But I would rather live ten years as an
iron-smith than fifty as a tailor.
So much heat can be concentrated into a mass of iron, that a lump a foot
square heats all the atmosphere about it, and burns the face at a
considerable distance. As the trip-hammer strikes the lump, it seems
still more to intensify the heat by squeezing it together, and the fluid
iron oozes out like sap or juice.
"He was ready for the newest fashions!"--this expression was used by Mrs.
Blodgett in reference to Mr. ------ on his first arrival in England, and
it is a very tender way of signifying that a person is rather poorly off
as to apparel.
March 15th.--Mr. ------, our new ambassador, arrived on Thursday
afternoon by the Atlantic, and I called at the Adelphi Hotel, after
dinner, to pay him my respects. I found him and his family at
supper. . . . . They seem to be plain, affable people. . . . . The
ambassador is a venerable old gentleman, with a full head of perfectly
white hair, looking not unlike an old-fashioned wig; and this, together
with his collarless white neckcloth and his brown coat, gave him
precisely such an aspect as one would expect in a respectable person of
pre-revolutionary days. There was a formal simplicity, too, in his
manners, that might have belonged to the same era. He must have been a
very handsome man in his youthful days, and is now comely, very erect,
moderately tall, not overburdened with flesh; of benign and agreeable
address, with a pleasant smile; but his eyes, which are not very large,
impressed me as sharp and cold.
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