some disorder simulating apoplexy, and occasioned by the surcharge
of nose and brain with lukewarm dish-water holding in solution sour
flour, poisonous condiments, and (say) seventy-five per cent. of
miscellaneous kitchen stuff rolled into balls, we were inclined to
trace his disorder to that source. On the other hand, there was a
silent anguish upon him too strongly resembling the results
established within ourselves by the sherry, to be discarded from
Page 211
Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
alarmed consideration. Again, we observed him, with terror, to be
much overcome by our sole’s being aired in a temporary retreat
close to him, while the waiter went out (as we conceived) to see
his friends. And when the curry made its appearance he suddenly
retired in great disorder.
In fine, for the uneatable part of this little dinner (as
contradistinguished from the undrinkable) we paid only seven
shillings and sixpence each. And Bullfinch and I agreed
unanimously, that no such ill-served, ill-appointed, ill-cooked,
nasty little dinner could be got for the money anywhere else under
the sun. With that comfort to our backs, we turned them on the
dear old Temeraire, the charging Temeraire, and resolved (in the
Scotch dialect) to gang nae mair to the flabby Temeraire.
CHAPTER XXXIV – MR. BARLOW
A great reader of good fiction at an unusually early age, it seems
to me as though I had been born under the superintendence of the
estimable but terrific gentleman whose name stands at the head of
my present reflections. The instructive monomaniac, Mr. Barlow,
will be remembered as the tutor of Master Harry Sandford and Master
Tommy Merton. He knew everything, and didactically improved all
sorts of occasions, from the consumption of a plate of cherries to
the contemplation of a starlight night. What youth came to without
Mr. Barlow was displayed in the history of Sandford and Merton, by
the example of a certain awful Master Mash. This young wretch wore
buckles and powder, conducted himself with insupportable levity at
the theatre, had no idea of facing a mad bull single-handed (in
which I think him less reprehensible, as remotely reflecting my own
character), and was a frightful instance of the enervating effects
of luxury upon the human race.
Strange destiny on the part of Mr. Barlow, to go down to posterity
as childhood’s experience of a bore! Immortal Mr. Barlow, boring
his way through the verdant freshness of ages!
My personal indictment against Mr. Barlow is one of many counts. I
will proceed to set forth a few of the injuries he has done me.
In the first place, he never made or took a joke. This
insensibility on Mr. Barlow’s part not only cast its own gloom over
my boyhood, but blighted even the sixpenny jest-books of the time;
for, groaning under a moral spell constraining me to refer all
things to Mr. Barlow, I could not choose but ask myself in a
whisper when tickled by a printed jest, ‘What would HE think of it?
What would HE see in it?’ The point of the jest immediately became
a sting, and stung my conscience. For my mind’s eye saw him
stolid, frigid, perchance taking from its shelf some dreary Greek
book, and translating at full length what some dismal sage said
(and touched up afterwards, perhaps, for publication), when he
banished some unlucky joker from Athens.
The incompatibility of Mr. Barlow with all other portions of my
young life but himself, the adamantine inadaptability of the man to
my favourite fancies and amusements, is the thing for which I hate
him most. What right had he to bore his way into my Arabian
Nights? Yet he did. He was always hinting doubts of the veracity
of Sindbad the Sailor. If he could have got hold of the Wonderful
Lamp, I knew he would have trimmed it and lighted it, and delivered
Page 212
Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
a lecture over it on the qualities of sperm-oil, with a glance at
the whale fisheries. He would so soon have found out – on
mechanical principles – the peg in the neck of the Enchanted Horse,
and would have turned it the right way in so workmanlike a manner,