Wikkey, A Scrap.
1886 · New York
by Yam.
New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1886. Duodecimo, brown illustrated cloth (hardcover), gilt decorations to upper cover, 75 pp. Near-Fine, with lightly rubbed edges. From story: Mr. Ruskin has it htat we are all kings and queens, possessing realms and treasuries. However this may be, it is certain that there are souls born to reign over the hearts of their fellows, kings walking about the world in broad-cloth and fustian, shooting-jackets, ulsters, and what not -- swaying hearts at will, though it may be all unconscious of their power; and only the existence of some such psychological fact as this will account for the incident which I am about to relate. Lawrence Granby was, beyond all doubt, one of these royal ones, his kingdom being, as he usually attributed the fact that he “got on” with people “like a house on fire” to the good qualities possessed by “other fellows.” Even the comforts by which he was surrounded in his lodging by his landlady and former nurse, Mrs. Evans, he considered as the result of the dame’s innate geniality, though the opinion entertained of her by underlings and by those who met her in the way of business was scarcely as favorable. He was a handsome fellow too, this Lawrence, six feet three, with a curly brown head and the frankest blue eyes that ever looked pityingly, almost wonderingly, on the small and weak things of the earth. And the boy, Wikkey Whiston, was a crossing-sweeper... (Inventory #: 51239ns)