"While making the tour of the ramparts just now, to visit
my sentries, I saw Middleton leaning most sentimentally
against one of the boxes in front, his notebook in one
hand and his pencil in the other. Curious to discover
the subject of his abstraction, I stole cautiously behind
him, and saw that he was sketching the head of a tall
and rather handsome squaw, who, in the midst of a hundred
others, was standing close to the gateway watching the
preparations of the Indian ball-players. I at once taxed
him with having lost his heart; and rallying him on his
bad taste in devoting his pencil to any thing that had
a red skin, never combed its hair, and turned its toes
in while walking, pronounced his sketch to be an absolute
fright. Well, will you believe what I have to add? The
man absolutely flew into a tremendous passion with me,
and swore that she was a Venus, a Juno, a Minerva, a
beauty of the first water in short; and finished by
promising, that when I could point out any woman who was
superior to her in personal attraction, he would on the
instant write no less than a dozen consecutive sonnets
in her praise.
Pages:
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471