Three Men in A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

We, in this age, do not see the beauty of that dog.  We are too familiar with it.  It is like the sunset and the stars: we are not awed by their loveliness because they are common to our eyes.  So it is with that china dog.  In 2288 people will gush over it.  The making of such dogs will have become a lost art.  Our descendants will wonder how we did it, and say how clever we were.  We shall be referred to lovingly as “those grand old artists that flourished in the nineteenth century, and produced those china dogs.”

The “sampler” that the eldest daughter did at school will be spoken of as “tapestry of the Victorian era,” and be almost priceless.  The blue-and-white mugs of the present-day roadside inn will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use them for claret cups; and travellers from Japan will buy up all the “Presents from Ramsgate,” and “Souvenirs of Margate,” that may have escaped destruction, and take them back to Jedo as ancient English curios.

At this point Harris threw away the sculls, got up and left his seat, and sat on his back, and stuck his legs in the air.  Montmorency howled, and turned a somersault, and the top hamper jumped up, and all the things came out.

I was somewhat surprised, but I did not lose my temper.  I said, pleasantly enough:

“Hulloa! what’s that for?”

“What’s that for?  Why—”

No, on second thoughts, I will not repeat what Harris said.  I may have been to blame, I admit it; but nothing excuses violence of language and coarseness of expression, especially in a man who has been carefully brought up, as I know Harris has been.  I was thinking of other things, and forgot, as any one might easily understand, that I was steering, and the consequence was that we had got mixed up a good deal with the tow-path.  It was difficult to say, for the moment, which was us and which was the Middlesex bank of the river; but we found out after a while, and separated ourselves.

Harris, however, said he had done enough for a bit, and proposed that I should take a turn; so, as we were in, I got out and took the tow-line, and ran the boat on past Hampton Court.  What a dear old wall that is that runs along by the river there!  I never pass it without feeling better for the sight of it.  Such a mellow, bright, sweet old wall; what a charming picture it would make, with the lichen creeping here, and the moss growing there, a shy young vine peeping over the top at this spot, to see what is going on upon the busy river, and the sober old ivy clustering a little farther down!  There are fifty shades and tints and hues in every ten yards of that old wall.  If I could only draw, and knew how to paint, I could make a lovely sketch of that old wall, I’m sure.  I’ve often thought I should like to live at Hampton Court.  It looks so peaceful and so quiet, and it is such a dear old place to ramble round in the early morning before many people are about.