you think? A sunset, a man-of-war, a thunderstorm? Nothing of the kind.
He had seen the most _magnificent prawns_ he ever ate in his life.

And when I asked another young gentleman, who was speaking of "_the most
tremendous screw_ ever made in the world," to which of our great
ironclads he referred, he smiled upon me with a benign and courteous
pity, as he said that he "was alluding to a screw into the middle
pocket, which he had recently seen during a game at billiards between
Cook and the younger Roberts."

When you hear one lady informing another that she had just seen simply
the most _exquisite_, the most _lovely_, the most _perfect_ thing in
existence, is she referring to something wonderful in nature, or to
something beautiful in art, or can it be only a bonnet? Has she just
come home from the glaciers of Switzerland, the lakes of Italy, the
mountains of Connemara, or the castles of the Rhine, or can it be that
she has been no farther than Marshall and Snelgrove's shop?

Then there's that awful "_awful_!" Why, if a thousandth part of things
which are commonly affirmed to be aweful were aweful, we should go about
with our faces blanched, like his who drew Priam's curtain in the dead
of night, our teeth chattering, and our hair on end. Everything is
_aweful_--awefully good or awefully bad.

Only last week I handed a plate to a young lady at luncheon, and,
looking sweetly upon me, as though I had brought a reprieve from the
gallows, she sighed, "Oh thanks! how _awfully_ kind!"

And years ago, I went with John Leech to admire Robson in _The Porter's
Knot_, and when that pathetic little drama was over, and the actor had