The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 359, March 7, 1829 by Various
page 42 of 53 (79%)
page 42 of 53 (79%)
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almost as sublime as his shadow--almost as overwhelming as his person.
Conceive the Man-Mountain playing the amiable with such a delicate young creature like Julia. Conceive him falling on his knees before her--pressing her delicate hand, and "popping the question," while his large round eyes shed tears of affection and suspense, and his huge sides shook with emotion! Conceive him enduring all the pangs of love-sickness, never telling his love; "concealment, like a worm in the bud, preying upon his damask cheek," while his hard-hearted mistress stood disdainfully by, "like pity on a monument, _smiling_ at grief." Above all, conceive him taking the lover's leap--say from Dunnet or Duncansby-head, where the rocks tower four hundred feet above the Pentland Firth, and floundering in the waters like an enormous whale; the herring shoals hurrying away from his unwieldy gambols, as from the presence of the real sea-born leviathan. Cacus in love was not more grand, or the gigantic Polyphemus, sighing at the feet of Galatea, or infernal Pluto looking amiable beside his ravished queen. Have you seen an elephant in love? If you have, you may conceive what Mr. Tims would be in that interesting situation. Supper was brought in. It consisted of eggs, cold veal, bacon-ham, and a Welsh rabbit. I must confess, that, perplexed as I was by all the previous events of the evening, I felt a gratification at the present moment, in the anxiety to see how the Man-Mountain would comport himself at table. I had beheld his person and his shadow with equal admiration, and I doubted not that his powers of eating were on the same great scale as his other qualifications. They were, indeed. Zounds, how he did eat! Cold veal, eggs, bacon-ham, and Welsh rabbit, disappeared "like the baseless fabric of a vision, and left not a wreck behind;" so thoroughly had nine-tenths of them taken up their abode in the _bread basket_ (vide Jon Bee) of the Man-Mountain; the remaining tenth sufficed for the rest of the company, viz. Julia, her aunt, her aunt's husband, and myself. |
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