Char. (disappointed.) Pshaw! is that your fine employment? I thought I was really to have something to do. I'll e'en go to the village again,
and hear stories from old Margery, about the election and the old family grandeur of the Baltimores.
Mrs. B. Nay, don't put such an affront upon my recommendation. Do take up this book, and try, for once in your life, what kind of a thing reading quietly for an hour to one's self may be. I assure you there are many good stories in it, and you will get some little insight into the affairs of mankind, by the bye.
Char. No, no; no story read, can ever be like a story told by a pair of moving lips, and their two lively assistants the eyes, looking it to you all the while, and supplying every deficiency of words.
Mrs. B. But try it, only try it. You can't surely be so ungallant as to refuse me. (Gives him a book.)
Char. Well then, since it must be so, shew me where to begin. Some people, when they open a book, can just pop upon a good thing at once, and be diverted with it; but I don't know how it is, whenever I open a book, I can light upon nothing but long dry prefaces and dissertations; beyond which, perhaps, there may lie, at last, some pleasant story, like a little picture closet, at the end of a long stone gallery, or like a little kernel, buried in a great mountain of shells and of husks. I would not take the trouble of coming at it, for all that one gets.
