The Most Gorgeous Lady Blessington, Volume 2

Front Cover
Downey & Company, 1896

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 135 - I felt convinced, by his mode of proceeding, that he had a real image before him ; for he left off and began on another part of the paper to make a separate drawing of the mouth of the Flea, which the spirit having opened, he was prevented from proceeding with the first sketch till he had closed it. During the time occupied in GHOST OF A FLEA.
Page 88 - D'Israeli," writes NP Willis,* describing an evening at the Countess of Blessington's, " had arrived before me, and sat in the deep window looking out upon Hyde Park, with the last rays of daylight reflected from the gorgeous gold flowers of a splendidly embroidered waistcoat. Patent leather pumps, a white stick, with a. black cord and tassel, and a quantity of chains about his neck and pockets, served to make him, even in the dim light, a conspicuous object. . . . Disraeli has one of the most remarkable...
Page 41 - by particular desire,' to Mrs. Wyndham Lewis, a pretty little woman, a flirt, and a rattle ; indeed, gifted with a volubility I should think unequalled, and of which I can convey no idea. She told me that she ' liked silent, melancholy men.' I answered
Page 89 - I might as well attempt to gather up the foam of the sea as to convey an idea of the extraordinary language in which he clothed his description. There were, at least, five words in every sentence that must have been very much astonished at tho use they were put to, and yet no others, apparently, could so well nave conveyed his idea. He talked like a racehorse approaching the winning-post — every muscle in action, and the utmost energy of expression flung out in every burst.
Page 180 - You see this notch, boy? Five hundred francs were laid low on that day, for post-horses. Where this gap is, a waiter charged your father treble the correct amount — and got it. This end, worn into teeth like the rasped edge of an old file, is sacred to the...
Page 135 - This spirit visited his imagination in such a figure as he never anticipated in an insect. As I was anxious to make the most correct investigation in my power, of the truth of these visions, on hearing of this spiritual apparition of a Flea, I asked him if he could draw for me the resemblance of what he saw: he instantly said, 'I see him now before me.
Page 88 - Erebus, and has the most mocking, lying-in-wait sort of expression conceivable. His mouth is alive with a kind of working and impatient nervousness and when he has burst forth, as he does constantly, with a particularly successful cataract of expression, it assumes a curl of triumphant scorn that would be worthy of a Mephistopheles.
Page 18 - ... Monthly Magazine), and her other writings, give her in addition the character of a bel esprit. Landor, too, says, that she was to Lord Blessington the most devoted wife he ever knew. He says also, that she was by far the most beautiful woman he ever saw, and was so deemed at the Court of George IV. She is now, Landor says, about thirty, but I should have thought her older. She is a great talker, but her talk is rather narrative than declamatory, and very pleasant. She and Landor were both intimate...
Page 180 - ... in that spot. I should like to have seen it, of all things, for its very dreariness. Fancy a handful of people sprinkled over one corner of the great place (the whole population of Verona wouldn't fill it now), and a spangled cavalier bowing to the echoes and the grass-grown walls ! I climbed to the topmost seat, and looked away at the beautiful view for some minutes ; when I turned round and looked down into the theatre again, it had exactly the appearance of an immense straw hat, to which the...

Bibliographic information