a matter of taste, on a windmill
“Nor I either. It’s a matter of taste and personal comfort. Still —”
“Still, what?”
“Why, you see, a man may perch himself on a windmill, beyond shell practice, and very much enjoy a battle. But that gallant example has been rarely found to exercise any beneficial influence on his fellow-men; and, hence, the public tributes (at least, of a gratifying nature) paid to such warriors have been few.”
“I don’t want any public tributes,” said Bob. “The world doesn’t want me, nor I the world. Society is based on the falsest principles. It is planted in a slough, from which all the moral sewerage, perpetually in action, cannot withdraw the noxious elements. The entire fabric of being is in an advanced state of decomposition. I hope I may be excused for making my bow before I am stifled in its fragrant fall.”
“Better stay, and help to reconstruct it on sanitary principles of your own, Bobby,” said I.
“We had better part — for the moment — I think,” said Bob, gravely.
—
ex [Henry Spicer], “Hermit Bob” in All the Year Round (September 30, 1865) : 233-240 (235)
copy/scan (via google books) : link
The story — energetically told, best read aloud — is contained in Henry Spicer, his collection Bound to Please vol 2 (of 2; London, 1867) : 137-163
U Illinois at Urbana-Champaign copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
- Henry T. Spicer (1811-1891), dramatist, writer, theater operator, author of books on spirit manifestation...
- profile by Anne Lohrli at Dickens Journals Online : link
- Kathleen Tillotson, “Henry Spicer, Forster, and Dickens” in The Dickensian 84 (Summer 1988) : 66-78
informative and entertaining and, alas, not easily accessible - something more on Spicer in the footnote to an empty envelope, The Charles Dickens Letters Project : link (accessed 16 May 2024)
some titles
- Sights and Sounds : The Mystery of the Day : comprising an entire history of the American “spirit” manifestations. By Henry Spicer, esq. (London, 1853)
U California copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link - Old Styles’s. By Henry Spicer, Esq. (London, 1859)
Bodleian copy/scan (via google books) : link
Bodleian copy, direct permalink (and access to pdf)
Tillotson writes one of Spicer’s teachers is portrayed in this volume - Strange Things Among Us by H. Spicer, author of “Old Style’s” (epigram : “Credimus, quia incredibile est”), (London, 1863)
U Minnesota copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link - Judicial Dramas; or the Romance of French Criminal Law (London, 1872)
Cornell copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
contemporary advertisements give its subtitle as “Romances of French Criminal Law,” which seems to me more enticing, and better suited to the contents : link
contemporary (negative) review in The Athenaeum (No. 2323, May 4, 1872) : 552-553 : link - more (via hathitrust) : link
20240516