Potting

“ Potts had gracefully described as "the golden age of Pericles."
To the end of his days he should be blithely, naïvely Greek; a dog of wretched field manners, pointing cattle and quail impartially, shamefully gun-shy, inconsequent, volatile, ignorant, forever paganly joyous without due cause. For him I should do what no one had been able to do for me—detain him in that "world of fine fabling" where everything is true that ought to be; where the earth is a running course, fascinating in its surprises of open road and tangled hedgerow; where mere indiscriminate smelling is keenest ecstasy ”

“ The tory perceived the fainting of his heart, and laughed:
"I never did harm to you or yours, Dan Potts," he said; "but you shall never say so more. You would sell the blood of a dying man—you must first win it."
With that, he relaxed his grasp on the raftsman's right hand, as if for the purpose of seizing him by the throat; and Potts took instant advantage of the motion, to snatch his knife from its sheath. The motion was a trick of juggling, such as the outlaw had learned among the red associates of his boyhood, and perhaps practised in similar encounters before. ”

“ Pott’s person was a bodyguard of one, a young lady whose ostensible employment was to preside over her toilet, but who rendered herself useful in a variety of ways, and in none more so than in the particular department of constantly aiding and abetting her mistress in every wish and inclination opposed to the desires of the unhappy Pott. ”

“ If I be pushed to the avowal, I am sorry it is Potts. Algernon Sydney do a deal, but they can't do everything,—not to say that captious folk see a certain bathos in the collocation with my surname. Can a man hope to make such a name illustrious? Can be aspire to the notion of a time when people will allude to the great Potts, the celebrated Potts, the immortal Potts? ”

“ How guarded should we be not to suffer ourselves to be fascinated by the captivations of manner and the insinuating charms of address! If Potts had been less prepossessing in appearance, less gifted and agreeable,—if, instead of being a consummate man of the world, with the breeding of a courtier and the knowledge of a scholar, he had been a pedantic puppy with a lisp and a Dublin accent—” Oh, ignominy and disgrace! these were the very words of the priest in describing me, which came so aptly to my memory, and I grew actually sick with shame as I recalled them. ”

“ What would you say if a person named Potts were to make the offer of his hand? I mean, if he were a man in all respects acceptable, a gentleman captivating in manner and address, agreeable in person, graceful and accomplished,—what would you reply to his advances?”
“Really, sir, I am shocked to think of the humble opinion I may be conveying of my sense and judgment, but I'm afraid I should tell him it is impossible I could ever permit myself to be called Mrs. Potts.” ”

“ Can't I recover damages for assault and battery from Potts? What I chopped off belonged to me, recollect. I owned an undivided half of that setter pup, from the tip of his tail clear up to his third rib, and I had a right to cut away as much of it as I'd a mind to; while Potts, being sole owner of the dog's head, is responsible when he bites anybody, or when he barks at nights. ”

“ Am I to be great in Art, or illustrious in Letters? Is there to be an ice tract of Behring's Straits called Potts's Point, or a planet styled Pottsium Sidus? And when centuries have rolled over, will historians have their difficulty about the first Potts, and what his opinions were on this subject or that?”
Then came a low soft sound of half-suppressed laughter, and then the rustle of a muslin dress hastily brushing through the trees. I rushed out from my retreat, and hurried down the walk. No one to be seen,—not a soul ”

“ It was at this time, I remember, that the Argus first spoke of our town as "a gem at beauty's throat," and, touching the rare enterprise of our citizens, declared that, "If you put a Slocum County man astride a streak of lightning, he'd call for a pair of spurs."
For myself, I frankly mourned Potts. For I saw now that he had been truly and finely of that Greek spirit—one accepting gifts from the gods with a joyous young faith in their continuance. I felt that he had divined more of the lesson of Greek art than his one-time love could write down in papers unending. ”

“ It was only a few minutes before this passage occurred, that I said to myself, “Potts, here is one whose frank, fresh, generous nature claims all your respect and devotion. No nonsense of your being this, that, and t'other here. Be truthful and be honest; neither pretend to be man of fortune nor man of fashion; own fairly to her by what chance you adventured upon this strange life; tell her, in a word, you are the son of Potts,—Potts the 'pothecary,—and neither a hero nor a plenipotentiary!” ”

