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

The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5 - The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb by Charles Lamb;Mary Lamb
page 324 of 923 (35%)
books, pictures, statues? I wish to God you had made London in your way.
There is an exhibition quite uncommon in Europe, which could not have
escaped _your genius_,--a live rattlesnake, ten feet in length, and the
thickness of a big leg. I went to see it last night by candlelight. We
were ushered into a room very little bigger than ours at Pentonville. A
man and woman and four boys live in this room, joint tenants with nine
snakes, most of them such as no remedy has been discovered for their
bite. We walked into the middle, which is formed by a half-moon of wired
boxes, all mansions of _snakes_,--whip-snakes, thunder-snakes,
pig-nose-snakes, American vipers, and _this monster_. He lies curled up
in folds; and immediately a stranger enters (for he is used to the
family, and sees them play at cards,) he set up a rattle like a
watchman's in London, or near as loud, and reared up a head, from the
midst of these folds, like a toad, and shook his head, and showed every
sign a snake can show of irritation. I had the foolish curiosity to
strike the wires with my finger, and the devil flew at me with his
toad-mouth wide open: the inside of his mouth is quite white. I had got
my finger away, nor could he well have bit me with his damn'd big mouth,
which would have been certain death in five minutes. But it frightened
me so much, that I did not recover my voice for a minute's space. I
forgot, in my fear, that he was secured. You would have forgot too, for
'tis incredible how such a monster can be confined in small
gauzy-looking wires. I dreamed of snakes in the night. I wish to heaven
you could see it. He absolutely swelled with passion to the bigness of a
large thigh. I could not retreat without infringing on another box, and
just behind, a little devil not an inch from my back, had got his nose
out, with some difficulty and pain, quite through the bars! He was soon
taught better manners. All the snakes were curious, and objects of
terror: but this monster, like Aaron's serpent, swallowed up the
impression of the rest. He opened his damn'd mouth, when he made at me,
DigitalOcean Referral Badge