i Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. University of Illinois Library £ K C # O V liPR 23 ?363 fiPfi :>i) !%•; \\$ X - Oil i r JUM 1 3 198® sum 9 P, \9li JUN 0 , 7003 I960 w, i * jut 2(1 MAY 1 1999 ?nc„ L161— H41 Yt 'Y J ; A CYCLOPEDIA OF THE BEST THOUGHTS OF Charles Dickens. COMPILED AND ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED BY F. G. de FONTAINE. “ We should manage our thoughts as shepherds do their flowers in making a garland ; flist select the choicest, and then dispose them in the most proper places, that every one may reflect a part of its color and brightness on the next.” — S. T. Coleridge. NEW YORK: E. J. HALE & SON, PUBLISHERS, Murray Street. 1873. I o 4 > * V * ' Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1S72, by E. J. HALE & SOX, lii the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Lancik, Little i; Kii.lma:;, rni\?-:nn, M.ncruoTV i , icb 3 an;> bti r.soTvi'cr.a, in i t > 111 \V 00*7 Kit fir., N :.w Von::. 22652 .^ so At the New York Tress Dinner to Charles Dickens, the late Hon. Ilenry J. Raymond, expressed himself as follows : “All that he has written— I say it without the exception of a single word that has proceeded from his pen — has been calculated to infuse into every human heart the feeling that every man was his brother, and that the highest duty he could do t' the world, and the highest pleasure he could confer upon himself, and the greatest service he could render to humanity, was to bring that other heart, whether high or low, as close to his own as possible. * * * I be- lieve there is not a man here who knows anything of his writings, who has not been made there- by a better, as well as a wiser, kinder, and nobler man.” The object of this volume is to present in a compact form — alphabetically arranged for ready reference— a selection of the Test Thoughts of Charles Dickens. It is only a great genius — one which has identified itself with the reading millions — that will bear such a test. But when an author has become a fountain of phrases and characters, and for more than thirty- five years tinged our current literature with his personages and phraseology — when Pickwick and the Wellers ; Pecksniff and Mark Tapley ; Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness ; Peggotty and Barkis; Susan Nipper and Dot; Captain Cuttle and Wal’r ; Sairey Gamp and Mrs. Harris; Micawber and Mr. Turveydrop : Little Nell, “Jo,” and Paul ; nay, the entire roll of fourteen hundred and twenty-five creations of his fancy, have become “ as household words ” — a collec- tion of the “ Best Thoughts ” of such an author will be neither unwelcome nor useless to those who admire the existing monuments of his literary labors. A compilation of this kind, indeed, has long been a want, for Charles Dickens has so forcibly impressed his strong individualities upon all he has written, that there is scarcely a profession, or trade, or stratum of society, or subject, which, touched by his artistic pen, has not received some new light or .shadow that makes the picture more vivid than before. Hence, he who reads simply to converse well or quote aptly, or he who would *• Steal a thought and clip it round its edge, And challenge him whose ’twas, to swear to it,” will find within these pages that which concerns every theme in life. The Lawyer, Minister, Physician, Journalist, Artist, Actor, Author, Orator, Inventor, Musi- cian, Architect, School-master, Philanthropist, Life Insurance Agent, Broker, Auctioneer, Col- lector, Short-hand Writer, Undertaker, Jailor, Executioner, Stage Driver, House keeper, Nurse,— all these and more have their place in the intellectual phantasmagoi ia all aie the objects of unmistakable satire, humor, or pathos— all will find something within these pages which concerns their various callings. Critics may quarrel with the art of Dickens, but the people will always admire his genius. Regarded from any point of view, his works constitute a unique gallery of portraits, wherein one may enjoy sympathy with all that is tender and true in humanity, 01, on the other hand, find not extravagant illustrations of that which is false and forbidding. The author dwells among powerful contrasts. Oliver Wendell Holmes has described him as “a kind of Shakespeare, working in terra cotta, instead of marble ;” while M. Taine, in his History of English Literature , alleges that he “ contains an English painter,” who, with passion- ate art, gives a voice to matter, and makes imaginary objects equivalent to realities. Whatever Dickens has described, is impressed upon the imagination with all the detail and truth of a living presence. Is it the massive machinery of a “Dock Yard”— you hear the “scrunch” of the power press. Is it the wind— you witness the “small tyranny with which it wreaks its vengeance on the fallen leaves, and then goes whirling among the crazy timbers of a steeple to mingle its moans with the Yoices of the Bells.” Is it an English heme, at Christmas — you are sitting at the same board with 1 iny l im and Bob Cratchit, and Licre is 46? W 4 INTRODUCTION. not a detail of the feast missing, from the aroma of the annual pudding to the brewing of the punch. Does he paint a portrait — his masterly touches fasten upon memory the hypocrisy of Fecksniff, Chadband, and Stiggins ; the rude devotion of Captain Cuttle, Sam Weller, and Mark Tapley ; the sturdy strength of Boythorn ; the villainy of Carker, Jonas Chuzzlewit, Fagin, and Sikes ; the noble generosity of the Cheeryble Brothers ; the selfish obstinacy of Dombey and Gradgrind ; the imperiousness of Bounderby ; the dying face of Stephen Black- pool, turned to the star that “ha’ shined upon me in my pain and trouble down below the simplicity of Tom Finch, and the sweet child-life of Paul Dombey, Florence, and Little Nell ! As the diamond-cutter chips from the rough stone an angle here and an angle there to give perfection to the brilliant, so did Dickens develop thought until it became prismatic and pictur- esque, each character standing out as the incarnation of some virtue, vice, or absurdity. Nor was the satire of Dickens without a healthful purpose. Ilis descriptions of Debtor’s Prisons, the Court of Chancery, the Yorkshire schools and school-masters, the Circumlocu- tion Office, the spurious philanthropists, hypocritical pretenders to goodness, organized business swindlers, stony-hearted capitalists, and brutal hospital nurses, illustrate the power with which he thrust his victim through and through until life was extinct. Ilis irony and ridicule thus concentrated upon all the classes of institutions which he exposed, directed public attention to the existing evils, and resulted in reform. In the language of Thackeray, “As for the charities of Mr. Dickens, the multiplied kind- nesses which he has conferred upon us all, upon our children, upon people educated and un- educated, upon the myriads who speak our common tongue, have not you, have not I, all of us, reason to be thankful to this kind friend, who soothed and charmed so many hours ; brought pleasure and sweet laughter to so many homes ; made such multitudes of children hap- py ; endowed us with such a sweet store of gracious thoughts, fair fancies, soft sympathies, hearty enjoyments? There are creations of Mr. Dickens which seem to me to rank as personal benefits ; figures so delightful that one feels happier and better for knowing them, as one does for being brought into the society of very good men and women Thankfully I take my share of the feast of love and kindness which this gentle, and generous, and charitable soul has contributed to the happiness of the world. I take and enjoy iny share, and say a benediction for the meal.” F. G. de F. THE BEST THOUGHTS OF CHARLES DICKENS. “So live thy better — let thy worst thoughts clie.” Sir Walter Raleigh. ABBEY— Nell in the old. Already impressed, beyond all telling, by the silent building and the peaceful beauty of the spot in which it stood — majestic age surrounded by perpetual youth — it seemed to her, when she heard these things, sacred to all goodness and virtue. It was another world, where sin and sorrow never came ; a tranquil place of rest, where nothing evil entered. When the bachelor had given her in con- nection with almost every tomb and flat grave- stone some history of its own, he took her down into the old crypt, now a mere dull vault, and showed her how it had been lighted up in the time of the monks, and how, amid lamps de- pending from the roof, and swinging censers exhaling scented odors, and habits glittering with gold and silver, and pictures, and precious stuffs, and jewels all flashing and glistening through the low arches, the chaunt of aged voices had been many a time heard there, at midnight, in old days, while hooded figures knelt and* prayed around, and told their rosaries of beads. Thence, he took her above ground again, and showed her, high up in the old walls, small galleries, where the nuns had been wont to glide along — dimly seen in their dark dresses so far off — or to pause, like gloomy shadows, listening to the prayers. He showed her, too, how the warriors, whose figures rested on the tombs, had worn those rotting scraps of armor up above — how this had been a helmet and that a shield, and that a gauntlet — and how they had wielded the great two-handed swords, and beaten men down with yonder iron mace. Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 54. The very light coming through sunken win- dows, seemed old and gray, and the air, redolent of earth and mould, seemed laden with decay, purified by time of all its grosser particles, and sighing through arch, and aisle, and clustered pillars, like the breath of ages gone ! Here was the broken pavement, worn so long ago by pious feet that Time, stealing on the pilgrims’ steps, had trodden out their track, and left but crumb- ling stones. Here were the rotten beam, the sink- ing arch, the sapped and mouldering wall, the lowly trench of earth, the stately tomb on which no epitaph remained — all, marble, stone, iron, wood, and dust, one common monument of ruin. The best work and the worst, the plainest and the richest, the stateliest and the least imposing — both of Heaven’s work and man’s — all found one common level here, and told one common tale. Some part of the edifice had been a baronial chapel, and here were effigies of warriors stretch- ed upon their beds of stone with folded hands — crost-legged, those who had fought in the Holy Wars — girded with their swords, and cased in armor as they had lived. Some of these knights had their own weapons, helmets, coats of mail, hanging upon the walls hard by, and dangling from rusty hooks. Broken and dilapidated as they were, they yet retained their ancient form, and something of their ancient aspect. Thus violent deeds live after men upon the earth, and traces of war and bloodshed will survive in mournful shapes long after those who worked the desolation are but atoms of earth themselves. The child sat down, in this old silent place, among the stark, figures on the tombs — they made it more quiet there than elsewhere, to her fancy — and gazing round with a feeling of awe, tempered with a calm delight, felt that now she was happy, and at rest. She took a Bible from the shelf, and read ; then, laying it down, thought of the summer days and the bright springtime that would come — of the rays of sun that would fall in aslant upon the sleeping forms — of the leaves that would flutter at the window, and play in glistening shadows on the pavement — of the songs of birds, and growth of buds and blossoms out of doors — of the sweet air that would steal in and gently wave the tat- tered banners overhead. What if the spot awakened thoughts of death ! Die who would, it would still remain the same ; these sights and sounds would still go on as happily as ever. It would be no pain to sleep amidst them. Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 53. ABILITY— Misdirected. (Stryver.) When his host followed him out on the stair- case with a candle, to light him down the stairs, the day was coldly looking in through its grimy windows. When he got out of the house, the air was cold and sad, the dull sky overcast, the river dark and dim, the whole scene like a life- less desert. And wreaths of dust were spinning round and round before the morning blast, as if the desert-sand had risen far away, and the first spray of it, in its advance, had begun the overwhelming of the city. Waste forces within him, and a desert all ai-ound, this man stood still on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in the wilderness before him, a mirage of honora- ble ambition, self-denial, and perseverance. In the fair city of this vision there were airy gal- ACTOR 0 ACTOR leries from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of hope that sparkled in his sight. A moment, and it was gone. Climb- ing to a high chamber in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears. Sadly, sadly, the sun rose ; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed ex- ercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and re- signing himself to let it cat him away. Tale of Two Cities , Chap. 5. ACTOR— The Dying-. “ I kept my promise. The last foil r- an d- twenly hours had produced a frightful alteration. The eyes, though deeply sunk and heavy, shone with a lustre frightful to behold. The lips were parched, and cracked in many places ; the dry hard skin glowed with a burning heat, and there was an almost unearthly air of wild anxiety in the man’s face, indicating even more strongly the ravages of the disease. The fever was at its height. “ I took the scat I had occupied the night be- fore, and there I sat for hours, listening to sounds which must strike deep to the heart of the most callous among human beings — the awful ravings of a dying man. From what I had heard of the medical attendant’s opinion, I knew there was no hope for him : I was sitting by his death-bed. I saw the -wasted limbs, which, a few hours before, had been distorted for the amusement of a boisterous gallery, writhing under the tortures of a burning fever — I heard the clown’s shrill laugh, blending with the low murmurings of the dying man. “ It is a touching thing to hear the mind re- verting to the ordinary occupations and pur- suits of health, when the body lies before you weak and helpless ; but when those occupa- tions are of a character the most strongly op- posed to anything we associate with grave or solemn ideas, the impression produced is infi- nitely more powerful. The theatre, and the public-house, were the chief themes of the wretched man’s wanderings. It was evening, he fancied ; he had a part to play that night ; it was late, and he must leave home instantly. Why did they hold him, and prevent his going? • — he should lose the money — he must go. No ! they would not let him. lie hid his face in his burning hands, and feebly bemoaned his own weakness, and the cruelty of his persecutors. A short pause, and he shouted out a few doggerel rhymes — the last he had ever learnt. He rose in bed, drew up his withered limbs, and rolled about in uncouth positions — he was acting — he was at the theatre. A. minute’s silence, and he murmured the burden of some roaring song, lie had reached the old house at last : how hot the room was. lie had been ill, very ill, but 1 m: was well now, and happy. Fill up his glass. Who was that, that dashed it from his lips? It was the same persecutor that had followed him before. He fell back upon his pillow and moaned aloud. A short period of oblivion, and he was wandering through a tedious maze of low-arched rooms — so low, sometimes, that he must creep upon his hands and knees to make his way along ; it was close and dark, and every way he turned, some obstacle impeded his progress. There were insects too, hideous, crawling things, with eyes that stared upon him, and filled the very air aroupd — glistening hor- ribly amidst the thick darkness of the place. The walls and ceiling were alive with reptiles — the vault expanded to an enormous size — frightful figures flitted to and fro — and the faces of men he knew, rendered hideous by gibing and mouthing, peered out from among them — they were scaring him with heated irons, and binding his head with cords till the blood started — and he struggled madly for life. ‘ At the close of one of these paroxysms, when I had with great difficulty held him down in his bed, he sank into what appeared to be a slumber. Overpowered with watching and ex- ertion, I had closed my eyes for a few minutes, when I felt a violent clutch on my shoulder. I awoke instantly. He had raised himself up, so as to seat himself in bed — a dreadful change had come over his face, but consciousness had returned, for he evidently knew me. The child, w ho had been long since disturbed by his rav- ings, rose from his little bed, and ran towards its father, screaming with fright — the mother hastily caught it in her arms, lest he should in- jure it in the violence of his insanity ; but, ter- rified by the alteration of his features, stood transfixed by the bedside. He grasped my shoulder convulsively, and, striking his breast with the other hand, made a desperate attempt to articulate. It was unavailing — he extended his arm towards them, and made another vio- lent effort. There was a rattling noise in the throat — a glare of the eye — a short stifled groan, and he fell back — dead ! ” — Pick., Chap. 3. ACTOR— His Reading- of Hamlet. “ How' did you like my reading of the charac- ter, gentlemen ?” said Mr. Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage. Herbert said from behind (again poking me), “ massive and concrete.” So I said boldly, as if I had originated it, and must beg to insist upon it, “ massive and concrete.” “I am glad to have ycur- approbation, gen- tlemen,” said Mr. Waldengarver, with an air of dignity, in spite of his being ground against the Avail at the time, and holding on by the seat of the chair. “But I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengar- ver,” said the man who was on his knees, “ in w hich you’re out in your reading. Now mind ! I don’t care who says contrairy ; I tell you so. You’re out in your reading of Hamlet when you get your legs in profile. The last Hamlet as I dressed made the same mistakes in his reading at rehearsal, till I got him to put a large red wafer on each of his shins, and then at that rehearsal (which was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of the pit, and whenever his reading brought him into profile, I called out, ‘ I don’t see no wafers !’ And at night his reading was lovely.” s>< Sis sjs He When we were in a side alley, he turned and asked, “I low'- do you think he looked? — J dressed him.” I don’t know what he had looked like, ex- cept a funeral ; with the addition of a largo Danish sun or star hanging round his neck by n blue ribbon, that had given him the appearance ACTOR 7 ADJECTIVES of being insured in some extraordinary Fire Office. But I said he had looked very nice. “ When he come to the grave,” said our con- ductor, “ he showed ljis cloak beautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to me that when he see the ghost in the queen’s apartment, he might have made more of his stockings.” Great Expectations, Chap. 31. ACTOR— “ Feeling: a part.” “We had a first-tragedy man in our company once, who, when he played Othello, used to black himself all over. But that’s feeling a part and going into it as if you meant it ; it isn't usual — more’s the pity.” Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 48. ACTORS— A gathering of. A pretty general muster of the company had by this time taken place ; for besides Mr. Len- ville and his friend Tommy, there were present, a slim young gentleman with weak eyes, who played the low-spirited lovers and sang tenor songs, and who had come arm-in-arm with the comic countryman — a man with a turned-up nose, large mouth, broad face, and staring eyes. Making himself very amiable to the Infant Phe- nomenon, was an inebriated elderly gentleman in the last depths of shabbiness, who played the calm and virtuous old men ; and paying espe- cial court to Mrs. Crummies was another elderly gentleman, a shade more respectable, who played the irascible old men — those funny fellows who have nephews in the army, and perpetually run about with thick sticks to compel them to marry heiresses. Besides these, there was a roving- looking person in a rough great-coat, who strode up and down in front of the lamps, flourishing a dress-cane, and rattling away, in an under- tone, with great vivacity, for the amusement of an ideal audience. He was not quite so young as he had been, and his figure was rather run- ning to seed ; but there was an air of exag- gerated gentility about him, which bespoke the hero of swaggering comedy. Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 23. ACQUAINTANCE— The art of extending. Sir Barnet’s object in life was constantly to extend the range of his acquaintance. Like a heavy body dropped into water — not to dispar- age so worthy a gentleman by the comparison — it was in the nature of things that Sir Barnet must spread an ever-widening circle about him, until there was no room left. Or, like a sound in air, the vibration of which, according to the speculation of an ingenious modern philosopher, may go on travelling for ever through the inter- minable fields of space, nothing but coming to the end of his mortal tether could stop Sir Bar- net Skettles in his voyage of discovery through the social system. ‘ Sir Barnet was proud of making people ac- quainted with people. He liked the thing for its own sake, and it advanced his favorite object too. For example, if Sir Barnet had the good fortune to get hold of a raw recruit, or a country gentleman, and ensnared him to his hospitable villa, Sir Barnet would say to him on the morn- ing after his arrival, “ Now, my dear Sir, is there anybody you would like to know ? Who is there you would wish to meet ? Do you take any interest in writing people, or in paint- ing or sculpturing people, or in acting people, or in anything of that sort ? ” Possibly the pa- tient answered yes, and mentioned somebody of whom Sir Barnet had no more personal knowledge than of Ptolemy the Great. Sir Barnet replied, that nothing on earth was easier, as he knew him very well : immediately called on the aforesaid somebody, left his card, wrote a short note : — “ My dear Sir — penalty of your eminent position — friend at my house naturally desirous — Lady Skettles and myself participate — trust that genius being superior to ceremo- nies, you will do us the distinguished favor of giving us the pleasure,” etc., etc. — and so killed a brace of birds with one stone, dead as door- nails. — Dombey and Son , Chap. 24. ACQUAINTANCE— A Charity to Mr. Toots. “ Captain Gills,” blurted out Mr. Toots, one day all at once, as his manner was, “ do you think you could think favorably of that propo- sition of mine, and give me the pleasure of your acquaintance ? ” “ Why, I tell you what it is, my lad,” replied the Captain, who had at length concluded on a course of action ; “ I’ve been turning that there over.” “ Captain Gills, it’s very kind of you,” retorted Mr. Toots. “ I’m much obliged to you. Upon my word and honor, Captain Gills, it would be a charity to give me the pleasure of your ac- quaintance. It really would.” “You see, Brother,” argued the Captain slowly, “ I don’t know you.” “ But you never can know me, Captain Gills,” replied Mr. Toots, steadfast to his point, “if you don’t give me the pleasure of your acquaint- ance.” — Dombey and Son, Chap. 39. ADAPTABILITY— Gentlemen of the free and easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter ; between which opposite ex- tremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don’t mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange ap- pearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. — Chris. Carol, Stave 3. ADDRESSES— Public. Mayors have been knighted for “ going up ” with addresses : explosive machines intrepidly discharging shot and shell into the English Grammar. — Ed. Drood, Chap. 12. ADJECTIVES— Barli’s usa of profane. We enter, and Bark flies out of bed. Bark is a red villain and a wrathful, with a sanguine throat that looks very much as if it were ex- pressly made for hanging, as he stretches it out, in pale defiance, over the half-door of his hutch. Bark’s parts of speech are of an awful sort — principally adjectives. I won’t, says Bark, have no adjective police and adjective strangers in my adjective premises ! I won’t, by adjective and substantive ! Give me my trousers, and I’ll ADMIRER 8 ADVERTISING send the whole adjective police to adjective and substantive ! Give me, says Bark, my adjective trousers ! I’ll put an adjective knife in the whole bileing of ’em. I’ll punch their adjective heads. I’ll rip up their adjective substantives. Give me my adjective trousers ! says Bark, and I’ll spile the bileing of ’em ! — On Duty with Inspector Field. Reprinted Pieces. ADMIRER -Quale as an indiscriminate. While we were in London, Mr. Jarndyce was constantly beset by the crowd of excitable ladies and gentlemen whose proceedings had so much astonished us. Mr. Quale, who presented him- self soon after our arrival, was in all such excite- ments. He seemed to project those two shining knobs of temples of his into everything that went on, and to brush his hair farther and farther back, until the very roots were almost ready to fly out of his head in inappeasable philanthropy. All objects were alike to him, but he was always particularly ready for any- thing in the way of a testimonial to any one. Ilis great power seemed to be his power of in- discriminate admiration. He would sit for any length of time, with the utmost enjoyment, bathing his temples in the light of any order of luminary. Having first seen him perfectly swallowed up in admiration of Mrs. Jellyby, I had supposed her to be the absorbing object of his devotion. I soon discovered my mistake, and found him to be train-bearer and organ- blower to a whole procession of people. Bleak House , Chap. 15. ADVERTISEMENTS— Peculiarities of. “ Dreaming, Tom ? ” “ No,” said Mr. Pinch, “ No. I have been looking over the advertising sheet, thinking there might be something in it which would be likely to suit me. But, as I often think, the strange thing seems to be that nobody is suited. Here are all kinds of employers wanting all sorts of servants, and all sorts of servants want- ing all kinds of employers, and they never seem to come together. Here is a gentleman in a public office in a position of temporary dif- ficulty, who wants to borrow five hundred pounds ; and in the very next advertisement here is another gentleman who has got exactly that sum to lend. But he’ll never lend it to him, John, you’ll find ! Plere is a lady possess- ing a moderate independence, who wants to board and lodge with a quiet, cheerful family: and here is a family describing themselves in those very words, ‘ a quiet, cheerful family,’ who want exactly such a lady to come and live with them. But she’ll never go, John ! Neither do any of these single gentlemen who want an airy bed-room, with the occasional use of a parlor, ever appear to come to terms with these other people who live in a rural situation, re- markable for its bracing atmosphere, within five minutes’ walk of the Royal Exchange. Even those letters of the alphabet, who are always running away from their friends and being entreated at the tops of columns to come back, never do come back, if we may judge from the number of times they arc asked to do it, and don’t. It really seems,” said Tom, relin- quishing the paper, with a thoughtful sigh, “ as if people had the same gratification in printing their complaints as in making them known by word of mouth ; as if they found it a comfort and consolation to proclaim, ‘ I want such and such a thing, and I can’t get it, and I don’t ex- pect I ever shall ! ’ — Martin Chuzzlewit, Ch. 36. ADVERTISING As a means of revenge. If I had an enemy whom I hated — which Heaven forbid ! — and if I knew of something that sat heavy on his conscience, I think I would introduce that something into a Posting- Bill, and place a large impression in the hands of an active sticker. I can scarcely imagine a more terrible revenge. I should haunt him, by this means, night and day. I do not mean to say that I would publish his secret, in red let- ters two feet high, for all the town to read : I would darkly refer to it. It should be between him, and me, and the Posting-Bill. Say, for ex- ample, that, at a certain period of his life, my enemy had surreptitiously possessed himself of a key. I would then embark my capital in the lock business, and conduct that business on the advertising principle. In all my placards and advertisements, I would throw up the line Secret Keys. Thus, if my enemy passed an uninhabited house, he would see his conscience glaring down on him from the parapets, and peeping up at him from the cellars. If he took a dead-wall in his walk, it would .be alive with repr oaches. If he sought refuge in an omnibus, the panels thereof would become Belshazzar’s palace to him. If he took a boat, in a wild en- deavor to escape, he would see the fatal words lurking under the arches of the bridges over the Thames. If he walked the streets with down- cast eyes, he would recoil from the veiy stones of the pavement, made eloquent by lampblack lithograph. If he drove or rode, his way would be blocked up by enormous vans, each pro- claiming the same words over and over again from its whole extent of surface. Until, having gradually grown thinner and paler, and having at last totally rejected food, he would miserably perish, and I should be revenged. This con- clusion I should, no doubt, celebrate by laugh- ing a hoarse laugh in three syllables, and fold- ing my arms tight upon my chest, agreeably to most of the examples of glutted animosity that I have had an opportunity of observing in con- nexion with the Drama — which, by-the-bye, as involving a good deal of noise, appears to me to be occasionally confounded with the Drum- mer. — Bill- Sticking. Reprinted Pieces. ADVERTISING— A building- “billed.” The foregoing reflections presented them- selves to my mind, the other day, as I contem- plated an old warehouse which rotting paste and rotting paper had brought down to the condition of an old cheese. It would have been impossible to say, on the most conscien- tious survey, how much of its front was brick and mortar, and how much decaying and de- cayed plaster. It was so thickly encrusted with fragments of bills, that no ship’s keel after a long voyage could be half so foul. All traces of the broken windows were billed out, the doors were billed across, the waterspout was billed over. The building was shored up to prevent its tumbling into the street ; and the very beams erected against it, were less wood than paste and paper, they had been so con- tinually posh'd and reposted. The forlorn dregs ADVERTISING 9 AFFECTION of old posters so encumbered this wreck, that there was no hold for new posters, and the stickers had abandoned the place in despair, except one enterprising man who had hoisted the last masquerade to a clear spot near the level of the stack of chimneys, where it waved and drooped like a shattered flag. Below the rusty cellar-grating, crumpled remnants of old bills torn down rotted away in wasting heaps of fallen leaves. Here and there, some of the thick rind of the house had peeled off in strips, and fluttered heavily down, littering the street ; but still, below these rents and gashes, layers of decomposing posters showed themselves, as if they were interminable. I thought the building could never even be pulled down, but in one adhesive heap of rottenness and poster. As to getting in — I don’t believe that if the Sleeping ; Beauty and her Court had been so billed up, the young prince could have done it. Reprinted Pieces . . * * * * * -si- Robbery, fire, murder, and the ruin of the United Kingdom — each discharged in a line by itself, like a separate broadside of red-hot shot — were among the least of the warnings ad- dressed to an unthinking people. Reprinted Pieces. ‘ ‘ Bill-sticking. ’ ’ ADVERTISING-— Show-bills. Next day the posters appeared in due course, and the public were informed, in all the colors of the rainbow, and in letters afflicted with every possible variation of spinal deformity, how that Mr. Johnson would have the honor of making his last appearance that evening, and how that an early application for places was re- quested, in consequence of the extraordinary overflow attendant on his performances.. It being a remarkable fact in theatrical history, but one long since established beyond dispute, that it is a hopeless endeavor to attract people to a theatre unless they can be first brought to believe that they will never get into it. Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 30. ADVERTISEMENTS - Alphabetical an- swers to. Answers out of number were received, with all sorts of initials ; all the letters of the al- phabet seemed to be seized with a sudden wish to go out boarding and lodging ; voluminous was the correspondence between Mrs. Tibbs and the applicants ; and most profound was the secrecy observed. “ E.” did’nt like this ; “ I.” couldn’t think of putting up with that ; “ I. O. U.” did’nt think the terms would suit him ; and “ G. R.” had never slept in a French bed. — Tales. The Boarding House, Chap. 1. ADVERTISEMENT— A walking-. So, he stopped the unstamped advertisement — an animated sandwich, composed of a boy between two boards. Characters (Sketches), Chap. 9. ADVICE OF MRS. RAGNET-On conduct. “ Old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet, “ give him my opinion. You know it. Tell him what it is.” “ It is, that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too deep for him, and cannot be too careful of interference with matters he does not understand ; that the plain rule is, to do nothing in the dark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never to put his foot where he cannot see the ground.” Bleak House , Chap. 27. ADVICE OF MR. MICAWBEE-On pro- crastination and money. “ My dear young friend,” said Mr. Micawber, “ I am older than you ; a man of some experi- ence in life, and — and of some experience — in short, in difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until something turns up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestow but advice. Still, my advice is so far worth taking that — in short, that I have never taken it myself, and am the ” — here Mr. Mi- cawber, who had been beaming and smiling, all over his head and face, up to the present mo- ment, checked himself and frowned — “ the mis- erable wretch you behold.” “ My dear Micawber ! ” urged his wife. “ I say,” returned Mr. Micawber, quite for- getting himself, and . smiling again, “ the mis- erable wretch you behold. My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do to-day. Pro- crastination is the thief of time. Collar him.”. “ My poor papa’s maxim,” Mrs. Micawber observed. “ My dear,” said Mr. Micawber, “ your papa was very well in his way, and heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in all, we ne’er shall— in short, make the ac- quaintance, probably, of anybody else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to read the same description of print with- out spectacles. But he applied that maxim to our marriage, my dear ; and that was so far prematurely entered into, in consequence, that I never recovered the expense.” Mr. Micawber looked aside at Mrs. Micawber, and added : “ Not that I am sorry for it. Quite the contrary, my love.” After which he was grave for a minute or so. “ My other piece of advice, Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, “ you know. Annual in- come twenty pounds, annual expenditure nine- teen nineteen six, result, happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result, misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene and — and, in short, you are for ever floored. As I am ! ” — David Copperfield, Chap. 12. AFFECTION— The expression of. “ Mature affection, homage, devotion, does not easily express itself. Its voice is low. It is modest and retiring ; it lies in ambush, waits and waits. Such is the mature fruit. Some- times a life glides away, and finds it still ripen- ing in the shade.” — David Copperfield, Chap. 4 1 . AFFECTION— The subtlety of. There is a subtlety of perception in real at- tachment, even when it is borne towards man by one of the lower animals, which leaves the highest intellect behind. To this mind of the heart, if I may call it so, in Mr. Dick, some bright ray of the truth shot straight. ****** When I think of him, with his impenetrably wise face, walking up and down with the Doctor, delighted to be battered by the hard AFFECTION 10 AFFLICTION words in the Dictionary; when I think of him, carrying huge watering-pots after Annie ; kneel- ing down, in very paws of gloves, at patient microscopic work among the- little leaves ; ex- pressing as no philosopher could have expressed, in everything he did, a delicate desire to be her friend ; showering sympathy, trustfulness, and affection, out of every hole in the watering-pot ; when I think of him, never wandering in that better mind of his to which unhappiness ad- dressed itself, never bringing the unfortunate King Charles into the garden, never wavering in his grateful service, never diverted from hi.