Jump to content

Page:A Handbook of Phrenotypics for Teachers and Students (Beniowski).djvu/20

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

14

them, he conversed with them, he dealt with them; still he had never an opportunity of learning that such names had any thing to do with such personages. A visit to the gallery of the House of Commons during the debate on the (say) libel question, is the occasion on which those names and their owners are for the first time to come into contact with each other in his brain. The Speaker, one of his customers, takes the chair, and immediately our publisher bursts into an "Is it possible!" He can scarcely believe it, that the gentleman whom he has seen so often before, was the very Speaker of the House of Commons, whose name and person he knew separately for so many years. His surprise increases by seeing Dr. Bowring, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Melbourne, &c. addressing the House. He knew them all—he had seen all three in his own shop—he had conversed with them—nay, had made serious allusions to their names when present. He is now determined to commit to memory the names of all these personages; in other words, he is determined to stick together the names with their respective personages.

Next to him sat a colonial publisher, just arrived, say, from Quebec. This colonial gentleman is perfectly familiar with the names of the above M.P.'s; but he indeed never saw any of them. He also attempts to commit to memory the names of various speakers on the occasion.