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Polish Tales (2); The Confederates of Lubionki (cont.) the Mill of Mariemont
Polish Tales The Confederates of Lubionki the Mill of Mariemont - 2 - cont. Author:Gore Volume: 2 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1833 Original Publisher: Saunders and Otley Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com... more » where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER XXI. When he speaks, Tis like a chime a mending; -- with terms unsquared, Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp'd, Would seem hyperboles. -- -- Shakspeake. It is not from disrespect towards the high office and estate of Pan Dzieduszycki, the honourable Grodski of Lubloyst, that he has been hitherto withheld from the reverence of the reader. We have waited to introduce him upon the scene in all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious office; to pourtray him surrounded by his guard of Hay- ducks, and other functionaries of his microscopic empire. Had he been less than supernaturally denseof intellect the worthy Grodski could have scarcely failed to acquire some small proportion of fools' wisdom, -- the wisdom of experi ence; -- during the thirty-and-two years he had reigned over the liberties of Lubloyst, -- castigated the hackslidings of its citizens, -- and refrigerated by his edicts the hot blood of the foresters of Lubionki. But his Worship (a blessing bestowed by Count Briihl upon the Polish subjects of his Saxon master) was a man more addicted to the fragrant weed than to study of men or books. -- He never read, -- never listened, -- and was only secured from the shame of exposure by a third negation, -- he never talked; -- the pipe which constantly engrossed his mouth was at least useful in saving him from the unlawful exercise of his organs of speech. Phlegmatic as a Dutchman, his despotism was as undemonstrative as the fatal but invisible progress of dry-rot, and like Schiller's grand Inquisitor, he had grown old i...« less