-, knowledge that there was something wrong, or from his wish to set it right — I really feel almost ashamed of having known that he was not quite in his wits, taking account of the utmost I have done with mine. David Coppcrjicld , Chap. 42. AFFECTION— Of the idiot (Barnaby Eudg-a). Heaven alone can tell with what vague thoughts of duty and affection ; with what strange promptings of nature, intelligible to him as to a man of radiant mind and most en- larged capacity ; with what dim memories of children he had played with when a child him- self, who had prattled of their fathers, and of loving them, and being loved ; with how many half-remembered, dreamy associations of his mother’s grief and tears and widowhood, he watched and tended this man. But that a vague and shadowy crowd of such ideas came slowly on him ; that they taught him to be sorry when he looked upon his haggard face, that they overflowed his eyes when he stooped to kiss him, that they kept him waking in a tearful gladness, shading him from the sun, fanning him with leaves, soothing him when he started in his sleep — ah ! what a troubled sleep it was — and wondering when she would come to join them and be happy, is the truth. He sat beside him all that day ; listening for her foot- steps in every breath of air, looking for her shadow on the gently waving grass, twining the hedge-flowers for her pleasure when she came, and his when he awoke ; and stooping down from time to time to listen to his mutterings, and wonder why he was so x'estless in that quiet place. The sun went down, and night came on, and he was still quite tranquil ; busied with these thoughts, as if there were no other people in the world, and the dull cloud of smoke hang- ing on the immense city in the distance, hid no vices, no crimes, no life or death, or causes of disquiet — nothing but clear air. Barnaby Budge, Chap. 6S. AFFECTIONS- Wounded. Agitation and anxiety of mind scatter wrinkles and grey hairs with no unsparing hand ; but deeper traces follow on the silent uprooting of old habits, and severing of dear, familiar lies. The affections may not be so easily wounded as the passions, but their hurts are deeper, and more lasting. — Barnaby Budge, Chap. 81. AFFECT! DNS The natural. “ Natural .affections and instincts, my dear sir, arc the mo beautiful of the Almighty’s works, but like other beautiful works of 1 1 is, they mu t be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that they should be wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left untended, should be choked with weeds and briars.” — Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 46. AFFECTIONS— Of childhood. “Shall we make a man of him?” repeated the Doctor. “ I had rather be a child,” replied Paul. “ Indeed !” said the Doctor. “ Why?” The child sat on the table looking at him, with a curious expression of suppressed emotion in his face, and beating one hand proudly on his knee, as if he had the rising tears beneath it, and crushed them. But his other hand strayed a little way the while, a little farther — farther from him yet — until it lighted on the neck of Florence. “ This is why,” it seemed to say, and then the steady look was broken up and gone ; the working lip was loosened ; and the tears came streaming forth. Do m bey and Son, Chap. it. AFF J ACTION— The agony of. ' Tney little know, who coldly talk of the poor man’s bereavements, as a happy release from pain to the departed, and a merciful rebel from- expense to the survivor — they little know, I say, what the agony of those bereavements is. A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away — the con- sciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us — is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could pur- chase, or power bestow.” — Pick. Chap. 21. AFFLICTION— Assuaged by Memory. “If anything could soothe the first sharp pain of a heavy loss, it would be — with me — the re- flection that those I mourned, by being inno- cently happy here, and loving all about them, had prepared themselves for a purer and hap- pier world. The sun does 'not shine upon this fair earth to meet frowning eyes, depend upon it.” “ I believe you are right,” said the gentleman who had told the story. “ Believe ! ” retorted the other, “ can anybody doubt it ? Take any subject of sorrowful re- gret, and s$e with how much pleasure it is asso- ciated. Tile, recollection of past pleasure may becom^'pam* ” “ It does,” interposed the other. “Well; it does. To remember happiness which cannot be restored, is pain, but of a soft- ened kind. Our recollections are unfortunately mingled with much that we deplore, and with many actions which we bitterly repent ; still, in the most chequered life I firmly think there are so many little rays of sunshine to look back upon, that I do not believe any mortal (unless he had put himself without the pale of hope) would deliberately drain a goblet of the- waters of Lethe, if he had it in his power.” “ Possibly you are correct in that belief,” said the grey-haired gentleman, after a short reflec- tion. “ I am inclined to think you are.” “ Why, then," replied the other, “ the good in this state of existence preponderates over the bad, let mis-callcd philosophers tell us what they will. If our affections be tiied, our affec- tions arc our consolation and comfort ; and AFFLICTION 11 ALPHABET memory, however sad, is the best and purest link between this world and a better.” Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 6. AFFLICTION— Comfort in. In the exhaustless catalogue of Heaven’s mercies to mankind, the power we have of find- ing some germs of comfort in the hardest trials must ever occupy the foremost place ; not only because it supports and upholds us when we most require to be sustained, but because in this source of consolation there is something, we have reason to believe, of the divine spirit ; something of that goodness which detects, amidst our own evil doings, a redeeming qual- ity ; something which, even in our fallen nature, we possess in common with the angels ; which had its being in the old time when they trod the earth, and lingers on it yet, in pity. Barnaby Budge, Chap. 47. AFFHONT— Mr. Pickwick’s. “Sir,” said Mr. Tupman, “you’re a fellow !” “ Sir,” said Mr. Pickwick, “ you’re another !” Mr. Tupman advanced a step or two, and glared at Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Pickwick re- turned the glare, concentrated into a focus by means of his spectacles, and breathed a bold defiance. Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle looked on, petrified at beholding such a scene between two such men. “ Sir,” said Mr. Tupman, after a short pause, speaking in a low, deep voice, “you have called me old.” “ I have,” said Mr. Pickwick. “ And fat.” “ I reiterate the charge.” “ And a fellow.” “ So you are ! ” There was a fearful pause. “ My attachment to your person, sir,” said Mr. Tupman, speaking in a voice tremulous with emotion, and tucking up his wristbands meanwhile, “ is great — very great — but upon that person I must take summary vengeance.” “ Come on, sir ! ” replied Mr. Pickwick. Stim- ulated by the exciting nature of the dialogue, the heroic man actually threw himself into a paralytic attitude, confidently supposed by the two bystanders to have been intended as a pos- ture of defence. “What!” exclaimed Mr. Snodgrass, sud- denly recovering the power of speech, of which intense astonishment had previously bereft him, and rushing between the two, at the imminent hazard of receiving an application on the tem- ple from each, “ What ! Mr. Pickwick, with the eyes of the world upon you! Mr. Tupman, who, in common with us all, derives a lustre from his undying name ! For shame, gentle- men ; for shame.” _ The unwonted lines which momentary pas- sion had ruled in Mr. Pickwick’s clear and open brow, gradually melted away as his young friend spoke, like the marks of a black-lead pencil beneath the softening influence of India rubber. His countenance had resumed its usual benign expression ere he concluded. Pickwick , Chap. 15. AGE— A youthful old. “Brother Ned, my dear boy,” returned the other old fellow, “I believe that Tim Linkin- water was born a hundred-and-fifty years old, and is gradually coming down to five-and-twen- ty ; for he’s younger every birthday than he was the year before.” Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 37. AGE— The duties of old. “ Dear me ! ” said Mr. Omer, “ when a man is drawing on to a lime of life where the two ends of life meet ; when he finds himself, how- ever hearty he is, being wheeled about for the second time in a species of go-cart ; he should be over-rejoiced to do a kindness if he can. He wants plenty. And I don’t speak of myself, particular,” said Mr. Omer, “because, sir, the way I look at it is, that we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hill, whatever age we are, on account of time never standing still for a single moment. So let us always do a kindness, and be over-rejoiced. To be sure ! ” David Copperjield, Chap. 51. AGE— Severed by the poor. Age, especially when it strives to be self-re- liant and cheerful, finds much consideration among the poor. Hard Times, Book II., Chap. 6. ALIBI— The Elder Weller’s idea of an. “ The first matter relates to your governor, Sammy,” said Mr. Weller. “He’s a goin’ to be tried to-morrow, ain’t he ? ” “ The trial’s a cornin’ on,” replied Sam. “Veil,” said Mr. Weller, “ Now I s’pose he’ll want to call some witnesses to speak to his character, or p’haps to prove a alleybi. I’ve been a turnin’ the bisness over in my mind, and he may make his-self easy, Sammy. I’ve got some friends as’ll do either for him, but my ad- vice ’ud be this here — never mind the charac- ter, and slick to the alleybi. Nothing like a alleybi, Sammy, nothing.” Mr. Weller looked very profound as he delivered this legal opinion ; and burying his nose in his tumbler, winked over the top thereof at his astonished son. “ Why, what do you mean ? ” said Sam ; “ you don’t think lie’s a-goin’ to be tried at the Old Bailey, do you ? ” “ That ain’t no part of the present con-sider- ation, Sammy,” replied Mr. Weller. “Verever he’s a-goin’ to be tried, my boy, a alleybi’s the thing to get him off. Ve got Tom Vildspark off that ’ere manslaughter, with a alleybi, ven all the big vigs to a man said as nothing couldn’t save him. And my ’pinion is, Sammy, that if your governor don’t prove a alleybi, he’ll be what the Italians call reg’larly flum- moxed, and that’s all about it.” Pickwick, Chap. 33. * * * * * * Sam had put up the steps, and was preparing to jump upon the box, when he felt himself gently touched on the shoulder ; and looking round, his father stood before him. The old gentleman’s countenance wore a mournful ex- pression, as he shook his head gravely, and said, in warning accents : “ I know’d what ’ud come o’ this here mode o’ doing bisness. Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy worn’t there a alleybi ! ” — Pickwick, Chap. 34. ALPHABET- Learning: the. To this day, when I look upon the fat black ALPHABET 12 AMERICANS letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their shapes, and the easy good nature of O and Q and S, seem to present themselves again be- fore me as they used to do. But they recall no feeling of disgust or reluctance. On the con- trary, I seem to have walked along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book, and to have been cheered by the gentleness of my mother’s voice and manner all the way. David Copper field, Chap. 4. ALPHABET— Reminiscences of its study. We never see any very large, staring, black, Roman capitals, in a book, or shop-window, or placarded on a wall, without their immediately recalling to our mind an indistinct and confused recollection of the time when we were first in- itiated in the mysteries of the alphabet. We almost fancy we see the pin’s point following the letter, to impress its form more strongly on our bewildered imagination ; and wince invol- untarily, as we remember the hard knuckles with which the reverend old lady who instilled into our mind the first principles of education for ninepence per week, or ten and sixpence per quarter, was wont to poke our juvenile head occasionally, by way of adjusting the con- fusion of ideas in which we were generally in- volved. — Scenes, Chap. 11. ALPS— Among- the. * * * * We began rapidly to descend ; passing under everlasting glaciers, by means of arched galleries, hung with clusters of dripping icicles ; under and over foaming waterfalls ; near places of refuge, and galleries of shelter against sudden danger ; through caverns, over whose arched roofs the avalanches slide, in spring, and bury themselves in the unknown gulf beneath. Down, over lofty bridges, and through horrible ravines : a little shifting speck in the vast desolation of ice and snow, and monstrous granite rocks : down through the deep Gorge of the Saltine, and deafened by the torrent plunging madly down, among the riven blocks of rock, into the level country, far below. Gradually down, by zig-zag roads, lying between an upward and a downward precipice, into warmer weather, calmer air, and softer scenery, until there lay before us, glittering like gold or silver in the thaw and sunshine, the metal-cov- ered, red, green, yellow, domes and church- spires of a Swiss town. — Pictures from Italy. AMERICANS— Their Characteristics. They are by nature frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and affectionate. Cultivation and refinement seem but to enhance their warmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm ; and it is the possession of these latter qualities in a most remarkable degree which renders an educated American one of the most endearing and most generbus of friends. I never was so won upon as by this class ; never yielded up my full con- fidence and esteem so readily and pleasurably as to them ; never can make again in half a year so many friends for whom I seem to enter- tain the regard of half a life. These qualities arc natural, I implicitly be- lieve, to the whole people. That they are, how- ever, sadly sapped and blighted in their growth among the mass, and that there arc influences at work which endanger them still more, and give but little present promise of their healthy restora- tion, is a truth that ought to be told. It is an essential part of every national char- acter to pique itself mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its wisdom from their very exaggeration. One great blem- ish in the popular mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable brood of evils, is Universal Distrust. Yet the Ameri- can citizen plumes himself upon this spirit, even when he is sufficiently dispassionate to per- ceive the ruin it works, and will often adduce it, in spite of his own reason, as an instance of the great sagacity and acuteness of the people, and their superior .shrewdness and independ- ence. “You carry,” says the stranger, “this jeal- ousy and distrust into every transaction of pub- lic life. By repelling worthy men from your legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates for the suffrage, who, in their every act, disgrace your Institutions and your peo- ple’s choice. It has rendered you so fickle and so given to change that your inconstancy has passed into a proverb ; for you no sooner set up an idol firmly, than you are sure to pull it down and dash it into fragments ; and this because directly you reward a benefactor or a public servant you distrust him, merely because he is rewarded ; and immediately apply yourself to find out, either that you have been too bounti- ful in your acknowledgments, or he remiss in his deserts. Any man who attains a high place among you, from the President down- wards, may date his downfall from that moment ; for any printed lie that any notorious villain pens, although it militate directly against the character and conduct of a life, appeals at once to your distrust, and is believed. You will strain at a gnat in the way of trustfulness and confidence, however fairly won and well deserv- ed ; but you will swallow a whole caravan of camels, if they be laden with unworthy doubts and mean suspicions. Is this well, think you, or likely to elevate the character of the govern- ors or the governed among you ? ” The answer is invariably the same : “ There’s freedom of opinion here, you know. Every man thinks for himself, and we are not to be easily overreached. That’s how our people come to be suspicious.” Another prominent feature is the love of “smart” dealing, which gilds over many a swindle and gross breach of trust, many a defal- cation, public and private, and enables many a knave to hold his head up with the best, who well deserves a halter ; though it has not been without its retributive operation, for this smartness has done more, in a few years, to impair the public credit, and to cripple the public resources, than dull honesty, how- ever rash, could have effected in a century. The merits of a broken speculation, or a bank- ruptcy, or of a successful scoundrel, are not gauged by its or his observance of the golden rule, “ Do as you would be done by,” but are considered with reference to their smartness. I recollect, on both occasions of our passing that ill-fated Cairo on the Mississippi, remark- ing on the bad effects such gross deceits must have when they exploded, in generating a want of confidence abroad, and discouraging foreign investment ; but I was given to understand that AMERICANS 13 AMERICANS this was a very smart scheme, by which a deal of money had been made, and that its smartest feature was that they forgot these things abroad in a very short time, and speculated again as freely as ever. The following dialogue I have held a hundred times : “ Is it not a very dis- graceful circumstance that such a man as So- and-so should be acquiring a large property by the most infamous and odious means, and, not- withstanding all the crimes of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted by your citizens ? He is a public nuisance, is he not ? ” “ Yes, sir.” “ A convicted liar ? ” “ Yes, sir.” “ He has been kicked, and cuffed, and caned?” “Yes, sir.” “And he is utterly dis- honorable, debased, and profligate?” “Yes, sir.” “ In the name of wonder, then, what is his merit ? ” “ Well, sir, he is a smart man.” Am. Notes , Chap. 18. * * * * * * They certainly are not a humoi'ous people, and their temperament always impressed me as being of a dull and gloomy character. In shrewdness of remark, and a certain cast-iron quaintness, the Yankees, or people of New Eng- land, unquestionably take the lead, as they do in most other evidences of intelligence. But in travelling about out of the large cities — as I have remarked in former parts of these vol- umes — I was quite oppressed by the prevailing seriousness and melancholy air of business, which was so general and unvarying, that at every new town I came to I seemed to meet the very same people whom I had left behind me at the last. Such defects as are perceptible in the national manners seem to me to be refer- able, in a great degree, to this cause ; which has generated a dull, sullen persistence in coarse usages, and rejected the graces of life as unde- serving of attention. There is no doubt that Washington, who was always most scrupulous and exact on points of ceremony, perceived the tendency towards this mistake, even in his time, and did his utmost to correct it. — Chap. 18. AMERICANS— Their Devotion to Dollars. All their cares, hopes, joys, affections, virtues, and associations, seemed to be melted down into dollars. Whatever the chance contribu- tions that fell into the slow cauldron of then- talk, they made the gruel thick and slab with dollars. Men were weighed by their dollars, measures gauged by their dollars ; life was auctioneered, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its dollars. The next respectable thing to dollars was any venture having their attainment for its end. The more of that worthless ballast, honor and fair-dealing, which any man cast overboard from the ship of his Good Name and Good Intent, the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars. Make com- merce one huge lie and mighty theft. Deface the banner of the nation for an idle rag ; pol- lute it star by star, and cut out stripe by stripe, as from the arm of a degraded soldier. Do anything for dollars ! What is a flag to them / One who rides at all hazards of limb and life in the chase of a fox, will prefer to ride recklessly at most times. So it was with these gentlemen. He was the greatest patriot, in their eyes, who brawled the loudest, and who cared the least for decency. He was then- champion, who, in the brutal fury of his own pursuit, could cast no stigma upon them, for the hot knavery of theirs. Thus, Martin learn- ed in the five minutes’ straggling talk about the stove, that to carry pistols into legislative assemblies, and swords in sticks, and other such peaceful toys ; to seize opponents by the throat, as dogs or rats might do ; to bluster, bully, and overbear by personal assailment, were glowing deeds. Not thrusts and stabs at Freedom, striking far deeper into her House of Life than any sultan’s scimitar could reach ; but ijare incense on her altars, having a grateful