Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860 by Various
page 58 of 286 (20%)
determined sunbeam ever to mingle itself with our most inviting fabrics.
Mr. Clarkson pondered a long time. We might build our establishment a
story higher; we might attempt to move it. But here were solid changes,
and the hopes were uncertain. Affairs were going on well, and the
reputation of the mills was at its height. And the carpets of sunshine
were never repeated.


* * * * *



THE TWO TONGUES.


Whoever would read a profound political pamphlet under the guise of a
brilliant novel may find it in "Sibyl, or The Two Nations." The gay
overture of "The Eve of the Derby," at a London club, with which the
curtain rises, contrasts with the evening amusements of the _prolétaire_
in the gin-palaces of Manchester in a more than operatic effectiveness,
and yet falls rather below than rises above the sober truth of present
history. And we are often tempted to bind up the novel of the dashing
Parliamenteer with our copy of "Ivanhoe," that we may thus have, side by
side, from the pens of the Right Honorable Benjamin Disraeli and Sir
Walter Scott, the beginning and the end of these eight hundred years of
struggle between Norman rule and Saxon endurance. For let races and
families change as they will, there have ever been in England two
nations; and the old debate of Wamba and Gurth in the forest-glade by
Rotherwood is illustrated by the unconscious satires of last week's
"Punch." In Chartism, Reform-Bills, and Strikes, in the etiquette which
DigitalOcean Referral Badge