The Honorable Peter Stirling

The Honorable Peter Stirling and
What People Thought of Him

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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]
Language: English
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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. Conversation
must take his course, or he would none of it. Generally he controlled. If
an upstart endeavored to turn the subject, Mr. Pierce waited till the
intruder had done speaking, and then quietly, but firmly would remark:
"Relative to the subject we were discussing a moment ago--" If any one
ventured to speak, even sotto voce, before Mr. Pierce had finished all
he had to say, he would at once cease his monologue, wait till the
interloper had finished, and then resume his lecture just where he had
been interrupted. Only once had Mr. Pierce found this method to fail in
quelling even the sturdiest of rivals. The recollection of that day is still

a mortification to him. It had happened on the deck of an ocean steamer.
For thirty minutes he had fought his antagonist bravely. Then, humbled
and vanquished, he had sought the smoking-room, to moisten his
parched throat, and solace his wounded spirit, with a star cocktail. He
had at last met his superior. He yielded the deck to the fog-horn.
At the present moment Mr. Pierce was having things very much his
own way. Seated in the standing-room of a small yacht, were some
eight people. With a leaden sky overhead, and a leaden sea about it, the
boat gently rose and fell with the ground swell. Three miles away could
be seen the flash-light marking the entrance to the harbor. But though
slowly gathering clouds told that wind was coming, the yacht now lay
becalmed, drifting with the ebb tide. The pleasure-seekers had been
together all day, and were decidedly talked out. For the last hour they
had been singing songs--always omitting Mr. Pierce, who never so
trifled with his vocal organs. During this time he had been restless. At
one point he had attempted to deliver his opinion on the relation of
verse to music, but an unfeeling member of the party had struck up
"John Brown's Body," and his lecture had ended, in the usual serial
style, at the most interesting point, without even the promise of a
"continuation in our next." Finally, however, the singers had sung
themselves hoarse in the damp night air, the last "Spanish Cavalier"
had been safely restored to his inevitable true-love, and the sound of
voices and banjo floated away over the water. Mr. Pierce's moment had
come.
Some one, and it is unnecessary to mention the sex, had given a sigh,
and regretted that nineteenth century life was so prosaic and
unromantic. Clearing his throat, quite as much to