scent in patriotic nostrils, and curling upward to the seventh heaven of Fame. Martin Chuzzleiuit , Chap. 16. AMERICAN EAGKLE-The. < “ What are you thinking of so steadily?” said Martin. “ VvTy, I was a thinking, sir,” returned Mark, “ that if I was a painter and was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it ? ” “ Paint it as like an Eagle as you could, I suppose.” “ No,” said Mark, “ that wouldn’t do for me, sir. I should want to draw it like a Bat, for its short-sightedness ; like a Bantam, for its bragging ; like a Magpie, for its honesty ; like a Peacock, for its vanity ; like an Ostrich, for its putting its head in the mud, and thinking nobody sees it — ” “And like a Phoenix, for its power of spring- ing from the ashes of its faults and vices, and soaring up anew into the sky ! ” said Martin. “Well, Mark, let us hope so.” Martin Chnzz/ezuit , Chap. 34. AMERICAN HABITS — Salivatory Phe- nomena. The journey from New York to Philadel- phia is made by railroad and two ferries, and usually occupies between five and six hours. It was a fine evening when we were passengers in the train ; and, watching the bright sunset from a little window near the door by which we sat, my attention was attracted to a remarkable ap- pearance issuing from the windows of the gen- tlemen’s car immediately in front of us, which I supposed for some time was occasioned by a number of industrious persons inside ripping open feather-beds, and giving the feather^ to the wind. At length it occurred to rue that they were only spitting, which was indeed the case ; though how any number of passengers which it was possible for that car to contain could have maintained such a playful and in- cessant shower of expectoration, I am still at a loss to understand, notwithstanding the experi- ence in all salivatory phenomena which I after- wards acquired. I made acquaintance, on this journey, with a mild and modest young Quaker, who opened the discourse by informing me, in a grave whis- per. that his grandfather was the inventor of cold-drawn castor-oil. I mention the circum- stance here, thinking it probable that this is the first occasion on which the valuable medicine in question was ever used as a conversational ape- rient. — American Notes, Chap. 7. AMERICANS— In ‘Washington. There were some fifteen or twenty persons AMERICAN PUBLICISTS 14 AMERICANS in the room. One, a tall, wiry, muscular old man, from the West, sunburnt and swarthy, with a brown-white hat on his knees and a giant "umbrella resting between his legs, who sat bolt upright in his chair, frowning steadily at the carpet, and twitching the hard lines about his mouth, as if he had made up his mind “ to fix ” the President on what he had to say, and wouldn’t bate him a grain. Another, a Ken- tucky farmer, six feet in height, with his hat on, and his hands under his coat-tails, who leaned against the wall and kicked the floor with his heel, as though he had Time’s head under his shoe, and were literally “killing” him. A third, an oval-faced, bilious-looking man, with sleek black hair cropped close, and whiskers and beard shaved down to blue dots, who sucked the head of a thick stick, and from time to time took it out of his mouth to see how it was get- ting on. A fourth did nothing but whistle. A fifth did nothing but spit. And indeed all these gentlemen were so very persevering and ener- getic in this latter particular, and bestowed their favors so abundantly upon the carpet, that I take it for granted the Presidential housemaids have high wages, or, to speak more genteelly, an am- ple amount of “ compensation.” American Notes, Chap. 8. AMERICAN PUBLICISTS. It is no great matter what Mrs. Hominy said, save that she had learnt it from the cant of a class, and a large class, of her fellow-country- men, who, in their every word, avow themselves to be as senseless to the high principles on which America sprang, a nation, into life, as any Orson in her legislative halls. Who are no more capable of feeling, or of caring, if they did feel, that by reducing their own country to the ebb of honest men’s contempt, they put in hazard the rights of nations yet unborn, and very progress of the human race, than are the swine who wallow in their streets. Who think that crying out to other nations, old in then- iniquity, “We are no worse than you!” (No worse !) is high defence, and ’vantage-ground enough for that Republic, but yesterday let loose upon her noble course, and but to-day so maimed and lame, so full of sores and ulcers, foul to the eye, and almost hopeless to the sense, that her best friends turn from the loathsome creature with disgust. Who, having by their ancestors declared and won their Independence, because they would not bend the knee to cer- tain public vi -.es and corruptions, and would not abrogate the truth, run riot in the Bad, and turn their backs upon the Good ; and lying down contented with the wretched boast that other Temples also are of glass, and stones which batter theirs may be Hung back ; show them- selves, in that alone, as immeasurably behind the import of the trust they hold, and as un- worthy to possess it, as if the sordid huckster- ings of all their little: governments — each one a kingdom in its small depravity — were brought into a heap for evidence against them. Martin Chuzzleivit , Chap. 22. AMERICAN WOMEN Fashionable. In order that their talk might fall again into its former pleasant channel, Martin addressed himself to the young ladies, who were very gor- geously attired in very beautiful colors, and had every article of dress on the same extensive scale as the little shoes and the thin silk stock- ings. This suggested to him that they were great proficients in the French fashions, which soon turned out to be the case, for though their information appeared to be none of the newest, it was very extensive : and the eldest sister, in particular, who was distinguished by a talent lor metaphysics, the laws of hydraulic pressure, and the rights of human kind, had a novel way of combining these acquirements and bringing them to bear on any subject from Millinery to the Millennium, both inclusive, which was at once improving and remarkable ; so much so, in short, that it was usually observed to reduce foreigners to a state of temporary insanity in five minutes. Martin felt his reason going ; and as a means of saving himself, besought the other sister (see- ing a piano in the room) to sing. With this re- quest she willingly complied ; and a bravura concert, solely sustained by the Misses Norris, presently began. They sang in all languages — except their own. German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swiss ; but nothing na- tive ; nothing so low as native. For, in this respect, languages are like many other travel- lers : ordinary and commonplace enough at home, but ’specially genteel abroad. Martin Chuzzlezvit , Chap. 17. AMERICANS -The social observances o 1 . The Honorable Elijah Pogram looked at Martin as if he thought “ You don’t mean that, I know ! ” and he was soon confirmed in this opinion. Sitting opposite to them was a gentleman in a high state of tobacco, who wore quite a little beard, composed of the overflowings of that weed, as they had dried about his mouth and chin : so common an ornament that it would scarcely have attracted Martin’s observation, but that this good citizen, burning to assert his equality against all comers, sucked his knife for some moments, and made a cut with it at the butter just as Martin was in the act of taking some. There was a juiciness about the deed that might have sickened a scavenger. When Elijah Pogram (to whom this was an every-day incident) saw that Martin put the plate away, and took no butter, he was quite de- lighted, and said : “ Well ! The morbid hatred of you British to the institutions of our country, is as-TON-ish- ing ! ” “Upon my life!” cried Martin, in his turn, “this is the most wonderful community that ever existed. A man deliberately makes a hog of himself, zcad'thafs an institution !” “We have no time to ac-quire forms, sir,” sftid Elijah Pogram. “Acquire!” cried Martin. “But ids not a question of acquiring anything. It’s a question of losing the natural politeness of a savage, and that instinctive good breeding which ad- monishes one man not to offend and disgust another. Don’t you think that man over the way, for instance, naturally knows better, but considers it a very fine and independent thing to be a brute in small matters?” “ lie is a na-tive of our country, and is nat’- rally bright and spry, of course,” said Mr. Po- gram. ANATOMICAL SUBJECT 15 ANCESTRY “ Now, observe what this comes to, Mr. Po- gram,” pursued Martin. “ The mass of your countrymen begin by stubbornly neglecting little social observances, which have nothing to do with gentility, custom, usage, government, or country, but are acts of common, decent, natural, human politeness. You abet them in this, by resenting all attacks upon their social offences as if they were a beautiful national feature. From disregarding small obligations they come in regular course to disregard great ones ; and so refuse to pay their debts. What they may do, or what they may refuse to do next, I don’t know ; but any man may see if he will, that it will be something following in nat- ural succession, and a part of one great growth, which is rotten at the root.” The mind of Mr. Pogram was too philosoph- ical to see this ; so they went on deck again, where, resuming his former post, he chewed until he was in a lethargic state, amounting to insensibility. — Mai tin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 34. AMERICANS— Mark Tapley’s opinion of. “ Take notice of my words, sir. If ever the defaulting part of this here country pays its debts — along of finding that not paying ’em won’t do in a commercial point of view, you see, and is inconvenient in its consequences — they’il take such a shine out of it, and make such bragging speeches, that a man might sup- pose no borrowed money had ever been paid afore, since the world was first begun. That’s the way they gammon each other, sir. Bless you, I know ’em. Take notice of my words, now!" — Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 23. ANATOMICAL SUBJECT- Wegg- as an. “ Now, look here, what did you give for me ? ” “ Well,” replies Venus, blowing his tea, his head and face peering out of the darkness, over the smoke of it, as if he were modernizing the old original rise in his family : “ you were one of a warious lot, and I don’t know.” Silas puts his point in the improved form of “ What will you take for me ? ” “Well,” replies Venus, sjtill blowing his tea, “ I’m not prepared, at a moment’s notice, to tell you, Mr. Wegg.” “ Come ! According to your own account, I’m not worth much,” Wegg reasons persua- sively. “Not for miscellaneous working in, I grant you, Mr. Wegg; but you might turn out valu- able yet, as a ,” here Mr. Venus takes a gulp of tea, so hot that it makes him choke, and sets his weak eyes watering ; “as a Monstrosity, if you’ll excuse me.” * * * * * * “I'hrve a prospect of getting on in life and elevating myself by my own independent exer- tions,” says Wegg, feelingly, “ and I shouldn’t like — I tell you openly I should not like — un- der such circumstances, to be what I may call dispersed, a part of me here and a part of me there, but should wish to collect myself like a genteel person.” * Hs * Hs # s): “ Mr. Wegg, not to name myself as a work- man without an equal, I’ve gone on improving myself in my knowledge of anatomy, till both by sight and by name I’m perfect. Mr. W egg, if you was brought here loose in a bag to be articulated, I’d name your smallest bones blind- fold equally with your largest, as fast as I could pick ’em out, and I’d sort ’em all, and sort your wertebrse in a manner that would equally sur- prise and charm you.” Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap. 7. ANCESTRY— A satire cn the pride of. As no lady or gentleman, with any claims to polite breeding, can possibly sympathize with the Chuzzlewit family without being first as- sured of the extreme antiquity of the race, it is a great satisfaction to know that it undoubtedly descended in a direct line from Adam and Eve ; and was, in the very earliest times, closely con- nected with the agricultural interest. If it should ever be urged by grudging and malicious persons that a Chuzzlewit, in any period of the family history, displayed an overweening amount of family pride, surely the weakness will be considered not only pardonable but laudable, when the immense superiority of the house to the rest of mankind, in respect of this, its ancient origin, is taken into account. It is remarkable that as there was, in the oldest family of which we have any record, a murderer and a vagabond, so we never fail to meet, in the records of all old families, with in- numerable repetitions of the same phase of character. Indeed, it may be laid down as a general principle, that the more extended the ancestry, the greater the amount of violence and vagabondism ; for in ancient days, those two amusements, combining a wholesome ex- citement with a promising means of repairing shattered fortunes, were at once the ennobling pursuit and the healthful recreation of the Quality of this land. Consequently, it is a source of inexpressible comfort and happiness to find, that in various periods of our history, the' Chuzzlewits were actively connected with divers slaughterous con- spiracies and bloody frays. It is further re- corded of them, that being clad from head to heel in steel of proof, they did on many occa- sions lead their leather- jerkined soldiers to the death, with invincible courage, and afterwards return home gracefully to their relations and friends. There can be no doubt that at least one Chuzzlewit came over with William the Con- queror. It does not appear that this illustrious ancestor “ came over ” that monarch, to employ the vulgar phrase, at any subsequent period : inasmuch as the Family do not seem to have been ever greatly distinguished by the posses- sion of landed estate. And it is well known that for the bestowal of that kind of property upon his favorites, the liberality and gratitude of the Norman were as remarkable as those virtues are usually found to be in great men when they give away what belongs to other people. Perhaps in this place the history may pause to congratulate itself upon the enormous amount of bravery, wisdom, eloquence, virtue, gentle birth, and true nobility, that appears to have come into England with the Norman Invasion; an amount which the genealogy of every an- cient family lends its aid to swell, and which would, beyond all question, have been found to be just as great, and to the full as prolific in ANCESTRY 18 ANIMALS giving birth to long lines of chivalrous de- scendants, boastful of their origin, even though William the Conqueror had been William the Conquered : a change of circumstances which, it is quite certain, would have made no man- ner of difference in this respect. * * * * * * It is also clearly proved by the oral tradi- tions of the Family, that there existed, at some one period of its history which is not distinctly stated, a matron of such destructive principles, and so familiarized to the use and composition of inflammatory and combustible engines, that she was called “ The Match Maker:” by which nickname and byword she is recognized in the Family legends to this day. Surely there can be no reasonable doubt that this was the Spanish lady, the mother of Chuzzlewit Fawkes. * * * * * -li- lt has been rumored, and it is needless to say the rumor originated in the same base quar- ters, that a certain male Chuzzlewit, whose birth must be admitted to be involved in some obscurity, was of very mean and low descent. How stands the proof? When the son of that individual, to whom the secret of his father’s birth was supposed to have been communicated by his father in his lifetime, lay upon his death- bed, this question was put to him in a distinct, solemn, and formal way: “Toby Chuzzlewit, who was your grandfather?” To which he, with his last breath, no less distinctly, solemnly, and formally replied : and his words were taken down at the time, and signed by six witnesses, each with his name and address in full : “The Lord No Zoo.” It may be said — it has been said, for human wickedness has no limits — that there is no Lord of that name, and that among the titles which have become extinct, none at all resembling this, in sound even, is to be dis- covered. But what is the irresistible inference? — Rejecting a theory broached by some well- meaning but mistaken persons, that this Mr. Toby Cnuzzlewit’s grandfather, to judge from his name, must surely have been a Mandarin (which is wholly insupportable, for there is no pretence of his grandmother ever having been out of this country, or of any Mandarin having been in it within some years of his father’s birth ; except those in the tea-shops, which can- not for a moment be regarded as having any bearing on the question, one way or other), rejecting this hypothesis, is it not manifest that Mr. Toby Chuzzlewit had either received the name imperfectly from his father, or that he had forgotten it, or that he had mispronounced it? and that even at the recent period in ques- tion, the Chuzzlewits were connected by a bend sinister, or kind of heraldic over-the-left, with some unknown noble and illustrious House? Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. i. ANCESTRY Its Personal Importance. It is needless to multiply instances of the high and lofty station, and the vast importance of the Chuzzlewits, at different periods. If it came within the scope of reasonable probabil- ity that further proofs were required, they might be heaped upon each other until they formed an Alps of testimony, beneath which the bold- est scepticism should be crushed and beaten flat. As a goodly tumulus is already collected, I and decently battened up above the Family grave, the present chapter is content to leav? it as it is ; merely adding, by way of a final spade- ful, that many Chuzzlewits, both male and female, are proved to demonstration, on the faith of letters written by their own mothers, to have had chiselled noses, undeniable chins, forms that might have served the sculptor for a model, exquisitely-turned limbs, and polished fore- heads of so transparent a texture that the blue veins might be seen branching off in various directions, like so many roads on an ethereal map. This fact in itself, though it had been a solitary one, would have utterly settled and clenched the business in hand ; for it is well known, on the authority of all the books which treat of such matters, that every one of these phenomena, but especially that of the chiselling, are invariably peculiar to, and only make them- selves apparent in, persons of the very best con- dition. This history, having, to its own perfect satis- faction (and, consequently, to the full content- ment of all its readers), proved the Chuzzlewits to have had an origin, and to have been at one time or other of an importance which cannot fail to render them highly improving and accept- able acquaintance to all right-minded individu- als, may now proceed in earnest with its task. And having shown that they must have had, by reason of their ancient birth, a pretty large share in the foundation and increase of the hu- man family, it will one day become its province to submit, that such of its members as shall be introduced in these pages, have still many counterparts and prototypes in the Great World about us. At present it contents itself with re- marking, in a general way, on this head : Firstly, that it may be safely asserted, and yet without implying any direct participation in the Monboddo doctrine touching the probability of the human race having once been monkeys, that men do play very strange and extraordi- nary tricks. Secondly, and yet without trench- ing on the Blumenbach theory as to the de- scendants of Adam having a vast number of qualities which belong more particularly to swine than to any other class of animals in the creation, that some men certainly are remark- able for taking uncommonly good care of them- selves.— Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. i. ANCESTORS-Remote and Doubtful. The better class of minds did not need to be informed that the Powlers were an ancient stock, who could trace themselves so exceed- ingly far back that it was not surprising if they sometimes lost themselves — which they had rather frequently done, as respected horse-flesh, blind-hookey, Hebrew monetary transactions, and the Insolvent Debtors’ Court. Hard Times , Chap. 7. ANIMALS— Their Weather Instincts. There may be some motions of fancy among the lower animals at Chesney Wold. The horses in the stables — the long stables in a bar- ren, red brick court-yard, where there is a great bell in a turret, and a clock with a large face, which the pigeons who live near it, and who love to perch upon its shoulders, 'seem to be always consulting — they may contemplate some mental pictures of fine weather on occasions, ANIMALS 17 APARTMENT and may be better artists at them than the grooms. The old roan, so famous for cross- country work, turning his large eyeball to the grated window near his rack, may remember the fresh leaves that glisten there at other times, and the scents that stream in ; and may have a fine run with the hounds, while the human helper, clearing out the next stall, never stirs beyond his pitchfork and birch-broom. The grey, whose place is opposite the door, and who, with an impatient rattle of his halter, pricks his ears and turns his head so wistfully when it is opened, and to whom the opener says, “ Woa grey, then, steady ! Nobody wants you to- day ! ” may know it quite as well as the man. The whole seemingly monotonous and uncom- panionable half-dozen, stabled together, may pass the long wet hours, when the door is shut, in livelier communication than is held in the servants’ hall, or at the Dedlock Arms — or may even beguile the time by improving (perhaps corrupting) the pony in the loose-box in the corner. So the mastiff, dozing in his kennel, in the courtyard, with his large head on his paws, may think of the hot sunshine, when the shadows of the stable buildings tire his patience out by changing, and leave him, at one time of the day, no broader refuge than the shadow of his own house, where he sits on end, panting and growl- ing short, and very much wanting something to worry, besides himself and his chain. So, now, half-waking, and all- winking, he may recall the house full of company, the coach-houses full of vehicles, the stables full of horses, and the out- buildings full of attendants upon horses, until he is undecided about the present, and comes forth to see how it is. Then, with that impa- tient shake of himself, he may growl in the spirit, “ Rain, rain, rain ! Nothing but rain — and no family here ! ” as he goes in- again, and lies down with a gloomy yawn. So with the dogs in the kennel-buildings across the park, who have their restless fits, and whose doleful voices, when the wind has been very obstinate, have even made it known in the house itself : up-stairs, down-stairs, and in my lady’s chamber. They may hunt the whole country-side, while the raindrops are pattering round, their inactivity. So the rabbits, with their self-betraying tails, frisking in and out of holes at roots of trees, may be lively with ideas of the breezy days when their ears are blown about, or of those seasons of interest when there are sweet young plants to gnaw. The turkey in the poultry-yard, always troub- led with a class-grievance (probably Christmas), may be reminiscent of that summer morning wrongfully taken from him, when he got into the lane among the felled trees, where there was a barn and barley. The discontented goose, who stoops to pa§s under the old gateway, twenty feet high, may gabble out, if we only knew it, a waddling preference for weather when the gateway casts its shadow on the ground. Be this as it may, there is not much fancy otherwise stirring at Chesney Wold. If there be a little at any odd moment, it goes, like a lit- tle noise in that old, echoing place, a long way, and usually leads off to ghosts and mystery. Bleak House , Chap. 7. ANNO DOMINI. Mr. Cruncher always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes : apparently under the impression that the Christian era dated from the invention of a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it. Tale of Two Cities , Book //., Chap. 1. APARTMENTS-Of Mr. Tartar. Mr. Tartar’s chambers were the neatest, the cleanest, and the best-ordered chambers ever seen under the sun, moon, and stars. The floors were scrubbed to that extent that you might have supposed the London blacks emancipated forever and gone out of the land for good. Every inch of brass work in Mr. Tartar’s pos- session was polished and burnished till it shone like a brazen mirror. No speck, nor spot, nor spatter soiled the purity of any of Mr. Tartar’s household gods, large, small, or middle-sized. His sitting-room was like the admiral’s cabin ; his bath-room was like a dairy, his sleeping- chamber, fitted all about with lockers and drawers, was like a seedsman’s shop ; and his nicely-balanced cot just stirred in the midst as if it breathed. Everything belonging to Mr. Tartar had quarters of its own assigned to it ; his maps and charts had their quarters ; his books had theirs ; his brushes had theirs ; his boots had theirs ; his clothes had theirs ; his case-bottles had theirs ; his telescopes and other instruments had theirs. Everything was readily accessible. Shelf, bracket, locker, hook, and drawer were equally within reach, and were equally contrived with a view to avoiding waste of room, and providing some snug inches of stowage for something that would have exactly fitted nowhere else. His gleaming little service of plate was so arranged upon his sideboard as that a slack salt-spoon would have instantly be- trayed itself ; his toilet implements were so arranged upon his dressing-table as that a tooth- pick of slovenly deportment could have been reported at a glance. So with the curiosities he had brought home from various voyages. Stuffed, dried, re-polished, or otherwise preserved, ac- cording to their kind ; birds, fishes, reptiles, arms, articles of dress, shells, sea weeds, grasses, or memorials of coral reef ; each was displayed in its especial place, and each could have been displayed in no better place. Paint and var- nish seemed to be kept somewhere out of sight, in constant readiness to obliterate stray finger- marks wherever any might become perceptible in Mr. Tartar’s chambers. No man-of-war was ever kept more spick and span from careless touch. On this bright summer day a neat awn- ing was rigged over Mr. Tartar’s flower-garden as only a sailor could rig it ; and there was a sea-going air upon the whole effect, so delight- fully complete that the flower-garden might have appertained to stern-windows afloat, and the whole concern might have bowled away gallantly with all on board, if Mr. Tartar had only clapped to his lips the speaking-trumpet that was slung in a -corner, and' given hoarse or- ders to have the anchor up, look alive there, men, and get all sail upon her! Edwin Drood , Chap. 22. APARTMENT— A grim. They mounted up and up, through the musty smell of an old, close house, little used, to a APARTMENT 18 APARTMENT large garret bed-room. Meagre and spare, like all the other rooms, it was even uglier and grim- mer than the rest, by being the place of banish- ment for the worn-out furniture. Its movables were ugly old chairs with worn-out seats, and ugly old chairs without any seats ; a thread- bare, patternless carpet, a maimed table, a crip- pled wardrobe, a lean set of fire-irons, like the skeleton of a set deceased, a washing-stand that looked as if it had stood for ages in a hail of dirty soap-suds, and a bedstead with four bare atomies of posts, each terminating in a spike, as if for the dismal accommodation of lodgers who might prefer to impale them- selves. — Little Dorr it, Chap. 3. APARTMENTS— Old and abandoned. The gaunt rooms, deserted for years upon years, seemed to have settled down into a gloomy lethargy from which nothing could rouse them again. The furniture, at once spare and lumbering, hid in the rooms rather than furnished them, and there was no color in all the house; such color as had ever been there, had long ago started away on lost sunbeams — got itself absorbed, perhaps, into flowers, but- terflies, plumage of birds, precious stones, what not. There was not one straight floor, from the foundation to the roof ; the ceilings were so fantastically clouded by smoke and dust, that old women might have told fortunes in them, better than in grouts of tea; the dead- cold hearths showed no traces of having ever been warmed, but in heaps of soot that had tumbled down the chimneys, and eddied about in little dusky whirlwinds when the doors were opened. In what had once been a drawing- room, there were a pair of meagre mirrors, with dismal processions of black figures carrying black garlands, walking round the frames ; but even these were short of heads and legs, and one undertaker-like Cupid had swung round on his own axis and got upside down, and another had fallen off altogether. Little Dorrit , Chap. 5. APARTMENT— A spacious. With these words, the stranger put a thick square card into Kate’s hand, and, turning to his friend, remarked, with an easy air, “ that the rooms was a good high pitch ; ” to which the friend assented, adding, by way of illustra- tion, “ that there was lots of room for a little boy to grow up a man in either on ’em, vithout much fear of his ever bringing his head into contract vith the ceiling.” Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 21. APARTMENT- A small. Mrs. Crupp had indignantly assured him that there wasn’t room to swing a cat there ; but, as Mr. Dick justly observed to me, sitting down on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, “You know, Trotwood, I don’t want to swing a cat. 1 never do swing a cat. Therefore, what docs that signify to me l” David Copperfield , Chap. 35. APARTMENT of Dick Swiveller. “ Fred,” said Mr. Swiveller, “remember the nice popular melody of 1 begone, dull care:’ fan 1 lie sinking flame of hilarity with the wing A friendship ; and pass the rosy wine !” Mr. Richard Swiveller’s apartments were in the neighborhood of Drury Lane, and, in addi- tion to this conveniency of situation, had the advantage of being over a tobacconist's shop, so that he was enabled to procure a refreshing sneeze at any time by merely stepping out on the staircase, and was saved the trouble and expense of maintaining a snuff-box. It was in these apartments that Mr. Swiveller made use of the expressions above recorded, for the con- solation and encouragement of his desponding friend ; and it may not be uninteresting or im- proper to remark that even these brief observa- tions partook in a double sense of the figurative and poetical character of Mr. Swiveller’s mind, as the rosy wine was in fact represented by one glass of cold gin-and-water, which was replen- ished, as occasion required, from a bottle and jug upon the table, and was passed from one to another, in a scarcity of tumblers which, as Mr. Swiveller’s was a bachelor’s establishment, may be acknowledged without a blush. By a like pleasant fiction his single chamber was always mentioned in the plural number. In its disengaged times, the tobacconist had an- nounced as “ apartments ” for a single gentle- man, and Mr. Swiveller, following up the hint, never failed to speak of it as his rooms, his lodgings, or his chambers: conveying to his hearers a notion of indefinite space, and leav- ing their imaginations to wander through long suites of lofty halls, at pleasure. In this flight of fancy, Mr. Swiveller was as- sisted by a deceptive piece of furniture, in reality a bedstead, but in semblance a book- case, which occupied a prominent situation in his chamber, and seemed to defy suspicion and challenge inquiry. There is no doubt that, by day, Mr. Swiveller firmly believed this secret convenience to be a bookcase and nothing more ; that he closed his eyes to the bed, re- solutely denied the existence of the blankets, and spurned the bolster from his thoughts. No word of its real use, no hint of its nightly ser- vice, no allusion to its peculiar properties, had ever passed between him and his most intimate friends. Implicit faith in the deception was the fii'st article of his creed. To be the friend of Swiveller you must reject all circumstantial evidence, all reason, observation, and experi- ence, and repose a blind belief in the book- case. It was his pet weakness, and he cherish- ed it . — Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. 7. APARTMENT— An ancient. The room into which they entered was a vaulted chamber, once nobly ornamented by cunning architects, and still retaining, in its beautiful groined roof and rich stone tracery, choice remnants of its ancient splendor. Foli- age carved in the stone, and emulating the mastery of Nature’s hand, yet remained to tell how many times the leaves outside had come and gone, while it lived on unchanged. The broken figures supporting the burden of the chimney-piece, though mutilated, were still dis- tinguishable for what they had been — far differ- ent from the dust without — and showed sadly by the empty hearth, like creatures who had out- lived their kind, and mourned their own too slow decay. An open door leading to a small room or cell dim with the light that came through leaves of APARTMENTS 19 APARTMENT ivy, completed the interior of this portion of the ruin. It was not quite destitute of furni- ture. A few strange chairs, whose arms and legs looked as though they had dwindled away with age ; a table, the very spectre of its race ; a great old chest that had once held records in the church, with other quaintly-fashioned do- mestic necessaries, and store of fire wood for the winter, were scattered around, and gave evi- dent tokens of its occupation as a dwelling- place at no very distant time. Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 52. APARTMENTS— Dirty. This, however, was not the most curious fea- ture of those chambers ; that consisted in the profound conviction entertained by my esteemed friend Parkle (their tenant) that they were clean. Whether it was an inborn hallucination, or whether it was imparted to him by Mrs. Miggot, the laundress, I never could ascertain. But I believe he would have gone to the stake upon the question. Now they were so dirty that I could take off the distinctest impression of my figure on any article of furniture by merely lounging upon it for a few moments ; and it used to be a private amusement of mine to print myself off — if I may use the expression — all over the rooms. It was the first large circu- lation I had. At other times I have accident- ally shaken a window curtain while in animated conversation with Parkle, and struggling insects, which were certainly red, and were certainly not ladybirds, have dropped on the back of my hand. Yet Parkle lived in that top set years, bound body and soul to the superstition that they were clean. Uncommercial Traveller, Chap. 14. APARTMENTS-Dusty. There was so much dust in his own faded chambers, certainly, that they reminded me of a sepulchre, furnished in prophetic anticipation of the present time, which had newly been brought to light, after having remained buried a few thousand years. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 14. APARTMENT— Mark Tapley’s idea of a jolly. “ Jolly sort of lodgings,” said Mark, rubbing his nose with the knob at the end of the fire- shovel, and looking round the poor chamber : “ that’s a comfort. The rain’s come through the roof too. That ain’t bad. A lively old bedstead, I’ll be bound ; popilated by lots of wampires, no doubt. Come ! my spirits is a getting up again. An uncommon ragged night- cap this. A very good sign. We shall do yet ! ” • Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 13. APARTMENT— And gloomy furniture. It was a large, dark room, finished in a fu- nereal manner with black horsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables. These had been oiled and oiled, until the two tall candles on the table in the middle of the room were gloomily re- flected on every leaf ; as if they were buried in deep graves of black mahogany, and no light to speak of could be expected from them until they were dug out. ****** As his eyes rested on these things, a sudden vivid likeness passed before him, of a child whom he had held in his arms on the passage across that very Channel, one cold time, when the hail drifted heavily and the sea ran high The likeness passed away, say, like a breath along the surface of the gaunt pier-glass behind her, on the frame of which a hospital procession of negro Cupids, several headless, and all crip- ples, were offering black baskets of Dead Sea fruit to black divinities of the feminine gender — and he made his formal bow to Miss Ma- nette. — Tale of Two Cities, Chap. 4. APARTMENT— A cozy. It was a prettily furnished room, with a piano, and some lively furniture in red and green, and some flowers. It seemed to be all old nooks and corners ; and in every nook and corner there was some queer little table, or cupboard, or book-case, or seat, or something or other, that made me think there was not such another good corner in the room ; until I looked at the next one, and found it equal to it, if not better. David Copperfield, Chap. 15. APARTMENT— Its grandeur in decay. It was spacious enough in all conscience, occupying the whole' depth of the house, and having at either end a great bay-window, as large as many modern rooms ; in which some few panes of stained glass, emblazoned with fragments of armorial bearings, though cracked, and patched, and shattered, yet remained • attesting, by their presence, that the former owner had made the very light subservient to his state, and pressed the sun itself into his list of flatterers ; bidding it, when it shone into his chamber, reflect the badges of his ancient family, and take new hues and colors from their pride. But those w r ere old days, and now every little ray came and went as it would ; telling the plain, bare, searching truth. Although the best room of the inn, it had the melancholy aspect of grandeur in decay, and was much too vast for comfort. Rich, rustling hangings, waving on the walls ; and, better far, the rustling of youth and beauty’s dress ; the light of women’s eyes, outshining the tapers and their own rich jewels ; the sound of gentle tongues, and music, and the tread of maiden feet, had once been there, and filled it with delight. But they were gone, and with them all its gladness. It was no longer a home ; children were never born and bred there ; the fireside had become mercenary — a something to be bought and sold — a very courtezan : let who would die, or sit beside, or leave it, it was still the same — it missed nobody, cared for nobody, had equal warmth and smiles for all. God help the man whose heart ever