THE HONORABLE PETER STIRLING and WHAT PEOPLE THOUGHT OF HIM by PAUL LEICESTER FORD Stitt Publishing Company New York Henry Holt & Co. 1894 TABLE OF CONTENTS To THOSE DEAR TO ME AT STONEY WOLDE, TURNERS, NEW YORK; PINEHURST; NORWICH, CONNECTICUT; BROOK FARM, PROCTORSVILLE, VERMONT; AND DUNESIDE, EASTHAMPTON, NEW YORK, THIS BOOK, WRITTEN WHILE AMONG THEM, IS DEDICATED. CHAPTER I. ROMANCE AND REALITY. Mr. Pierce was talking. Mr. Pierce was generally talking. From the day that his proud mamma had given him a sweetmeat for a very inarticulate “goo” which she translated into “papa,” Mr. Pierce had found speech profitable. He had been able to talk his nurse into granting him every indulgence. He had talked his way through school and college. He had talked his wife into marrying him. He had talked himself to the head of a large financial institution. He had talked his admission into society. Conversationally, Mr. Pierce was a success. He could discuss Schopenhauer or cotillion favors; St. Paul, the apostle, or St. Paul, the railroad. He had cultivated the art as painstakingly as a professional musician. He had countless anecdotes, which he introduced to his auditors by a “that reminds me of.” He had endless quotations, with the quotation marks omitted. Finally he had an idea on every subject, and generally a theory as well. Carlyle speaks somewhere of an “inarticulate genius.” He was not alluding to Mr. Pierce. Like most good talkers, Mr. Pierce was a tongue despot. Conversation must take his course, or he would none of it. Generally he controlled. If an upstart endeavored to turn the subject, Mr. Pierce waited till the intruder had done speaking, and then quietly, but firmly would remark: “Relative to the subject we were discussing a moment ago—” If any one ventured to speak, even sotto voce, before Mr. Pierce had finished all he had to say, he would at once cease his monologue, wait till the interloper had finished, and then resume his lecture just where he had
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