“ Pott, masculine, ‘pot,’ a Low German word; compare Dutch pot, English pot, and the equivalent Scandinavian pottr. From the Teutonic cognates are derived those of French pot and Spanish pote. The Teutonic word is said to be of Keltic origin; compare Welsh pot, Gaelic poit. Topf is not akin. —
Pottasche, feminine, equivalent to English potash; hence French potasse, Italian potassa.
Pracht, feminine, ‘state, pomp, magnificence,’ from Middle High German and Old High German praht, braht, masculine and feminine, ‘noise, shouting.’ The evolution in meaning is similar to that of hell ”

“ Rare indeed, in our earth life, would be the crisis unmet by this treasury of knowledge. Not only was there an elevation of tone in our correspondence that winter, resulting from the persuasive activities of Mrs. Potts, but our writing became decorative with flourishes in "the muscular" and "whole-arm" movements. We learned to draw flying birds and bounding deer and floating swans with scrolls in their beaks, all without lifting pen from paper. Some of us learned to do it almost as well as the accomplished Mr. Gaskell himself, and almost all of us showed marked improvement in penmanship. ”

“ In doing so, I must needs throw off all disguises and mockeries, and be Potts, the very creature she sneered at, the man whose mere name was enough to suggest a vulgar life and a snob's nature! No matter what misery it may give, I will do it manfully. She may never appreciate—the world at large may never appreciate—what noble motives were hidden beneath these assumed natures, mere costumes as they were, to impart more vigor and persuasiveness to sentiments which, uttered in the undress of Potts, would have carried no convictions with them. ”

“ Toss-pot then pretends to take a long draught from a huge quart-pot, and, reeling about, tries to create laughter by tumbling over as many boys as he can. A miser next enters, who is generally a boy dressed up as an old woman in tattered rags, with his face blackened. ”

“ Pott, in a soft voice.
‘Ma’am,’ said Goodwin.
‘If you only knew how I have loved that man—’ ‘Don’t distress yourself by recollecting it, ma’am,’ said the bodyguard.
Pott looked very frightened. It was time to finish him.
‘And now,’ sobbed Mrs. Pott, ‘now, after all, to be treated in this way; to be reproached and insulted in the presence of a third party, and that party almost a stranger. But I will not submit to it! Goodwin,’ continued Mrs. Pott, raising herself in the arms of her attendant, ‘my brother, the lieutenant, shall interfere. ”

“ Potts seating himself limply on the steps and fanning himself with his broad straw hat—a hat that in its very largeness and looseness seemed to express the inflexible ideals of non-conformity—while Mrs. Potts, very firmly busked and bridled, her head very sleek, her smile very tight, took a chair between Mrs. Upton and Sir Basil, and soon showed, in her whole demeanor, a consciousness of the latter's small titular decoration that placed her more definitely for Imogen's eye than she had ever been placed before. The Pottses were middle-class with a vengeance. ”

“ Rejecting upon those benign ends which the gods chose to make him serve, I can but marvel how lightly each of us may meet and scorn a casual Potts, unrecking his gracious and predestined office in the play of Fate. ”

“ For a certain Potts, a creature who, in reality, had no existence; “For who is Potts?” said I. “Potts is no more a substance than Caleb Williams or Peregrine Pickle; Potts is the lay figure that the artist dresses in any costume he requires—a Rachero to-day, a Railway Director to-morrow. What an absurdity in the importance we lend to mere names! Here, for instance, I take the label off the port, and I hang it round the neck of the claret decanter: have I changed the quality of the vintage? have I brought Bordeaux to the meridian of Oporto? ”

“ The bar of the City Hotel is next the office. A door is open between them with a wooden screen standing before it. In side the carouse raged, while we, who had thought to set Potts at large, listened and wondered. The taller among us could overlook the screen. We beheld Potts, one elbow resting on the bar, his other hand with the cane in it waving forward his unreluctant train, while he loudly inquired if there were drink to be had suitable for a gentleman who was prepared to spend his money like a lord. ”

