Horace Walpole

But when another chair was tossed upon his unsupported middle, he fell with a boom upon the carpet.

then the old doctor brought out wine and bohemian glasses with long stems and as the clock struck twelve the company pledged one another's health with hopes for a reunion they lighted their candles on the landing and so to bed i know a man also who once met a sword-swallower at a county fair a volunteer was needed for his trick someone to hold the scarlet cushion with its dangerous knives and zealous friends pushed him from his seat toward the stage afterwards he met the caucasian beauties and despite his timidity they dined together with great merriment then there is a kind of humorous philosophy to be desired on an excursion it smokes a contented pipe to the tune of every rivulet it rests a peaceful stomach on the rail of every bridge and it observes the floating leaves like golden caravels upon the stream it interprets a trivial event it is both serious and absurd it sits on a fence to moralize on the life of cows and flings in plato on the soul it plays catch and toss with life and death and the world beyond it sees a significance in the common things a farmer's cart is a tumbril of the revolution a crowing rooster is a chanticleer it is the very cock that proclaimed to hamlet that the dawn was nigh when a cloud rises up such a philosopher discourses on the flood he counts up the forty rainy days and names the present rascals to be drowned profiteers in food plumbers and all laundrymen a stable lantern swinging in the dark rouses up a race of giants i think it was some such fantastic quality of thought that horace walpole had in mind when he commended the three princes of serendip their highnesses it seems were always making discoveries by accident and sagacity of things which they were not in quest of for instance he writes one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately because the grass was eaten on the left at first i confess this employment seems a waste of time sherlock holmes did better when he pronounced on finding a neglected wisp of beard that dr watson's shaving mirror had been shifted to an opposite window but doubtless the princes put their deduction to higher use and met the countryside and village with shrewd and vivid observation don quixote had this same quality but with more than a touch of madness did he not build up the lady tolosa out of a common creature at an inn He sought knighthood at the hands of its stupid keeper, and watched his armor all night by the foolish moon.

He tilted against a windmill.

I cannot wholeheartedly commend the Don, but for an afternoon, certainly, I would prefer his company between town and town to that of any man who carries his clanking factory on his back.

It was Thomas Gray, author of the Elegy, who was one of the first English travelers to see the beauty of the Alps, and it was he, therefore, who is originally responsible for making them fashionable.

He and Horace Walpole drove over the mountains in a chaise, and Gray wrote to his friend West, Not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry.

There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief.

This was a new note in literature.

But I think if, if the situation were reversed and you asked me this question without me doing the research, I would've said early to mid-1800s is my guess, and it's actually a lot earlier than that.

In 1764, a man named Horace Walpole wrote a book called The Castle of Otranto, and this is considered to be the first Gothic novel.

That's right, Gothic horror is older than the good old United States of America, baby.

I mean, that doesn't surprise me.

[laughs]

It was never a phase.

Now, Horace Walpole was a British politician, a writer, historian, and he was obsessed with old shit.

Now, the technical term for that is antiquarian, and I think that all of my fellow thrift shop and estate sales aficionados, uh, maybe we consider adopting that term.

So at first she was so, you know, as Christians, we kind of identify her with John Newton and William Wilberforce.

But she was also friends with like Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson who were just and Horace Walpole who are just just kind of big names in in social circles and like literary and literary politics.

And so those were some of her her like dear.

Was she friends with John Ruskin or was that or was he predated her? He was

But despite the innovation of Simon Fletcher, the highway was the glory of Elizabeth, the still greater glory of the Stuarts.

"The Lacedaemonians were the only people," said Horace Walpole, "except the English, who seem to have put robbery on a right foot.

And the English of the seventeenth century need fear the rivalry of no Lacedaemonian.

They were indeed the most valiant and graceful robbers that the world has ever known." The Civil War encouraged their profession, and since many of them had fought for their king, a proper hatred of Cromwell sharpened their wits.

Astley's soon became a popular place of amusement for all classes.

Horace Walpole, writing to Lord Stafford, says, "London at this time of year, September, is as nauseous a drug as any in an apothecary shop.

I could find nothing at all to do, and so went to Astley's, which indeed was much beyond my expectation.

I do not wonder any longer that Darius was chosen king by the instructions he gave to his horse, nor that Caligula made his consul.

The balloon, launched about half past one in the afternoon, was found at Faversham.

This ascent took place within two months after that of the Montgolfier balloon at Lyon, and was, therefore, probably the first ever attempted in this country, while, by a strange coincidence, the first aerostatic experiment ever made in Scotland was made on the same day that Astley's ascended, but about an hour later, from Harriet's Gardens, Edinburgh.

Horace Walpole writes, in allusion to a subsequent balloon ascent and the excitement which it created in the public mind, I doubt it has put young Astley's nose out of joint.

He went to Paris lately under their queen's protection, and expected to be prime minister, though he only ventured his neck by dancing a minuet on three horses at full gallop, and really in that attitude has as much grace as the Apollo Belvedere.