The strings still retain something of their magic virtues. A
word in the reader's ear, but let it go no further- that fiddle is now
bewitching the whole world- it is the fiddle of Paganini!
The Veteran.
AMONG the curious acquaintances I made in my rambles about the
fortress, was a brave and battered old colonel of Invalids, who was
nestled like a hawk in one of the Moorish towers. His history, which
he was fond of telling, was a tissue of those adventures, mishaps, and
vicissitudes that render the life of almost every Spaniard of note
as varied and whimsical as the pages of Gil Blas.
He was in America at twelve years of age, and reckoned among the
most signal and fortunate events of his life, his having seen
General Washington. Since then he had taken a part in all the wars
of his country; he could speak experimentally of most of the prisons
and dungeons of the Peninsula; had been lamed of one leg, crippled
in his hands, and so cut up and carbonadoed that he was a kind of
walking monument of the troubles of Spain, on which there was a scar
for every battle and broil, as every year of captivity was notched
upon the tree of Robinson Crusoe. The greatest misfortune of the brave
old cavalier, however, appeared to have been his having commanded at
Malaga during a time of peril and confusion, and been made a general
by the inhabitants, to protect them from the invasion of the French.
Pages:
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356