“ Potts, enthroned upon a big box in front, among bolts of muslin, straw hats, and bunches of innocent early lettuce, read the splendid tribute of the store's proprietor to his capacity as an expert in jurisprudence and his fitness for a seat of judicial honor. The bank and Chislett's being still closed, the little street, except in the near vicinity of Potts, began to sleep in a strange calm.
There were other doors to conquer, however, and Potts, at the head of his Argus-waving crowd of degenerates, vanquished them all. ”

“ Pott, raising his voice, and then suddenly depressing it; “I said, Serpent, sir—make the most of it.”
When you have parted with a man, at two o’clock in the morning, on terms of the utmost good-fellowship, and he meets you again, at half-past nine, and greets you as a serpent, it is not unreasonable to conclude that something of an unpleasant nature has occurred meanwhile. So Mr. Winkle thought. He returned Mr. Pott’s gaze of stone, and in compliance with that gentleman’s request, proceeded to make the most he could of the “serpent.” ”

“ He folded his arms, and said nothing.
“You appear to have been mistaken in your man,” said the stranger, coolly. “These are not your servants; they’re mine. Shall I tell them to seize you?”
Potts glared at him with bloodshot eyes, but said nothing.
“Shall I tell them to pull up your sleeve and display the mark of Bowhani, Sir? Shall I tell who and what you are? Shall I begin from your birth and give them a full and complete history of your life?”
Potts looked around like a wild beast in the arena, seeking for some opening for escape, but finding nothing except hostile faces. ”

“ PottersPotters yet more Inferior, may not wear any Doublets, nor their Cloth much below the Knee, nor sit on Stools, neither will any eat with them. But they have this Privilege, because they make the Pots, that when they are athirst being at a Hondrew’s House, they may take his Pot, which hath a Pipe to it, and pour the Water into their mouths themselves: which none other of these inferior degrees may be admitted to do: but they must hold their hands to their mouths and gape, and the Hondrews themselves will pour the Water in. ”

“ Now, what do you think about it?"
"Well," said the colonel, "I can hardly decide so important a question off-hand; but at the first glance my opinion is that you own the whole dog, and that Potts also owns the whole dog. So when he bites you, a suit won't lie against Potts, and the only thing you can do to obtain justice is to make the dog bite Potts also. As for the tail, when it is separated from the dog it is no longer the dog's tail, and it is not worth fighting about." ”

“ Can we not imagine how young Potts led Miss Glycerina Crimpington for a stroll by the sounding sea, and directed her attention to the magnificent crests of the billows, fresh from the curling-tongs of Nature, tumbling over one another, and doubling themselves into such exquisite "frizettes" and "waterfalls" that they were enough to excite envy in the breast of any young lady, especially if she happened to be a hair-dresser's daughter. ”

“ Putting on the big pot means empty boasting and big talk. Like a woman who claps a large pot of water on the fire to boil a weeny little bit of meat—which she keeps out of sight—pretending she has launa-vaula, lashings and leavings, full and plenty. ”

“ Potts, my landlady, who is, I believe, a most trustworthy woman, you will find on inquiry of her that, on the night of the escape, the clock had just struck eleven as I reached home. Mrs. Potts, will remember the circumstance, because, a minute or two after going indoors, I heard her fastening up the house as usual, and I called over the banisters to ask her the time, my watch having stopped for want of winding up. ”

“ We might begin by imagining Potts in search of this, that, or t'other,—love, happiness, solitude, climate, scenery, anything, in short. Let us fancy him on a journey, try and personate him; that would be the real way. Do you, for instance, be Potts, and I 'll be his sister Susan. It will be the best fun in the world, as we go along, to see everything, note everything, and discuss everything Potts-wise. ”

“ But Clem came now, ranging my breakfast dishes about the bowl of plum flowers, and I approached the table with all the ardor he could have wished at his softly spoken, "Yo' is suhved, Mahstah Majah."
The sight of Clem, however, inevitably suggests the person to whom I am indebted for his sustaining ministrations. Potts had been a necessary instrument in one of those complications which the gods devise among us human ephemera for their mild amusement on a day of ennui. And Potts, having served his purpose, had been neatly removed. ”