Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read this ebook for free! No credit card needed, absolutely nothing to pay.
Words: 11878 in 6 pages
This is an ebook sharing website. You can read the uploaded ebooks for free here. No credit cards needed, nothing to pay. If you want to own a digital copy of the ebook, or want to read offline with your favorite ebook-reader, then you can choose to buy and download the ebook.
PUNCH,
VOL. 102.
January 2, 1892.
BORN, APRIL 27TH, 1808. DIED, DECEMBER 21ST, 1891.
AFTER DINNER--AT THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR.
It was some time before the great-little old fellow could compose himself to mend the fire, and draw his chair to the warm hearth. But, when he had done so, and had trimmed his lamp, he took his "Extra Special" from his pocket, and began to read--carelessly at first, and skimming up and down the columns, but with an earnest and sad attention very soon.
Scandals in high life, starvation in low life; foul floods of nastiness in Law Courts; muddy tricklings of misery in lawless alleys; crimes so terrible and revolting; pains so pitiless and cureless; follies so selfish and wanton, that he let the journal drop, and fell back in his chair, appalled.
The Chimes took up the words so suddenly--burst out so loud, clear, and sonorous--that the Bells seemed to strike him in his chair.
And what was it that they said?
Up, up, up! and round and round; and up, up, up! higher, higher, higher up!
He saw the tower, whither his charmed footsteps had brought him, swarming with dwarf phantoms, sprites, elfin creatures of the Bells. He saw them leaping, flying, dropping, pouring from the Bells without a pause. He saw them, round him on the ground; above him in the air; clambering from him by the ropes below; looking down upon him from the massive iron-girdered beams; peeping in upon him through the chinks and loopholes in the walls; spreading away and away from him in enlarging circles. He saw them of all aspects and all shapes. He saw them ugly, handsome, crippled, exquisitely formed. He saw them young, he saw them old; he saw them kind, he saw them cruel; he saw them merry, he saw them grim; he saw them dance, he heard them sing; he saw them tear their hair, he heard them howl. He saw the air thick with them.
"Who hears in us, the Chimes, one note bespeaking disregard, or stern regard, of any hope, or joy or pain, or sorrow, of the many-sorrowed throng; who hears us make response to any creed that gauges human passions and affections, as it gauges the amount of miserable food on which humanity may pine and wither, does us wrong!"
Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg
(0)More posts by @FreeBooks
