"The Traveller at the Inn Turned out to Look at Us" (1898) by Maurice Greiffenhagen, 1862-1931

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The Traveller at the Inn Turned out to Look at Us, from 'American Notes for General Circulation'

Maurice Greiffenhagen

1898

Lithograph

12.4 by 8.8 cm framed

Dickens's American Notes for General Circulation, as realised in The Gadshill Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens (1898).

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated

The traveller was an old man, with a grey, grisly beard two inches long, a shaggy moustache of the same hue, and enormous eyebrows; which almost obscured his lazy, semi-drunken glance, as he stood regarding us with folded arms: poising himself alternately upon his toes and heels. On being addressed by one of the party, he drew nearer, and said, rubbing his chin (which scraped under his horny hand like fresh gravel beneath a nailed shoe), that he was from Delaware, and had lately bought a farm "down there," pointing into one of the marshes where the stunted trees were thickest. He was "going," he added, to St. Louis, to fetch his family, whom he had left behind; but he seemed in no great hurry to bring on these encumbrances, for when we moved away, he loitered back into the cabin, and was plainly bent on stopping there so long as his money lasted. He was a great politician, of course, and explained his opinions at some length to one of our company; but I only remember that he concluded with two sentiments, one of which was, Somebody for ever; and the other, Blast everybody else! which is by no means a bad abstract of the general creed in these matters. [Chapter 13, "A Jaunt to the Looking-Glass Prairie and Back," p. 212]

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. American Notes and Pictures from Italy. Edited by Andrew Lang. Illustrated by Maurice Greiffenhagen. The Gadshill Edition. 32 vols. London: Chapman and Hall; New York: Charles Scribner's, 1898. Volume 28.

Created 8 January 2015