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Untitled Article
I cannot forbear pausing here—for my note-book is luxuriant in the digression—to make a brief comparison between travelling as a bachelor and travelling as a married man . Without attempting to enter u pon any voluminous enumeration of the multiplied cares , anxieties , dilemmas , and delays attending a man who takes his family on a journey ; the responsibility he is obliged to incur for every accident of wind , weather , danger , disaster , the loss of time from necessity , or loss of property by theft ; the imperative claims for comfort where there is no comfort to be had ; and , worse
than all , the absence of the least interest in things which he finds so very interesting ; combined with a general dissatisfaction at his arrangements , and the coldest water thrown upon his prospects and purposes—besides the amazing increase of expense ;—this grievous catalogue I shall spare myself the pains of endeavouring to compile , and merely give a few hints of sundry difficulties ai \ d disagreeables I encountered at the outset . The rest shall be passed over in " expressive silence /'
What with one contusing trouble and the other , on leaving B square , I thought it impossible we should ever get on board . Such a scene ! At one time I was ready to vow that I would not embark at all , but stay behind , and let those go who chose . There was J , who had brought a heap of his furniture into the house before our packages were got out , quietly looking on , making his philosophic observations , advising , but never helping ; Mary ( our wife ) declaiming at the top of her voice against me and IS , who laughed , and made it worse ( I couldn ' t laugh , even had I dared ); the servants and two porters running about like fools , and almost upsetting one another ; half-doing things , in that dashy , slap-oft * way which made it necessary to do all over again ; the little girl crying , and now and then screaming , from a hurt toe or pinched nnger ; and Susan , our stupid nursery-maid , standing utterly helpless , and even speechless , at the uproar that surrounded us , 1 was completely exhausted , and yet 1 saw the worst was all to come . 1 had been twice down to the London Docks ; had to take leave of two
prolix aunts , and half-a-dozen loquacious nephews and nieces ; to pay ' bills , finish several letters requiring much clear-headed thought , and then conclude packing , with numerous other et cateras . Meanwhile the hours were fast fleeting . I really expected we should have lost our passage . And this most assuredly would have been the case , had not my friend G , oh , excellent young man ! come just in time , and helped us with a fresh hand and mind . The last bell of the last steamer for Gravesend "was ringing as we got out of the coach in Lower Thames-street . We reached the steamer by a boat , after sundry aggravating circumstances , amidst a storm of wind and rain , sick , exhausted , utterl y worn out , and drenched to the skin , with a quantity of lniscel-
Untitled Article
Notes of a Trip to St Petersburg . 497
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1836, page 497, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2660/page/37/
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