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FROM AN ARTIST'S DIARY. 103
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
—. .* No. Ii.
of many a wretched vagabond , and is the stirring' of the old ancestral Iblood within his veins . Oh magistrates and boards of
guardians , how callous are your hearts towards these mysterious , poetic , Scandinavian yearningswhich agitate the bosoms of the vagabond
, wretches brought up before you ! I like to hear the beggar veteran ramble on in discourse . I
have been making a study of his fine old head , and whilst I paint he about " sp the ins great long white yarns . bears " This which morning he has he seen commenced prowling talking around
-fche watch-fires -when out upon an Arctic expedition ; of the glories of the transient Arctic summer he also spoke , and of the sublime
marvel of the Aurora ; of combats with Blacks upon the coast of Africaof shipwreck upon the coast of Madagascar , and of the
burning Some , thing skies of led India him . to speak of dreams . ic Do I believe in
• dreams ? " said he . " Of course I do , Miss ; and so would you , did you know all the things that I have known . "
" What have you known ? " asked I . . ' "• I'll tell youMissthe first remarkable dream that ever I had
not to do reason with to , and think , then dreams , you may are often judge prop for hecies _yoiir . s ' elf whether I have
" I must tell you , " pursued the old man , " that I was quite a little chap when my mother dreamed the dream I am going to
tell you . My father , late in life , had married a young woman . I never remember him as anything but an old man . We lived
down in Cambridgeshire . My mother took in washing , and my father , old man though he was , carried the letters through the
neighborhood . And wild , desolate places there were in those parts seventy and odd years ago . My father often tramped about thirty
miles a day , —for though old , he was a very hale man for his years , and a man as tall and strong as you would wish to see .
Sometimes it was no uncommon thing for him to be out on his rounds for a couple or three days together , so we never used to be uneasy
about his- absence . Once when he was away , one winter's night , or rather early in the morning—I remember it as clear as though it
were last week , and yet it is above seventy years ago—mother woke me up suddenly . I was a little chap , and slept in a little bed beside
my mother ' s bed , and , says she , looking very scared , ' Bill , I know your father ' s dead—something has happened to father !'
Her face was as white as the sheet , and the bed shook under hershe trembled so with a kind of ague . c Lord o' mercychild ,
I ' ve , had sucli a frightful dream ! I saw your father lying , dead . upon the snow ; a horrid black something was fluttering about him ,
and his face was all streaming with blood ! I'm . sure he ' s dead , Bill ! certain sure ! ' She was a strong woman , Miss , and not one
of those who takes on and cries and worrits about trifles . She got up as usual in the early , cold winter ' s morning , and began her
work just as usual . I don't remember her shedding a tear , but
From An Artist's Diary. 103
FROM AN ARTIST ' S DIARY . 103
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1862, page 103, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041862/page/31/
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