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- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.842Z
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- 6118
- text
- papers. My love of literature prompted me to open the door and step in;
but a glance at my soiled shooting-jacket prompted a dignified looking
personage to step up and shut the door in my face. I deliberated a
minute what I should do to him; and at last resolutely determined to
let him alone, and pass on; which I did; going down Castle-street (so
called from a castle which once stood there, said my guide-book), and
turning down into Lord.
Arrived at the foot of the latter street, I in vain looked round for
the hotel. How serious a disappointment was this may well be imagined,
when it is considered that I was all eagerness to behold the very house
at which my father stopped; where he slept and dined, smoked his cigar,
opened his letters, and read the papers. I inquired of some gentlemen
and ladies where the missing hotel was; but they only stared and passed
on; until I met a mechanic, apparently, who very civilly stopped to
hear my questions and give me an answer.
“Riddough’s Hotel?” said he, “upon my word, I think I have heard of
such a place; let me see—yes, yes—that was the hotel where my father
broke his arm, helping to pull down the walls. My lad, you surely can’t
be inquiring for Riddough’s Hotel! What do you want to find there?”
“Oh! nothing,” I replied, “I am much obliged for your information”—and
away I walked.
Then, indeed, a new light broke in upon me concerning my guide-book;
and all my previous dim suspicions were almost confirmed. It was nearly
half a century behind the age! and no more fit to guide me about the
town, than the map of Pompeii.
It was a sad, a solemn, and a most melancholy thought. The book on
which I had so much relied; the book in the old morocco cover; the book
with the cocked-hat corners; the book full of fine old family
associations; the book with seventeen plates, executed in the highest
style of art; this precious book was next to useless. Yes, the thing
that had guided the father, could not guide the son. And I sat down on
a shop step, and gave loose to meditation.
Here, now, oh, Wellingborough, thought I, learn a lesson, and never
forget it. This world, my boy, is a moving world; its Riddough’s Hotels
are forever being pulled down; it never stands still; and its sands are
forever shifting. This very harbor of Liverpool is gradually filling
up, they say; and who knows what your son (if you ever have one) may
behold, when he comes to visit Liverpool, as long after you as you come
after his grandfather. And, Wellingborough, as your father’s guidebook
is no guide for you, neither would yours (could you afford to buy a
modern one to-day) be a true guide to those who come after you.
Guide-books, Wellingborough, are the least reliable books in all
literature; and nearly all literature, in one sense, is made up of
guide-books. Old ones tell us the ways our fathers went, through the
thoroughfares and courts of old; but how few of those former places can
their posterity trace, amid avenues of modem erections; to how few is
the old guide-book now a clew! Every age makes its own guidebooks, and
the old ones are used for waste paper. But there is one Holy
Guide-Book, Wellingborough, that will never lead you astray, if you but
follow it aright; and some noble monuments that remain, though the
pyramids crumble.
But though I rose from the door-step a sadder and a wiser boy, and
though my guide-book had been stripped of its reputation for
infallibility, I did not treat with contumely or disdain, those sacred
pages which had once been a beacon to my sire.
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