Reminiscences of J L Toole
Description:... Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. SUNSHINE AND SHADOW. A Reception at Orme Square?Mr. and Mrs. Toole's Silver Wedding?Pleasant hours after midnight?Mr. Irving's first experience as a public reader on his own account? Toole at Dunfermline? A 'Norrible Tale in chapel? Lo ! the poor Indian ! ?Complimentary groans? Toole's age?Michael Garner on the stage and off?Old Garente and the bandits?David James's Whitechapel romance?Hollingshead and the birthplace of Podgers? Low salaries and high art?Actors and their friends? Artistic society?The shadow. The pleasant spirit of the closing picture of the previous chapter follows me in my last sunny memory of Orme Square. It was on April 27th, 1879, that Mr. and Mrs. Toole celebrated their silver wedding. Over a hundred friends accepted the invitation of the host and hostess to an evening reception. The guests were representative ladies and gentlemen, some of them already celebrated in the world of Literature and Art, others who have since achieved fame and prosperity. Each of them came with either a bouquet of flowers or a gift of silver plate, or both, and each might have wondered where the hostess would find room for another bouquet, or another less perishable souvenir; for quite early in the evening every sideboard, shelf, mantelpiece, table, seemed to be gay with flowers, or white with silver. Some of the tributes of love and esteem were accompanied with pleasant conceits in verse; others were signalized by serious and touching lines, such, for example, as the silver token from Mr. Clement Scott. When the rooms were crowded with guests, it was suggested that the poet should read his verses, whereupon he recited the following stanzas with excellent effect: ? To John Lawrence Toole On His silver Wedding. A Silver Wedding ! Johnnie, is it true, ...
Show description