Tracks of a Rolling Stone, by Henry J. Coke

I am reading Tracks of a Rolling Stone by Henry J. Coke. Coke wrote his memoirs in 1905 and it describes upper class English society in the last half of the nineteenth century. I started reading it because he is reported to be a writer with one of the largest vocabularies in a study called "Vocabulary Analysis of Project Gutenberg". Melville is also on that list.

Coke is not nearly the writer that Melville was, but he is still interesting. His account of his travels, east to west, across the Rockies reminds me a little of Stanley's trip across Africa to find Livingston. When Coke finally drags himself out of the American wilderness, a physical ruin with nothing but his clothes, he presents himself to American army officer in Dalles, Oregon:

"Pray sir,’ said I in my best Louis Quatorze manner, ‘have I the pleasure of speaking to Major Dooker?"

"Tucker, sir. And who the devil are you?"

Let me describe what the Major saw: A man wasted by starvation to skin and bone, blackened, almost, by months of exposure to scorching suns; clad in the shreds of what had once been a shirt, torn by every kind of convict labour, stained by mud and the sweat and sores of mules; the rags of a shooting coat to match; no head covering; hands festering with sores, and which for weeks had not touched water—if they could avoid it. Such an object, in short, as the genius of a Phil May could alone have depicted as the most repulsive object he could imagine.

"Who the devil are you?"

"An English gentleman, sir, travelling for pleasure."

Louis Quatorze is Louis XIV, King of France. Phil May was a popular cartoonist for Punch magazine.

Reviewed by Ed, First Regional Library

Read book online at Project Gutenberg