A TRANSITION, AN ANECDOTE, AN APOSTROPHE, AND A PUN, PUNNET, OR
PUNDIGRION.
_Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures;
Et sermone opus est, modo tristi, sæpe jocoso._
HORACE.
The Reader is now so far acquainted with the Doctor and his bride
elect, (for we are still in the Interim,)—he knows so much of the
birth, parentage and education of both, so much of their respective
characters, his way of thinking and her way of life, that we may pass
to another of those questions propounded in the second post-initial
chapter.
The minister of a very heterodox congregation in a certain large city,
accosted one of his friends one day in the street with these words,
which were so characteristic and remarkable that it was impossible not
to remember and repeat them,—“I am considering whether I shall marry
or keep a horse.” He was an eccentric person, as this anecdote may
show; and his inspirited sermons (I must not call them inspired,) were
thought in their style of eloquence and sublimity to resemble
Klopstock's Odes.
No such dubitation could ever have entered the Doctor's head. Happy
man, he had already one of the best horses in the world: (Forgive me,
O Shade of Nobs in thine Elysian pastures, that I have so long delayed
thy eulogy!)—and in Deborah he was about to have one of the best of
wives.
If he had hesitated between a horse and a wife, he would have deserved
to meet with a Grey Mare.