The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People
Thought of Him, by Paul Leicester Ford

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Title: The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him

Author: Paul Leicester Ford

Release Date: December 30, 2004 [eBook #14532]
Most recently updated: December 22, 2008

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HONORABLE PETER STIRLING AND
WHAT PEOPLE THOUGHT OF HIM***

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THE HONORABLE PETER STIRLING and WHAT PEOPLE THOUGHT OF HIM

by

PAUL LEICESTER FORD

Stitt Publishing Company New York
Henry Holt & Co.

1894

To

THOSE DEAR TO ME
AT
STONEY WOLDE,
TURNERS, NEW YORK;
PINEHURST;
NORWICH, CONNECTICUT;
BROOK FARM,
PROCTORSVILLE, VERMONT;
AND
DUNESIDE,
EASTHAMPTON, NEW YORK,

THIS BOOK,
WRITTEN WHILE AMONG THEM,
IS DEDICATED.

CHAPTER I.

ROMANCE AND REALITY.

Mr. Pierce was talking. Mr. Pierce was generally talking. From the day
that his proud mamma had given him a sweetmeat for a very inarticulate
"goo" which she translated into "papa," Mr. Pierce had found speech
profitable. He had been able to talk his nurse into granting him every
indulgence. He had talked his way through school and college. He had
talked his wife into marrying him. He had talked himself to the head of
a large financial institution. He had talked his admission into society.
Conversationally, Mr. Pierce was a success. He could discuss
Schopenhauer or cotillion favors; St. Paul, the apostle, or St. Paul,
the railroad. He had cultivated the art as painstakingly as a
professional musician. He had countless anecdotes, which he introduced
to his auditors by a "that reminds me of." He had endless quotations,
with the quotation marks omitted. Finally he had an idea on every
subject, and generally a theory as well. Carlyle speaks somewhere of an
"inarticulate genius." He was not alluding to Mr. Pierce.

Like most good talkers, Mr. Pierce was a tongue despot. Con