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Essay(s) by Robert Cortes Holliday
Ida's Amazing Surprise
Robert Cortes Holliday
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       IN "Bleak House," I think it is, that Poor Joe keeps "movin' along." One of the atoms of London, he passes his whole life in the midst of thousands upon thousands of signs. Printed letters, painted letters, carved letters, words, words, words, blaze upon him all about. Yet not a syllable of them all speaks to him; seen but all unheard by him they clothe his path. Poor Joe cannot read. How must he regard these strange, unmeaning signs? What is it goes on in this head which so little can enter? What has filtered in where the great main avenue of approach remains, as far from the first, black and unopened? What does this mind, sitting there far off in the dark, looking out, comprehend of the pageant? And how does it strike him? Some such a mysterious mind looks out from Ida's eyes.
       Ida is "colored." It is my belief that though she is grown and well formed a little child dwells in her head. I know that when I ask her to bring me another cup of coffee and she pauses, slightly bends forward, her lips a trifle parted, and fastens her clear, utterly innocent, curious eyes upon me, waiting to hear repeated what she has already heard, she sees me as a sort of toy balloon on a string, whose incomprehensible movements excite a pleasurable wonder. As regularly as the dinner hour comes around Ida asks, with that same amazingly unsophisticated, interested look, if each of us will have soup. If it were our custom occasionally not to take soup, if we had declined soup a couple of times even, a good while ago, if even we had declined soup once--but, as Mr. MacKeene says, what could have put it into her head that we might not take soup? It is the same with dessert, with cereal at breakfast. I hardly know why it is not the same with having our beds made.
       It is easy to give Ida pleasure. She has not been satiated, perhaps, with pleasure. A very little quite overjoys her. I turn about in my chair to reach a book, and discover Ida silently dusting the furniture. "Why! I didn't know you were in here," I say to Ida. Ida breaks into great light at this highly entertaining situation. "Didin you know I was in here! Didin you!" Her eyebrows go up with delight. Her pose might be the original of Miss Rogson's "Merely Mary Ann."
       [The end]
       Robert Cortes Holliday's essay: Ida's Amazing Surprise
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本书目录

"You Are An American"
As To Office Boys
As To People
Bachelor Reminiscences
Barber Shops Awesome
Bidding Mr. Chesterton Good-Bye
The Case Of Mr. Woolen
Caun't Speak The Language
A Clerk May Look At A Celebrity
Connubial Felicity
A Conqueror's Attack
Cramis, Patron Of Art
The Deceased
The Dessert Of Life
A Dip Into The Underworld
Epilogue: On Wearing A Hat
Every Inch A Man
Fame: A Story Of American Literature
The Fish Reporter
The Forgetful Tailor
Former Tenant Of His Room
Fragrant With Perfume
A Friend, Indeed
Going To Art Exhibitions
The Hair Cut That Went To My Head
Hair That Is Scenery
Help Wanted--Male, Female
Henry James, Himself
His Business Is Good
The Hotel Guest
A Human Cash Register
Human Municipal Documents
A Humorist Misfits At A Murder Trial
A Humorist's Note-Book
Humours Op The Book Shop
Hunting Lodgings
I Know An Editor
Ida's Amazing Surprise
An Idiosyncrasy
Including Studies Of Traffic "Cops"
It Stands To Reason
Literary Levities In Londow
Literary Lives
Memories Of A Manuscript
Much Married Stratford
My Friend, The Policeman
A Nice Man
A Nice Taste In Murders
No Snob
No System At All To The Human System
Nosing 'round Washington
Not Gullible, Not He
An Old Fogy
On Going A Journey
Only She Was There
Our Last Social Engagement As A Fine Art
Our Steeplejack Of The Seven Arts
Prologue: On Carrying A Cane
Queer Thing, 'bout Undertakers' Shops
Reading After Thirty
Recollections Of Landladies
A Roundabout Paper
Seeing Mr. Chesterton
Seeing The "Situations Wanted" Scene
The Sexless Camera
Snapshots In X-Ray
So Very Theatrical
Taking The Air In San Francisco
Talk At The Post Office
A Testimonial
That Reviewer "Cuss"
Three Words About Literature
A Three-Ringed Circus
A Town Constitutional
The Unusualness Of Parisian Philadelphia
When Is A Great City A Small Village?
When The Train Comes In
Why Men Can't Read Novels By Women
Wouldn't Look At Him
Writing In Rooms