boys, have signed with tears an address to Lord Shaftesbury, and
subscribed to a ragged school. No wonder! For, they might turn
their heavy maces into crooks and tend sheep in the Arcade, to the
purling of the water-carts as they give the thirsty streets much
more to drink than they can carry.
A happy Golden Age, and a serene tranquillity. Charming picture,
but it will fade. The iron age will return, London will come back
to town, if I show my tongue then in Saville-row for half a minute
I shall be prescribed for, the Doctor’s man and the Dentist’s man
will then pretend that these days of unprofessional innocence never
existed. Where Mr. and Mrs. Klem and their bed will be at that
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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
time, passes human knowledge; but my hatter hermitage will then
know them no more, nor will it then know me. The desk at which I
have written these meditations will retributively assist at the
making out of my account, and the wheels of gorgeous carriages and
the hoofs of high-stepping horses will crush the silence out of
Bond-street – will grind Arcadia away, and give it to the elements
in granite powder.
CHAPTER XVII – THE ITALIAN PRISONER
The rising of the Italian people from under their unutterable
wrongs, and the tardy burst of day upon them after the long long
night of oppression that has darkened their beautiful country, have
naturally caused my mind to dwell often of late on my own small
wanderings in Italy. Connected with them, is a curious little
drama, in which the character I myself sustained was so very
subordinate that I may relate its story without any fear of being
suspected of self-display. It is strictly a true story.
I am newly arrived one summer evening, in a certain small town on
the Mediterranean. I have had my dinner at the inn, and I and the
mosquitoes are coming out into the streets together. It is far
from Naples; but a bright, brown, plump little woman-servant at the
inn, is a Neapolitan, and is so vivaciously expert in panto-mimic
action, that in the single moment of answering my request to have a
pair of shoes cleaned which I have left up-stairs, she plies
imaginary brushes, and goes completely through the motions of
polishing the shoes up, and laying them at my feet. I smile at the
brisk little woman in perfect satisfaction with her briskness; and
the brisk little woman, amiably pleased with me because I am
pleased with her, claps her hands and laughs delightfully. We are
in the inn yard. As the little woman’s bright eyes sparkle on the
cigarette I am smoking, I make bold to offer her one; she accepts
it none the less merrily, because I touch a most charming little
dimple in her fat cheek, with its light paper end. Glancing up at
the many green lattices to assure herself that the mistress is not
looking on, the little woman then puts her two little dimple arms
a-kimbo, and stands on tiptoe to light her cigarette at mine. ‘And
now, dear little sir,’ says she, puffing out smoke in a most
innocent and cherubic manner, ‘keep quite straight on, take the
first to the right and probably you will see him standing at his
door.’
I gave a commission to ‘him,’ and I have been inquiring about him.
I have carried the commission about Italy several months. Before I
left England, there came to me one night a certain generous and
gentle English nobleman (he is dead in these days when I relate the
story, and exiles have lost their best British friend), with this
request: ‘Whenever you come to such a town, will you seek out one
Giovanni Carlavero, who keeps a little wine-shop there, mention my
name to him suddenly, and observe how it affects him?’ I accepted
the trust, and am on my way to discharge it.
The sirocco has been blowing all day, and it is a hot unwholesome
evening with no cool sea-breeze. Mosquitoes and fire-flies are
lively enough, but most other creatures are faint. The coquettish
airs of pretty young women in the tiniest and wickedest of dolls’