changes with the world, as an old mansion when it becomes an inn. No effort had been made to furnish this chilly waste, but before the broad chimney a colony of chairs and tables had been planted on a square of carpet, flanked by a ghostly screen, enriched with figures, grinning and gro- tesque. — Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 10. APARTMENT— And furniture. I thought I had never seen such a large room as that into which they showed me. It had five windows, with dark-red curtains that APARTMENT 20 APARTMEN' would have absorbed the light of a general illumination ; and there were complications of drapery at the top of the curtains, that went wandering about the wall in a most extraordi- nary manner. I asked for a smaller room, and they told me there was no smaller room. They could screen me in, however, the landlord said. They brought a great old japanned screen, with natives (Japanese, I suppose), engaged in a variety of idiotic pursuits, all over it ; and left me roasting whole before an immense fire. My bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great staircase, at the end of a long gal- lery ; and nobody knows what a misery this is to a bashful man who would rather not meet people on the stairs. It was the grimmest room I have ever had the nightmare in ; and all the furniture, from the four posts of the bed to the two old silver candlesticks, was tall, high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted. Below, in my sitting-room, if I looked round my screen, the wind rushed at me like a mad bull ; if I stuck to my arm-chair, the fire scorched me to the color of a new brick. The chimney-piece was very high, and there was a bad glass — what I may call a wavy glass — above it, which, when I stood up, just showed me my anterior phre- nological developments — and these never look well, in any subject, cut short off at the eye- brow. If I stood with my back to the fire, a gloomy vault of darkness above and beyond the screen insisted on being looked at ; and, in its dim remoteness, the drapery of the ten cur- tains of the five windows went twisting and creeping about, like a nest of gigantic worms. I suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by some other men of simi- lar character in themselves ; therefore I am em- boldened to mention, that, when I travel, I never arrive at a place but I immediately want to go away’ from it. — The Holly Tree. APARTMENT— The hanging's of an. A mouldering reception-room, where the fad- ed hangings, of a sad sea-green, had worn and withered until they looked as if they might have claimed kindred with the waifs of sea- weed drifting under the windows, or clinging to the walls, and weeping for their imprisoned relations. — Little Dorrit, Book II., Chap. 6. APARTMENT. The lady whom they had come to see, if she were the present occupant of the house, appear- ed to have taken up her quarters there, as she might have established herself in an Eastern caravanserai. A small sq\ are of carpet in the middle of the room, a few articles of furniture that evidently did not belong to the room, and a disorder of trunks and travelling articles, formed the whole of her surroundings. Under some former regular inhabitant, the stifling lit- tle apartment had broken out into a pier-glass and a gilt table ; but the gilding was as faded as last year’s flowers, and the glass was so clouded that it seemed to hold in magic pres- ervation all the fogs and bad weather it had ever reflected. little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 27. APARTMENTS- The ghostly air of. There was a ghostly air about these uninhab- ited chambers in the Temple, and attending every circumstance of Tom's employment there, which had a strange charm in it. Every morn- ing, when he shut his door at Islington, he turned his face towards an atmosphere of unaccounta- ble fascination, as surely as he turned it to the London smoke ; and from that moment, it thickened round and round him all day long, until the time arrived for going home again, and leaving it, like a motionless cloud, behind. It seemed to Tom, every morning, that he ap- proached this ghostly mist, and became envelop- ed in it, by the easiest succession of degrees imaginable. Passing from the roar and rat- tle of the streets into the quiet court-yards of the Temple, was the first preparation. Every echo of his footsteps sounded to him like a sound from the old walls and pavements, want- ing language to relate the histories of the dim, dismal rooms ; to tell him what lost documents were decaying in forgotten corners of the shut- up cellars, from whose lattices such mouldy sighs came breathing forth as he went past ; to whisper of dark bins of rare old wine, bricked up in vaults among the old foundations of the Halls ; or mutter in a lower tone yet darker le gends of the cross-legged knights, whose mar- ble effigies were in the church. With the first planting of his foot upon the staircase of his dusty office, all these mysteries increased ; un- til, ascending step by step, as Tom ascended, they attained their full growth in the solitary labors of the day. Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 40. APARTMENT— A mouldy. Certain wintry branches of candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted the chamber; or, it would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its darkness. It -was spacious, and I dare say had once been handsome, but every dis- cernible thing in it was covered with dust and mould, and dropping to pieces. The most prominent object was’a long table with a table- cloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all stopped together. An epergne or centre- piece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth ; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable ; and, as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckled-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as if some circumstance of the greatest public importance had just trans- pired in the spider community. Great Expectations, Chap. 11. APARTMENT— To let ; its advantages. “ I believe, sir,” said Richard Swiveller, tak- ing his pen out of his mouth, “ that you desire to look at these apartments. They are very charming apar#nents, sir. They command an uninterrupted view of— of over the way, and they are within one minute’s walk of — of the corner of the street. There ft exceedingly mild porter, sir, in the immediate vicinity, and the contingent advantages are extraordinary.” Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. 34. APARTMENT A snug. “ An uncommon snug little box, this,” said Mr. Lenville, stepping into the front room, and APARTMENT 21 APARTMENT taking his hat off before he could get in at all. “ Pernicious snug.” “ For a man at all particular in such matters, it might be a trifle too snug,” said Nicholas ; “ for, although it is, undoubtedly, a great con- venience to be able to reach anything you want from the ceiling or the floor, or either side of the room, without having to move from your chair, still these advantages can only be had in an apartment of the most limited size.” Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 24. APARTMENT— Of a Suicide. The air of the room is almost bad enough to have extinguished it, if he had not. It is a small room, nearly black with soot, and grease, and dirt. In the rusty skeleton of a grate, pinched at the middle as if Poverty had grip- ped it, a red coke fire burns low. In the cor- ner by the chimney, stand a deal table and a broken desk ; a wilderness marked with a rain of ink. In another corner, a ragged old port- manteau on one of the two chairs, serves for cabinet or wardrobe ; no larger one is needed, for it collapses like the cheeks of a starved man. The floor is bare ; except that one old mat, trodden to shreds of rope-yarn, lies perishing upon the hearth. No curtain veils the darkness of the night, but the discolored shutters are drawn together : and through the two gaunt holes pierced in them, famine might be staring in — the Banshee of the man upon the bed. For, on a low bed opposite the fire — a confu- sion of dirty patch-work, lean-ribbed ticking, and coarse sacking — the lawyer, hesitating just within the doorway, sees a man. He lies there, dressed in shirt and trousers, with bare feet. He has a yellow look in the spectral darkness of a candle that has guttered down, until the whole length of its wick (still burning) has doubled over, and left a tower of winding-sheet above it. His hair is ragged, mingling with his whis- kers and his beard — the latter, ragged too, and grown, like the scum and mist around him, in neglect. Foul and filthy as the room is, foul and filthy as the air is, it is not easy to perceive what fumes those are which most oppress the senses in it ; but through the general sickliness and faintness, and the odor of stale tobacco, there comes into the lawyer’s mouth the bitter, vapid taste of opium. “ Hallo, my friend ! ” he cries, and strikes his iron candlestick against the door. He thinks he has awakened his friend. He lies a little turned away, but his eyes are surely open. “ Hallo, my friend ! ” he cries again. “ Hallo ! Hallo ! ” As he rattles on the door, the candle which has drooped so long, goes out, and leaves him in the dark ; with the gaunt eyes in the shutters staring down upon the bed. Bleak House , Chap. 10. APARTMENTS — The associations of empty. a familiar presence, mournfully whisper what your room and what mine must one day be. My Lady’s state has a hollow look, thus gloomy and abandoned ; and in the inner apartment, where Mr. Bucket last night made his secret perquisi- tion, the traces of her dresses and her orna- ments, even the mirrors accustomed to reflect them when they were a portion of herself, have a desolate and vacant air. Bleak House , Chap. 58. APARTMENT— The Growlery of Jarndyce. “Sit down, my dear,” said Mr. Jarndyce. “ This, you must know, is the Growlery. When I am out of humor, I come and growl here.” “You must be here very seldom, sir,” said I. “ O, you don’t know me ! ” he returned. “ When I am deceived or disappointed in — the wind, and it’s Easterly, I take refuge here. The Growlery is the best-used room in the house ! ” Bleak House , Chap. 8. APARTMENT— in a cosy tavern. It was one of those unaccountable little rooms which are never seen anywhere but in a tavern, and are supposed to have got into tav- erns by reason of the facilities afforded to the architect for getting drunk while engaged in their construction. It had more corners in it than the brain of an obstinate man ; was full of mad closets, into which nothing could be put that was not specially invented and made for that purpose ; had mysterious shelvings and bulk-heads, and indications of staircases in the ceiling ; and was elaborately provided with a bell that rung in the room itself, about two feet from the handle, and had no connection what- ever with any other part of the establishment. It was a little below the pavement, and abutted close upon it ; so that passengers grated against the window-panes with their buttons, and scraped it with their baskets ; and fearful boys suddenly coming between a thoughtful guest and the light, derided him ; or put out their tongues as if he were a physician ; or made white knobs on the ends of their noses by flat- tening the same against the glass, and vanished awfully, like spectres. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 35. APARTMENT— Mr. Fips’ office. In a very dark passage on the first floor, oddly situated at the back of a house, they found a little blear-eyed glass door up in one corner, with Mr. Fips painted on it in charac- ters which were meant to be transparent. There was also a wicked old sideboard hiding in the gloom hard by, meditating designs upon the ribs' of visitors ; and an old mat worn into lat- tice work, which, being useless as a mat (even if anybody could have seen it, which was im- possible), had for many years directed its in- dustry into another channel, and regularly tripped up every one of Mr. Fips’ clients. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 39. “ Rooms get an awful look about them when they are fitted up, like these, for one person you are used to see in them, and that person is away under any shadow ; let alone being God knows where.” He is not far out. As all partings foreshadow the great final one — so empty rooms, bereft of APARTMENT— A model bedroom. It was none of your frivolous and preposter- ously bright bedrooms, where nobody can close an eye with any kind of propriety or decent re- gard to the associations of ideas ; but it was a good, dull, leaden, drowsy place, where every article of furniture reminded you that you came APARTMENT 22 ARGUMENT there to sleep, and that you were expected to go to sleep. There was no wakeful reflection of the fire there, as in your modern chambers, which upon the darkest nights have a watchful consciousness of French polish ; the old Span- ish mahogany winked at it now and then, as a dozing cat or dog might, nothing more. The very size, and shape, and hopeless immovability of the bedstead and wardrobe, and, in a minor degree, of even the chairs and tables, provoked sleep ; they were plainly apoplectic, and dis- posed to snore. There were no staring portraits to remon- strate with you for being lazy ; no round-eyed birds upon the curtains, disgustingly wide- awake, and insufferably prying. The thick neutral hangings, and the dark blinds, and the heavy heap of bed-clothes, were all designed to hold in sleep, and act as non-conductors to the day and getting up. Even the old stuffed fox upon the top of the wardrobe was devoid of any spark of vigilance, for his glass eye had fallen out, and he slumbered as he stood. Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 3. APARTMENT— A solitary. An air of retreat and solitude hung about the rooms, and about their inhabitant. Fie was much worn, and so were they. Their sloping ceilings, cumbrous rusty locks and gi-ates, and heavy wooden bins and beams, slowly moulder- ing withal, had a prisonous look, and he had the haggard face of a prisoner. Yet the sun- light shone in at the ugly garret window, which had a penthouse to itself thrust out among the tiles ; and on the cracked and smoke-black- ened parapet beyond, some of the deluded sparrows of the place rheumatically hopped, like little feathered cripples who had left their crutches in their nests ; and there was a play of living leaves at hand that changed the air, and made an imperfect sort of music in it that would have been melody in the country. Edwin Drood. Chap. 17. APARTMENTS — The loneliness of Law Inns. ■ It is to be remarked of chambers in general, that they must have been built for chambers, to have the right kind of loneliness. You may make a great dwelling-house very lonely, by iso- lating suites of rooms, and calling them cham- bers, but you cannot make the true kind of lone- liness. In dwelling-houses there have been family festivals ; children have grown in them, girls have bloomed into women in them, court- ships and marriages have taken place in them. True chambers never were young, childish, maidenly ; never had dolls in them, or rocking- horses, or christenings, or betrothals, or little coffins. Let Gray’s Inn identify the child who first touched hands and hearts with Robinson Crusoe in any one of its many “ sets,” and that child's little statue, in white marble with a golden inscription, shall be at its service, at my co and charge, as a <111111.111:', fountain for the spirit, to freshen its thirsty square. Let Lin- coln’s produce from all its houses a twentieth of the procession derivable from any dwelling- house, one-twentieth of its age, of fair young brides who married for love and hope, not set- tlements, and all the Vice-Chancellors shall thenceforward be kept in nosegays for nothing, on application to the writer hereof. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 14. APPETITES— The advice of Squeers. “ That’s right,” said Squeers, calmly getting on with his breakfast ; “ keep ready till I tell you to begin. Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you’ve conquered human natur. This is the way we inculcate strength of mind, Mr. Nickleby,” said the schoolmaster, turning to Nicholas, and speaking with his mouth very full of beef and toast. Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 5. APPRENTICESHIP-of Oliver Twist. Oliver roused himself, and made his best obei- sance. lie had been wondering, with his eyes fixed on the magistrates’ powder, whether all boards were born with that white stuff on their heads, and were boards from thenceforth on that account. “ Well,” said the old gentleman, “ I suppose he’s fond of chimney-sweeping?” m “ Fie doats on it, your worship,” replied Bumble, giving Oliver a sly pinch, to intimate that he had better not say he didn’t. “And he will be a sweep, will he?” inquired the old gentleman. “If we was to bind him to any other trade to-morrow, he’d run away simultaneous, your worship,” replied Bumble. Oliver Twist , Chap. 3. ARCHITECT- His desig-ns. Mr. Pecksniff was surrounded by open books, and was glancing from volume to volume, with a black-lead pencil in his mouth, and a pair of compasses in his hand, at a vast number of mathematical diagrams, of such extraordinary shapes that they looked like designs for fire- works. — Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 5. ARGUMENT-A gift of Nature. “ — If,” said John Willet, turning his eyes from the ceiling to the face of his interrupter, and uttering the monosyllable in capitals, to ap- prise him that he had put in his oar. as the vul- gar say, with unbecoming and irreverent haste : “If, sir, Natur has fixed upon me the gift of argeyment, why should I not own to it, and rath- er glory in the same? Yes, sir, I am a tough customer that way. You are right, sir. My toughness has been proved, sir, in this room many and many a time, as I think you know : and if you don’t know,” added John, putting his pipe in his mouth again, “ so much the bet- ter, for I an’t proud, and am not going to tell you.” “For the matter o’ that, Phil!” observed Mr. Willet, blowing a lgng, thin, spiral cloud of smoke out of the corner of his mouth, and staring at it abstractedly as it floated away; “for the matter o’ that, Phil, argeyment is a gift of Natur. If Natur has gifted a man with pow- ers of argeyment, a man has the right to make the best of ’em, and has not a right to stand on false delicacy, and deny that he is so gifted ; for that is a turning of his back on Natur, a flouting of her, a slighting of her precious caskets, and a proving of one’s self to be a swine that isn’t worth her scattering pearls be- fore.” — Bamaby Budge, Chap. 1. ARISTOCRACY 23 ART AND NATURE ARISTOCRACY— A Sign of. “ There’s something in his appearance quite — dear, dear, what’s that word again ? ” “What word?” inquired Mr. Lillyvick. “Why — dear me, how stupid I am,” replied Miss Petowker, hesitating. “ What do you call it when Lords break off door-knockers, and beat policemen, and play at coaches with other people’s money, and all that sort of thing?” “ Aristocratic ? ” suggested the collector. “ Ah ! aristocratic,” replied Miss Petowker ; “ something very aristocratic about him, isn’t there ? ” — Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 15. ARITHMETIC. As figures are catching, a kind of cyphering measles . broke out in that locality, under the influence of which the whole Yard was light- headed. — Little Dorrit, Book //., Chap. 32. AROMA. “ A young Simoon of ham.” Little Dorrit , Book II., Chap. 27. AROMA— Of a punch.. The latter perfume, with the fostering aid of boiling water and lemon-peel, diffused itself throughout the room, and became s.o highly concentrated around the warm fireside, that the wind passing over the house-roof must have rushed off charged with a delicious whiff of it, after buzzing like a great bee at that particular chimney-pot. — Our Mutual Friend , Chap. 4. AROMA— Of wine. “ Now, Mrs. Gamp, what’s your news?” The lady in question was by this time in the doorway, curtseying to Mrs. Mould. At the same moment a peculiar fragrance was borne upon the breeze, as if a passing fairy had hic- coughed, and had previously been to a wine- vault. — Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 25. ART— Miss La Creevy’s difficulties of. “ Ah ! The difficulties of Art, my dear, are great.” “ They must be, I have no doubt,” said Kate, humoring her good-natured little friend. “ They are beyond anything you can form the faintest conception of,” replied Miss La Creevy. “What with bringing out eyes with all one’s power, and keeping down noses with all one’s force, and adding to heads, and taking away teeth altogether, you have no idea of the trouble one little miniature is.” “ The remuneration can scarcely repay you,” said Kate. “ Why, it does not, and that’s the truth,” an- swered Miss La Creevy ; “ and then people are so dissatisfied and unreasonable, that, nine times out of ten, there’s no pleasure in painting them. Sometimes they say, ‘ Oh, how very serious you have made me look, Miss La Creevy ! ’ and at others, ‘ La, Miss La Creevy, how very smirking !’ when the very essence of a good portrait is, that it must be either seri- ous or smirking, or it’s no portrait at all.” “ Indeed ! ” said Kate, laughing. “ Certainly, my dear ; because the sitters are always either the one or the other,” replied Miss La Creevy. “ Look at the Royal Academy ! All those beautiful shiny portraits of gentlemen in black velvet waistcoats, with their fists doubled up on round tables, or marble slabs, are serious, you know ; and all the ladies who are playing with little parasols, or little dogs, or little children — it’s the same rule in art, only varying the objects — are smirking. In fact,” said Miss La Creevy, sinking her voice to a confidential whisper, “ there are only two styles of portrait painting, the serious and the smirk ; and we always use the serious for professional people (except actors sometimes), and the smirk for private ladies and gentlemen, who don’t care so much about looking clever.” Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 10. ART— Family Pictures. “ If you have seen the picture-gallery of any one old family, you will remember how the same face and figure — often the fairest and slightest of them all — come upon you in differ- ent generations ; and how you trace the same sweet girl through a long line of portraits — never growing old or changing — the Good Angel of the race — abiding by them in all re- verses — redeeming all their sins.” Old Cm iosity Shop , Chap. 69. ART— A top-heavy portrait. Little Dorrit glanced at the portrait again. The artist had given it a head that would have been, in an intellectual point of \iew, top-heavy for Shakespeare. — Little Dorrit , Chap. 24. ART AND NATURE— A criticism. At the head of the collections in the palaces of Rome, the Vatican, of course, with its treas- ures of art, its enormous galleries, and stair- cases, and suites upon suites of immense cham- bers, ranks highest and stands foremost. Many most noble statues, and wonderful pictures, are there ; nor is it heresy to say that there is a considerable amount of rubbish there, too.. When any old piece of sculpture dug out of the ground, finds a place in a gallery because it is old, and without any reference to its intrinsic merits ; and finds admirers by the hundred, be- cause it is there, and for no other reason on earth — there will be no lack of objects, very in- different in the plain eyesight of any one who employs so vulgar a property, when he may wear the spectacles of Cant for less than noth- ing, and establish himself as a man of taste for the mere trouble of putting them on. I unreservedly confess, for myself, that I can- not leave my natural perception of what is nat- ural and true at a palace-door, in Italy or else- where, as I should leave my shoes if I were travelling in the East. I cannot forget that there are certain expressions of face, natural to certain passions, and as unchangeable in their nature as the gait of a lion, or the flight of an eagle. I cannot dismiss from my certain know- ledge such common-place facts as the ordinary proportions of men’s arms, and legs, and heads ; and when I meet with performances that do violence to these experiences and recollections, no matter where they maybe, I cannot honestly admire them, and think it best to say so ; in spite of high critical advice that we should sometimes feign an admiration, though we have it not. Therefore, I freely acknowledge that when 1 see a Jolly Young Waterman representing a cherubim, or a Barclay and Perkins’s Drayman ART 24 ARTIST depicted as an Evangelist, I see nothing to com- mend or admire in the performance, however great its reputed Painter. Neither am I partial to libellous Angels, who play on fiddles and bassoons, for the edification of sprawling monks, apparently in liquor. Nor to those Monsieur Tonsons of galleries, Saint Francis and Saint Sebastian ; both of whom I submit should have very uncommon and rare merits, as works of art, to justify their compound multiplication by Italian Painters. ****** When I observe heads inferior to the subject, in pictures of merit, in Italian galleries, I do not attach that reproach to the Painter, for I have a suspicion that these great men, who were, of necessity, very much in the hands of monks and priests, painted monks and priests a great deal too often. I frequently see, in pic- tures of real power, heads quite below the story and the painter : and I invariably observe that those heads are of the Convent stamp, and have their counterparts among the Convent inmates of this hour ; so, I have settled with myself that, in such cases, the lameness was not with the painter, but with the vanity and ignorance of certain of his employers, who would be apos- tles — on canvas, at all events. The exquisite grace and beauty of Canova’s statues ; the wonderful gravity and repose of many of the ancient works in sculpture, both in the Capitol and the Vatican ; and the strength and fire of many others, are, in their different ways, beyond all reach of words. They are especially impressive and delightful, after the works of Bernini and his disciples, in which the churches of Rome, from St. Peter’s down- ward, abound ; and which are, I verily believe, the most detestable class of productions in the wide world. I would infinitely rather (as mere works of art) look upon the three deities of the Past, the Present, and the Future, in the Chi- nese Collection, than upon the best of these breezy maniacs ; whose every fold of drapery is blown inside out ; whose smallest vein, or artery, is as big as an ordinary forefinger ; whose hair is like a nest of lively snakes ; and whose attitudes put all other extravagance to shame. Insomuch that I do honestly believe, there can be no place in the world where such intolerable abortions, begotten of the sculptor’s chisel, are to be found in such profusion as in Rome. — Pictures from Italy. ART- Italian pictures ; Beatrice di Cenci. In the private palaces, pictures are seen to the best advantage. There are seldom so many in one place that the attention need become distracted, or the eye confused. You see them very leisurely ; and are rarely interrupted by a crowd of people. There are portraits innumer- able, by Titian, and Rembrandt, and Vandyke: heads by Guido, and Domenichino, and Carlo I)olci : various subjects by Correggio, and Mu- rillo, and Raphael, and Salvator Rosa, and Spagnoletto — many of which it would be diffi- cult, indeed, to praise too highly, or to praise enough ; such is their tenderness and grace, their noble elevation, purity, and beauty. The portrait of Beatrice di Cenci, in the Pa- lazzo Berberini, is a picture almost impossible to be forgotten. Through the transcendent sweetness and beauty of the face, there is a J something shining out, that haunts me. I see ic now, as I see this paper, or my pen. The head is loosely draped in white ; the light hair falling down below the linen folds. She has turned suddenly towards you ; and there is an expression in the eyes— although they are very tender and gentle — as if the wildness of a mo- mentary terror, or distraction, had been strug- gled with and overcome that instant : and nothing but a celestial hope, and a beautiful sorrow, and a desolate earthly helplessness re- mained. Some stories say that Guido painted it the night before her execution ; some other stories, that he painted it from memory, after having seen her on her way to the scaffold. I am willing to believe that, as you see her on his canvas, so she turned towards him, in the crowd, from the first sight of the axe, and stamped upon his mind a look which he has stamped on mine as though I had stood beside him in the concourse. The guilty palace of the Cenci — blighting a whole quarter of the town, as it stands withering away by grains — had that face, to my fancy, in its dismal porch, and at its black, blind windows, and flitting up and down its dreary stairs, and growing out of the darkness of its ghostly galleries. The His- tory is written in the Painting ; written in the dying girl's face, by Nature’s own hand. And oh ! how in that one touch she puts to flight (instead of making kin) the puny world that claim to be related to her, in right of poor con- ventional forgeries ! — Pictures from Italy. ART— Family pictures— Skimpole’s descrip- tion of. There was a Sir Somebody Dedlock, with a battle, a sprung-mine, volumes of smoke, flashes of lightning, a town on fire, and a stormed fort, all in full action between his horse’s two hind legs; showing, he supposed, how little a Dedlock made of such trifles. The whole race he represented as having evidently been, in life, what he called “stuffed people,” — a large col- lection, glassy eyed, set up in the most ap- proved manner on their various twigs and perches, very correct, perfectly free from ani- mation, and always in glass cases. Bleak House , Chap. 37. ART— Pictures in Italian churches. It is miserable to see great works of art — something of the Souls of Painters — perishing and fading away, like human forms. This Ca- thedral is odorous with the rotting of Correg- gio’s frescoes in the Cupola. Heaven knows how beautiful they may have been at one time. Connoisseurs fall into raptures with them now ; but such a labyrinth of arms and legs: such heaps of fore-shortened limbs, entangled and involved and jumbled together, no operative surgeon, gone mad, could imagine in his wild- est delirium. — Pictures from Italy. ARTIST -An amateur (Gowan). He appeared to be an artist by profession, and to havq been at Rome some time ; yet he had a slight, careless, amateur way with him — a perceptible limp, both in his devotion to art and his attainments. -x- -x- * * * * II is genius, during his earlier manhood, was of that exclusively agricultural character which ASHES 25 AUCTION SALE applies itself to the cultivation of wild oats. At last he had declared that he would become a Painter ; partly because he had always had an idle knack that way, and partly to grieve the souls of the Barnacles-in-chief who had not pro- vided for him. So it had come to pass succes- sively, first, that several distinguished ladies had been frightfully shocked : then, that port- folios of his performances had been handed about o’ nights, and declared with ecstacy to be perfect Claudes, perfect Cuyps, perfect pheno- mena ; then, that Lord Decimus had bought his picture, and had asked the President and Coun- cil to dinner at a blow, and had said, with his own magnificent gravity, “ Do you know, there appears to me to be really immense merit in that work?” and, in short, that people of condition had absolutely taken pains to bring him into fashion. But, somehow, it had all failed. The prejudiced public had stood out against it ob- stinately. They had determined not to admire Lord Decimus’s picture. They had determined to believe that in every service, except their own, a man must qualify himself, by striving, early and late, and by working heart and soul, might and main. So now Mr. Gowan, like that worn-out old coffin which never was Mahomet’s nor anybody else’s, hung midway between two points ; jaundiced and jealous as to the one he had left ; jaundiced and jealous as to the other he couldn’t reach. Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 17. ASHES— of a home. The ashes of the commonest fire are melan- choly things, for in them there is an image of death and ruin — of something that has been bright, and is but dull, cold, dreary dust — with which our nature forces us to sympathise. How much more sad the crumbled embers of a home ; the casting down of that great altar, where the worst among us sometimes perform the worship of the heart ; and where the best have offered up such sacrifices, and done such deeds of heroism, as, chronicled, would put the proudest temples of old Time, with all their vaunting annals, to the blush. — Barnaby Rudge , Chap . 81. ASPERITY— The expression of. In a hard way, and in an uncertain way that fluctuated between patronage and putting down, the sprinkling from a watering-pot and hy- draulic pressure, Mrs. Clennam showed an in- terest in this dependant. As there are degrees of hardness in the hardest metal, and shades of color in black itself, so, even in the asperity of Mrs. Clennam’s demeanor towards all the rest of humanity and towards little Dorrit, there was a fine gradation. — Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 5. ASSOCIATION— The influence of. Whether people, by dint of sitting together in the same place and the same relative posi- tions, and doing exactly the same things for a great many years, acquire a sixth sense, or some unknown power of influencing each other which serves them in its stead, is a question for philos- ophy to settle. But certain it is that old John Willet, Mr. Parkes, and Mr. Cobb, were one and all firmly of opinion that they were very jolly companions — rather choice spirits than otherwise ; that they looked at each other every now and then as if there were a perpetual in- terchange of ideas going on among them ; that no man considered himself or his neighbor by any means silent ; and that each of them nod- ded occasionally when he caught the eye of an- other, as if he would say, “ You have expressed yourself extremely well, sir, in relation to that sentiment, and I quite agree with you.” Barnaby Rudge , Chap. 33. ASTHMA— The want of breath. “ I smoke on srub and water myself,” said Mr. Omer, taking up his glass, “because it’s considered softening to the passages, by which this troublesome breath of mine gets into ac- tion. But, Lord bless you,” .said Mr. Omer, huskily, “ it ain’t the passages that’s out of or- der ! ‘ Give me breath enough,’ says' I to my daughter Minnie, ‘and /’ll find passages, my dear ! ’ ” — David Copper field. Chap. 30. AUCTION SALE— of Dombey’s furniture. After a few days, strange people began to call at the house, and to make appointments with one another in the dining-room, as if they lived there. Especially, there is a gentleman, of a Mosaic Arabian cast of countenance, with a very massive watch-guard, who whistles in the drawing-room, and while he is waiting for the other gentleman, who always has pen and ink in his pocket, asks Mr. Towlinson (by the easy name of “Old Cock,”) if he happens to know what the figure of them crimson and gold hangings might have been, when new bought. The callers and appointments in the dining- room become more numerous every day, and every gentleman seems to have pen and ink in his pocket, and to have some occasion to use it. At last it is said that there is going to be a Sale ; and then more people arrive, with pen and ink in their pockets, commanding a de- tachment of men with carpet-caps, who imme- diately begin to pull up the carpets, and knock the furniture about, and to print off thousands of impressions of their shoes upon the hall and staircase. * * * * * * The men in the carpet-caps go on tumbling the furniture about ; and the gentlemen with the pens and ink make out inventories of it, and sit upon pieces of furniture never made to be sat upon, and eat bread and cheese from the public-house on other pieces of furniture never made to be eaten on, and seem to have a de- light in appropriating precious articles to strange uses. Chaotic combinations of furniture also take place. Mattresses and bedding appear in the dining-room ; the glass and china get into the conservatory ; the great dinner service is set out in heaps on the long divan in the large drawing-room ; and the stair-wires, made into fasces, decorate the marble chimney- pieces. Finally, a. rug, with a printed bill upon it, is hung out from the balcony : and a simi- lar appendage graces either side of the hall door. Then, all day long, there is a retinue of moul- dy gigs and chaise-carts in the street ; and herds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, over-run the house, sounding the plate-glass mirrors with their knuckles, striking discordant octaves on the Grand Piano, drawing wet fore- fingers over the pictures, breathing on the blades of the best dinner-knives, punching the squabs AUGUST 26 AUSTERITY of chairs and sofas with their dirty fists, touz- ling the feather beds, opening and shutting all the drawers, balancing the silver spoons and forks, looking into the very threads of the drapery and linen, and disparaging everything. There is not a secret place in the whole house. Fluffy and snuffy strangers stare into the kitchen- range as curiously as into the attic clothes- press. Stout men with napless hats on, look out of the bedroom windows, and cut jokes with friends in the street. Quiet, calculating spirits withdraw into the dressing-rooms, with catalogues, and make marginal notes thereon, with stumps of pencils. Two brokers invade the very fire-escape, and take a panoramic sur- vey of the neighborhood from the top of the house. The swarm, and buzz, and going up and down, endure for days. The Capital Modern Household Furniture, etc., is on view. Then there is a palisade of tables made in the best drawing-room ; and on the capital, french-polished, extending, telescopic range of Spanish mahogany dining-tables with turned legs, the pulpit of the Auctioneer is erected ; and the herds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, the strangers fluffy and snuffy, and the stout men with the napless hats, congre- gate about it and sit upon everything within reach, mantel-pieces included, and begin to bid. Hot, humming, and dusty are the rooms all day ; and — high above the heat, hum, and dust — the head and shoulders, voice and hammer, of the Auctioneer, are ever at work. The men in the carpet-caps get flustered and vicious with tum- bling the Lots about, and still the Lots are going, going, gone ; still coming on. Some- times there is joking and a general roar. This lasts • all day and three days following. The Capital Modern Household Furniture, etc., is on sale. Then the mouldy gigs and chaise-carts re- appear ; and with them come spring-vans and wagons, and an army of porters with knots. All day long, the men w r ith carpet-caps are screwing at screw-drivers and bed-winches, or staggering by the dozen together on the stair- case under heavy burdens, or upheaving perfect rocks of Spanish mahogany, best rosewood, or plate-glass, into the gigs and chaise-carts, vans and wagons. All sorts of vehicles of burden are in attendance, from a tilted wagon to a wheelbarrow. Poor Paul’s little bedstead is carried off in a donkey-tandem. For nearly a whole week, the Capital Modern Household Furniture, etc., is in course of removal. At last it is all gone. Nothing is left about the house but scattered leaves of catalogues, littered scraps of straw and hay, and a battery of pewter pots behind the hall-door. The men with the carpet-caps gather up their screw- drivers and bed-winches into bags, shoulder them, and walk off. One of the pen and ink' gentlemen goes over the house as a last atten- tion ; sticking up bills in the windows respecting the lease of this desirable family mansion, and shutting the shutters. At length he follows the men with the carpet-caps. None of the invad- ers remain. The house is a ruin, and the rats fly from it .