The favourite attitude of the poetical young gentleman is lounging
on a sofa with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling, or sitting bolt
upright in a high-backed chair, staring with very round eyes at the
opposite wall. When he is in one of these positions, his mother,
who is a worthy, affectionate old soul, will give you a nudge to
bespeak your attention without disturbing the abstracted one, and
whisper with a shake of the head, that John's imagination is at
some extraordinary work or other, you may take her word for it.
Hereupon John looks more fiercely intent upon vacancy than before,
and suddenly snatching a pencil from his pocket, puts down three
words, and a cross on the back of a card, sighs deeply, paces once
or twice across the room, inflicts a most unmerciful slap upon his
head, and walks moodily up to his dormitory.
The poetical young gentleman is apt to acquire peculiar notions of
things too, which plain ordinary people, unblessed with a poetical
obliquity of vision, would suppose to be rather distorted. For
instance, when the sickening murder and mangling of a wretched
woman was affording delicious food wherewithal to gorge the
insatiable curiosity of the public, our friend the poetical young
gentleman was in ecstasies-not of disgust, but admiration.
'Heavens!' cried the poetical young gentleman, 'how grand; how
great!' We ventured deferentially to inquire upon whom these
epithets were bestowed: our humble thoughts oscillating between
the police officer who found the criminal, and the lock-keeper who
found the head.
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