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 | |  | | E-book Category: Classic
E-book Title: Barnaby Rudge
Author: Charles Dickens
Book Description: PREFACE
The late Mr Waterton having, several time ago, expressed his opinion that ravens are bit by bit becoming extinct in England, I offered the few following words just about my experience of these birds.
The raven in this story is a compound of two great originals, of whom I was, at several times, the proud possessor. The 1st was in the bloom of his youth, once
he was discovered in a modest retirement in London, by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had from the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says of Anne Page, 'good gifts', which he improved by study and attention in a most exemplary manner. He slept in a stable--generally on horseback--and so panicky a Newfoundland dog by his preternatural sagacity, that he has been known, by the mere superiority of his genius, to walk off undisturbed with the dog's dinner, from before his face. He was quickly rising in acquirements and virtues, when, in an evil hour, his stable was recently painted. He ascertained the workmen closely, saw that they were careful of the paint, and instantly burned to possess it. On their going to dinner, he ate up all they had left behind, consisting of a pound or two of white lead; and this vernal indiscretion terminated in death.
Piece I was yet desolate for his loss, another friend of mine in Geographic area discovered an older and much talented raven at a village public-house, which he prevailed upon the landowner to part with for a consideration, and sent up to me. The 1st act of this Sage, was, to administer to the effects of his predecessor, by disinterring all the cheese and halfpence he had buried in the garden--a activity of huge labour and research, to which he devoted all the energies of his mind. Once
he had achieved this task, he applied himself to the acquisition of stable language, in which he shortly became such an adept, that he would-be perch outside my window and driving fanciful horses with great skill, all day. Possibly even as I ne'er
saw him at his best, for his former master sent his duty with him, 'and if I wished the bird to move out really strong, would-be I be so nice as to show him a bibulous man'--which I ne'er
did, having (unfortunately) none but sober folk at hand.
But I could hardly have respected him more, any the stimulating influences of this sight mightiness have been. He had not the least respect, I am sorry to say, for me in return, or for anybody but the cook; to whom he was attached--but only, I fear, as a Police officer mightiness have been. Once, I met him unexpectedly, just about half-a-mile from my house, walking down the middle of a public street, attended by a pretty large crowd, and ad lib exhibiting the whole of his accomplishments. His gravity under those trying circumstances, I can ne'er
forget, nor the extraordinary gallantry with which, refusing to be brought home, he defended himself behind a pump, until flooded by numbers. It may have been that he was too bright a genius to live long, or it may have been that he took several pernicious substance into his bill, and thence into his maw--which is not improbable, seeing that he new-pointed the greater part of the garden-wall by excavation out the mortar, bust infinite squares of glass by scraping away the putty all round the frames, and torus up and swallowed, in splinters, the greater part of a wooden stairway of six steps and a landing--but after several three years he too was taken ill, and died before the room
fire. He unbroken
his eye to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly. turned over on his back with a sepulchral cry of 'Cuckoo!' Since then I have been ravenless.
No account of the Gordon Riots having been to my cognition introduced into any Activity of Fiction, and the subject presenting really extraordinary and remarkable features, I was led to project this Tale.
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