New Elegant Extracts (Volume 3,pts. 5-6); A Unique Selection, Moral, Instructive and Entertaining, From the Most Eminent Prose and Epistolary Writers - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1827. Excerpt: ... fulfil. Add to these accomplishments, so requisite to make the married state happy, that I am not much turned of fifty, can tie on my cravat, fasten a button, or mend a hole in my stocking without any assistance. Cowper. AN AGREEABLE VISITOR. Early in the spring succeeding the birth of her second child, Mrs. Burton received a letter announcing the arrival in England of Mr. Frumpton Danvers, her mother's uncle, whose days had been spent in various parts of the world, collecting and accumulating wealth; and who had returned to his native land, so late in life as to have outlived all his friends and connexions, except this daughter of his niece. His property was immense--almost incalculably so--in the West Indies, in the East Indies, in England, in Ireland, and in Scotland, he had estates and riches, and few people ventured to guess, to use the delicate and commonly accepted term, what he would cut up for. One thing was quite certain; besides all the doubtful property he possessed, three hundred thousand pounds stood in his name in the three per cents.; and the difficulties he had for years encountered in amassing this fortune were now surpassed by the still greater one of making up his mind to whom he should bequeath it. The old gentleman was a mannerist and an egotist--self-opiniated, obstinate, positive, and eternally differing with every body round him--Vol. in. e his temper was soured by ill health; while, unfortunately for his associates, his immense fortune gave him, at least he thought it did, the power and authority to display all its little varieties in their full natural vigour. He was the meanest and most liberal man alive, the gentlest and the most passionate, alternately wise and weak, harsh and kind, bountiful and avaricious, just as his const...