I know another family who from long practice have acquired the
habit of addressing each other in flowing periods of Johnsonian
English. They never hesitate for an epithet, and manage to round
off all their sentences in Dr. Johnson's best manner. I was
following the hounds on foot one day, with the eldest daughter of
this family, when, as we struggled through a particularly sticky
and heavy ploughed field, she panted out, "Pray let us hasten to
the summit of yonder commanding eminence, whence we can with
greater comfort to ourselves witness the further progress of the
chase," and all this without the tiniest hesitation; a most
enviable gift! A son of this family was once riding in the same
steeplechase as a nephew of mine. The youth had lost his cap, and
turning round in his saddle, he shouted to my nephew in the middle
of the race, between two fences, "You will perceive that I have
already sacrificed my cap, and laid it as a votive offering on the
altar of Diana." One would hardly have anticipated that a youthful
cavalry subaltern, in the middle of a steeplechase, would have
been able to lay his hands on such choice flowers of speech.
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