

“ The best I can think of is a sound sleep; so good-night.' In fact, like Sir Fretful Plagiary in the Critic, Bozzy was so covetous of popularity that he would rather be abused than be not mentioned at all. Little augury, too, of success at the bar could his father find in the following portrait of his son: 'the author of the Ode to Tragedy is a most excellent man; he is of an ancient family in the west of Scotland, upon which he values himself not a little. ”

“ Snelling is a fine man, Mr. Galbraith," broke in Bob instantly, dreading the words that might follow.
"Oh, I know it—there is no question about that," the capitalist assented with haste. "Success is written all over his future, and I know he will be a son-in-law to be proud of. He and Cynthia are royally happy too, and no doubt know better than I what they want. After all, none of us can live other people's lives; each must work out his own." ”

“ Don Teodoro was silent, bending his mind upon the hideous problem. Bosio misunderstood him and spoke again without moving.
"I know," he said. "You need not speak. I know by heart all the reproaches I deserve, and I know that no human being, much less a holy man like yourself, could possibly feel anything but horror at all this—"
"I am very far from being a holy man," interrupted the priest. "If I feel horror, it is for what has been, and may be, but not for you. Bosio—" he hesitated a moment. "Will you come with me to Muro, and leave all this?" ”

“ From the dining-room, four rooms away, came the more distinct sounds of laughter and conversation.
"There is a real party out there," said Bosworth, rubbing his chin contemplatively. "I wonder what's up?"
Mr. Van Pycke sat down and twirled his thin mustache, first one side and then the other, murmuring "By Jove!" over and over again in a most perplexed way. Bosworth stood, with his chin between finger and thumb, thoughtfully viewing the inanimate group. ”

“ You are way off. Why, he's been as interested in having you with us as I have; at least he has acted so."
"Acted is just the word," Van cut in. "He has acted, all right. I guess you'll find he's been acting all the time. Honor bright, hasn't he said anything to you about me?"
"No, not one word." Then suddenly Bob flushed; the memory of his father's strange conversation about the boy's visit to the refinery rushed over him. "Dad did say one thing which I did not understand at the time," he confessed reluctantly. ”

“ If there are any happy hunting-grounds where the souls of game flee away I warrant Bose leads the pack. He was a full-blooded foxhound, deep-chested, musical, lop-eared; and he didn’t know a fox from a buff cochin. He hunted continually, but rarely on a real trail. His nose was for visions.
It was on a first day of April that we came out of the door together, and Bose took one sniff, lifted his head, bayed musically, and was off into the pasture with me following, both of us ripe for any adventure. ”

“ Sometimes when they were standing at their trough eating, he ran at them, just for the fun of seeing them run.
“I don’t think he meant to kill it,” said the grandpa.
“Very likely not,” said the father, “but I must teach him not to run at the geese. Come here, sir,” he said to Bose.
Bose felt very badly. He crawled slowly along. He couldn’t say, “I didn’t do it; please don’t whip me,” as a little boy or girl can. He could only look up to his master with soft, begging eyes. But little Patsy was looking in at the door. Little Patsy loves Bose dearly; and of all the family Bose best loves Patsy. ”

“ Thy face is black like those of the damned Saracens. You are all in league with the devil; it is the evil spirit who has led thee hither. Drive him out, and loose the dogs upon him.”
But the tender-hearted lady begged them to have mercy on the unhappy madman. Bos, pricked by his conscience, believing that everybody knew his sin, fled with his face in his hands, in horror of himself, and stayed not until he had reached a solitary bog. Night came, and the bell of Mount Campana began to toll. He heard the wheels of the faeries of the Bergonz humming. ”

“ To be sure they will not be disappointed of the popular "Bozzy," ridiculous, vain, and a little vulgar, something of a snob, of a sycophant even, with an undignified zeal for notoriety and an imperfect moral sense; but beside him they will find another Boswell, the friend of Hume and Johnson, with his passion for excellence, generous nature, good understanding, and genius for observation—a man by no means to be despised. ”

“ Our means of knowledge of James Boswell are derived mainly from himself; he is his own incriminator. In addition to the life there is the Corsican tour, the Hebrides tour, the letters to Erskine and to Temple, and a few insignificant occasional publications in the shape of letters to the people of Scotland, etc. With these before him it is impossible for any biographer to approach Bozzy in a devotional attitude; he was all Carlyle calls him. ”

“ Bosworth's indignant gaze discovered the man in the very centre of the group of "dummies." The young man experienced a queer shiver of dismay. Was he losing his senses?
A pink-cheeked gentleman with a crêpe mustache arose from a chair in the extreme background. He leveled a menacing finger, with Bosworth as the object of its concern.
"Move back from that table, gents," remarked the vivified object near the windows. The Messrs. Van Pycke fell back several paces, still staring blankly at the figure.
Bosworth gulped. "Are you—alive?" he demanded, putting his fingers to his temple.
"Alive? ”

“ Bosworth, I believe that. There are children in London who could astonish your gray hairs: drawing-room playthings that are thought of no more consequence than a shock dog, and that nestle in their mothers' hoops open-eyed and open-eared to everything that is going on about them. I wonder little Pope in all his characters has never given us the modish child. But, seriously now, Miss Bosworth here is no longer a baby; she has been growing up, Squire, while you have looked the other way. You must take her to London next November ”

“ Don Bosco had the gift of genius which might have put him on a par with the finest prose writers of Italy, had literature been his ambition. But all his beloved classics, in collegiate days so profoundly studied, so carefully imitated, were now disregarded, art for art's sake spurned, before the world's crying need of instruction and his own powerful convictions, fairly burning themselves into the paper. ”

“ Learning and charity absorbed the priest's whole life. Bosio's existence, of which Don Teodoro knew in reality nothing, had moved in the vicious circle of a single passion, which he could never acknowledge, and which excluded, for common caution's sake, anything like intimacy with other men. But Bosio had not ceased to look upon the priest as the best man he had ever known, and in spite of his own errings, he was still quite able to appreciate goodness in others ”