—Dombcy dr 9 Son, Chap. 59. AUGUST- Nature in. There is no month in the whole year, in which nature wears a more beautiful appearance than in the month of August. Spring has many beauties, and May is a fresh and blooming month, but the charms of this time of year are enhanced by their contrast with the winter sea- son. August has no such advantage. It comes when we remember nothing but clear skies, green fields, and sweet-smelling flowers — when the recollection of snow, and ice, and bleak winds has faded from our minds as completely as they have disappeared from the earth — and yet what a pleasant time it is ! Orchards and corn-fields ring with the hum of labor ; trees bend beneath the thick clusters of rich fruit which bow their branches to the ground ; and the corn, piled in graceful sheaves, or waving in every light breath that sweeps above it, as if it w'ooed the sickle, tinges the landscape with a golden hue. A mellow softness appears to hang over the whole earth . — Pickwick Papers , Chap. 16. AUSTERITY— Its chilling 1 influence. The dignified old gentleman turned out to be Lord Lancaster Stiltstalking, who had been maintained by the Circumlocution Office for many years as a representative of the Britannic Majesty abroad. This noble Refrigerator had iced several European courts in his time, and had done it with such complete success that the very name of Englishman yet struck cold to the stomachs of foreigners who had the distin- guished honor of remembering him, at a dis- tance of a quarter of a century. He was now in retirement, and hence (in a ponderous white cravat, like a stiff snow-drift) was so obliging as to shade the dinner. There was a whisper of the pervading Bohemian char- acter in the nomadic nature of the service, and its curious races of plates and dishes : but the noble Refrigerator, infinitely better than plate or porcelain, made it superb. He shaded the dinner, cooled the wines, chilled the gravy, and blighted the vegetables. There was only one other person in the room : a microscopically small footboy, who waited on the malevolent man who hadn’t got into the Post-Office. Even this youth, if his jacket could have been unbuttoned and his heart laid bare, would have been seen, as a dis- tant adherent of the Barnacle family, already to aspire to a situation under government. Little Dorrit, Book /., Chap. 26. ***** - 34 - In the course of a couple of hours the noble Refrigerator, at no time less than a hundred years behind the period, got about five cen- turies in arrear, and delivered solemn political oracles appropriate to that epoch. He finished by freezing a cup of tea for nis own drinking, and retiring at his lowest temperature. Chap. 26. ****** The dinner and dessert being three hours’ long, the bashful member cooled in the shadow of Lord Decimus faster than he warmed with food and drink, and had but a chilly time of it. Lord Decimus, like a tall tower in a flat coun- try, seemed to project himself across the table- cloth, hide the light from the honorable mem- ber, cool the honorable member’s marrow, and give him a woful idea of distance. When he asked this unfortunate travellei to take wine, lie encompassed his faltering steps with the gloomiest of shades ; and when he said, “ Your AUSTERITY 27 AUTHOR health, sir ! ” all around him was barrenness and desolation. At length Lord Decimus, with a coffee-cup in his hand, began to hover about among the pictures, and to cause an interesting speculation to arise in all minds as to the probabilities of his ceasing to hover, and enabling the smaller bir.ds to flutter up-stairs ; which could not be done until he had urged his noble pinions in that direction. After some delay, and several stretches of his wings, which came to nothing, he soared to the drawing-rooms. Book II, Chap. 12. AUSTERITY— of Mr. Dombey. It happened to be an iron-gray autumnal day, with a shrewd east wind blowing — a day in keeping with the proceedings. Mr. Dombey represented in himself the wind, the shade, and the autumn of the christening. He stood in his library to receive the company, as hard and cold as the weather ; and when he looked out through the glass room, at the trees in the little garden, their brown, and yellow leaves came fluttering down, as if he blighted them. Dombey and Son , Chap. 5. AUSTERITY— in politeness. “ How do you do, sir ? ” said Chick. He gave Mr. Dombey his hand, as if he fear- ed it might electrify him. Mr. Dombey took it as if it were a fish, or seaweed, or some such clammy substance, and immediately returned it to him with exalted politeness. Dombey and Son , Chap. 5. AUSTERITY— The selfishness of. In all his life, he had never made a friend. His cold and distant nature had neither sought one, nor found one. And now, when that na- ture concentrated its whole force so strongly on a partial scheme of parental interest and ambi- tion, it seemed as if its icy current, instead of being released by this influence, and running clear and free, had thawed for but an instant to admit its burden, and then frozen with it into one unyielding block. Dombey and Son , Chap. 5. AUSTERITY— Its influence on youth. “ I have no will. That is to say,” he colored a little, “ next to none that I can put in action now. Trained by main force ; broken, not bent ; heavily ironed with an object on which I was never consulted and which was never mine ; shipped away to the other end of the world before I was of age, and exiled there un- til my father’s death there, a year ago ; always grinding in a mill I always hated ; what is to be expected from me in middle life? Will, purpose, hope? All those lights were extin- guished before I could sound the words.” “ Light ’em up again !” said Mr. Meagles. “ Ah ! Easily said. I am the son, Mr. Meagles, of a hard father and mother. I am the only child of parents who weighed, meas- ured, and priced everything ; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced, had no existence. Strict people, as the phrase is, professors of a stern religion, their very re- ligion was a gloomy sacrifice of tastes and sym- pathies that were never their own, offered up as a part of a bargain for the security of their possessions. Austere faces, inexorable disci- pline, penance in this world and terror in the next — nothing graceful or gentle anywhere, and the void in my cowed heart everywhere — this was my childhood, if I may so misuse the word as to apply it to such a beginning of life.” Little Doirit, Book /., Chap. 2. AUSTERITY IN RELIGION— Mrs. Clen- nam’s. Woe to the suppliant, if such a one there were or ever had been, who had any concession to look for in the inexorable face at the cabinet ! Woe to the defaulter whose appeal lay to the tribunal where those severe eyes presided ! Great need had the rigid woman of her mysti- cal religion, veiled in gloom and darkness, with lightnings of cursing, vengeance, and destruc- tion, flashing through the sable clouds. For- give us our debts as we forgive our debtors, was a prayer too poor in spirit for her. Smite thou my debtors, Lord, wither them, crush them ; do Thou as I would do, and thou shalt have my worship : this was the impious tower of stone she built up to scale Heaven. Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 5. AUTHOR— His loss of imaginary friends. It is the fate of most men who mingle with the woi*ld, and attain even the prime of life, to make many real friends, and lose them in the course of nature. It is the fate of all authors or chroniclers to create imaginary friends, and lose them in the course of art. Nor is this the full extent of their misfortunes ; for they are required to furnish an account of them besides. Pickwick , Chap. 57. AUTHOR-Mr. Dick, the mad. “ I wish you’d go up stairs,” said my aunt, as she threaded her needle, “ and give my compli- ments to Mr. Dick, and I’ll be glad to know how he gets on with his Memorial.” I went up stairs with my message ; thinking, as I went, that if Mr. Dick had been working at his Memorial long, at the same rate as I had seen him working at it, through the open door, when I came down, he was probably getting on very well indeed. I found him still driving at it with a long pen, and his head almost laid upon the paper. He was so intent upon it, that I had ample leisure to observe the large paper kite in a corner, the confusion of bundles of manuscript, the number of pens, and, above all, the quantity of ink (which he seemed to have in, in half-gallon jars, by the dozen), before he observed my being present. “ Ha ! Phoebus !” said Mr. Dick, laying down his pen. “ How does the world go ? I’ll tell you what,” he added in a lower tone, “ I shouldn’t wish it to be mentioned, but it’s a — ” here he beckoned to me, and put his lips close to my ear — “ It’s a mad world. Mad as Bed- lam, boy !” said Mr. Dick, taking snuff from a round box on the table, and laughing heartily. Without presuming to give my opinion on this question, I delivered my message. “Well,” said Mr. Dick, in answer, “my com- pliments to her, and I — I believe I have made a start. I think I have made a start,” said Mi. Dick, passing his hand among his grey hair, and casting anything but a confident look at his manuscript. “You have been to school?” AUTHOR, MAD 28 AUTUMN SCENERY “ Yes, sir,” I answered ; “ for a short time.” “ Do you recollect the date,” said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at me, and taking up his pen to note it down, “ when King Charles the First had his head cut off?” I said I believed it happened in the year six- teen hundred and forty-nine. “Well,” returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his pen, and looking dubiously at me, “ so the books say ; but I dop’t see how that can be. Because, if it was so long ago, how could the people about him have made that mis- take of putting some of the trouble out of his head, after it was taken off, into mine?" ****** In fact, I found out afterwards that Mr. Dick had been for upwards of ten years endeavoring to keep King Charles the First out of the Me- morial ; but he had been constantly getting into it, and was there now. David Copperfield, Chap. 14. AUTHOR, MAD-Mr. Dick’s diffusion of facts. I was going away, when he directed my atten- tion to the kite. “ What do you think of that for a kite ?” he said. I answered that it was a beautiful one. I snould think it must have been as much as seven feet high. “ I made it. We’ll go and fly it, you and I,” said Mr. Dick. ' “ Do you see this?” He showed me that it was covered with man- uscript, very closely and laboriously written ; but so plainly, that as I looked along the lines, I thought I saw some allusion to King Charles the First’s head again, in one or two places. “ There’s plenty of string,” said Mr. Dick, “ and when it flies high, it takes the facts a long way. That’s my manner of diffusing ’em. I don’t know where they may come down. It’s according to circumstances, and the wind, and so forth ; but I take my chances of that.” David Copperfield , Chap. 14. AUTHORESS— Mi's. Hominy, an American. Mrs. Hominy was a philosopher and an au- thoress, and consequently had a pretty strong digestion ; but this coarse, this indecorous phrase, was almost too much for her. For a gentleman sitting alone with a lady — although the door was open — to talk about a naked eye ! A long interval elapsed before even she, woman of masculine and towering intellect though she was, could call up fortitude enough to resume the conversation. But Mrs. Hominy was a traveller. Mrs. Hominy was a writer of reviews and analytical disquisitions. Mrs. Hom- iny had had her letters from abroad, beginning “ My ever dearest blank,” and signed “ The Mother of the Modern Gracchi” (meaning the married Miss Hominy), regularly printed in a public journal, with all the indignation in capi- tals, and all the sarcasm in italics. Mrs. Homi- ny had looked on foreign countries with the eye (if a perfect republican hot from the model oven; and Mrs. Hominy could talk for write) about them by the hour together. So Mrs. Hom- ing at last came down on Martin'heavily, and ns he was fast asleep, she had it all her own way, ami bruised him to her heart’s content. ******* Martin by degrees became so far awake, that he had a sense of a terrible oppression on his mind ; an imperfect dream that he had murder- ed a particular friend, and couldn’t get rid of the body. When his eyes opened it was staring him full in the face. There was the horrible Hom- iny, talking deep truths in a melodious snuffle, and pouring forth her mental endowments to such an extent that the Major’s bitterest ene- my, hearing her, would have forgiven him from the bottom of his heart. Martin might have done something desperate if the gong had not sounded for supper ; but sound it did most opportunely ; and having stationed Mrs. Hom- iny at the upper end of the table, he took refuge at the lower end himself ; whence, after a hasty meal, he stole away, while the lady was yet busied with dried beef and a saucer-full of pickled fixings. It would be difficult to give an adequate idea of Mrs. Hominy’s freshness next day, or of the avidity with which she went headlong into mor- al philosophy, at breakfast. Some little addi- tional degree of asperity, perhaps, was visible in her features, but not more than the pickles would have naturally produced. All that day she clung to Martin. .She sat beside him while he received his friends (for there was another Reception yet more numerous than the former), propounded theories and answered imaginary ob- jections, so that Martin really began to think he must be dreaming, and speaking for two ; she quoted interminable passages from cer- tain essays on government, written by herself ; used the Major’s pocket-handkerchief as if the snuffle were a temporary malady, of which she was determined to rid herself by some means or other ; and, in short, was such a remarkable companion, that Martin quite settled it between himself and his conscience, that in any new set- tlement it would be absolutely necessary to have such a person knocked on the head for the general peace of society. Martin Chilzzlewit , Chap. 22. AUTUMN SCENERY. It was a warm autumn afternoon, and there had been heavy rain. The sun burst suddenly from among the clouds ; and the old battle-’ ground, sparkling brilliantly and cheerfully at sight of it in one green place, flashed a respon- sive welcome there, which spread along the country side as if a joyful beacon had been lighted up, and answered from a thousand sta- tions. How beautiful the landscape kindling in the light, and that luxuriant influence passing on like a celestial presence, brightening everything ! The wood, a sombre mass before, revealed its varied tints of yellow, green, brown, red ; its different forms of trees, with raindrops glitter- ing on their leaves and twinkling as they fell. The verdant meadow-land, bright and glowing, seemed as if it had been blind, a minute since, and now had found a sense of sight wherewith to look up at the shining sky. Cornfields, hedge- rows, fences, homesteads, the clustered roofs, the steeple of the church, the stream, the water- mill, all sprang out of the gloomy darkness smiling. Birds sang sweetly, flowers raised their drooping heads, fresh scents arose from the invigorated ground ; the blue expanse above extended and diffused itself; already the sun’s AUTUMN 29 AVARICE slanting rays pierced mortally the sullen bank of cloud that lingered in its flight ; and a rain- bow, spirit of all the colors that adorned the earth and sky, spanned the whole arch with its triumphant glory . — Battle of Life , Chap. 3. AUTUMN- Wind at twilight. Not only is the day waning, but the year. The low sun is fiery and yet cold behind the monastery ruin, and the Virginia creeper on the Cathedral wall has showered half its deep-red leaves down on the pavement. There has been rain this afternoon, and a wintry shudder goes among the little pools on the cracked, uneven flag-stones, and through the giant elm-trees as they shed a gust of tears. Their fallen 1(^1 ves lie strewn thickly about. Some of these leaves, in a timid rush, seek sanctuary within the low- arched Cathedral door. Edwin Droed, Chap. 2. AUTUMN-Nature in. It was pretty late in the autumn of the year, when the declining sun, struggling through the mist which had obscured it all day, looked brightly down upon a little Wiltshire village, within an easy journey of the fair old town of Salisbury. Like a sudden flash of memory or spirit kin- dling up the mind of an old man, it shed a glory upon the scene, in which its departed youth and freshness seemed to live again. The wet grass sparkled in the light ; the scanty patches of verdure in the hedges — where a few green twigs yet stood together bravely, resisting to the last the tyranny of nipping winds and early frosts — took heart and brightened up ; the stream which had been dull and sullen all day long, broke out into a cheerful smile ; the birds began to chirp and twitter on the naked boughs, as though the hopeful creatures half believed that winter had gone by, and spring had come already. The vane upon the tapering spire of the old church glistened from its lofty station in sympathy with the general gladness ; and from the ivy-shaded windows such gleams of light shone back upon the glowing sky, that it seemed as if the quiet buildings were the hoarding- place of twenty summers, and all their ruddi- ness and warmth were stored within. Even those tokens of the season which em- phatically whispered of the coming winter, graced the landscape, and, for the moment, tinged its livelier features with no oppressive air of sadness. The fallen leaves, with which the ground was strewn, gave forth a pleasant fra- grance, and subduing all harsh sounds of dis- tant feet and wheels, created a repose in gentle unison with the light scattering of seed hither and thither by the distant husbandman, and with the noiseless passage of the plough as it turned up the rich brown earth, and wrought a graceful pattern in the stubbled fields. On the motionless branches of some trees, autumn ber- ries hung like clusters of coral beads, as in those fabled orchards where the fruits were jew- els ; others, stripped of all their garniture, stood, each the centre of its little heap of bright red leaves, watching their slow decay ; others again, still wearing theirs, had them all crunched and crackled up, as though they had been burnt ; about the stems of some were piled, in ruddy mounds, the apples they had borne that year ; while others (hardy evergreens this class) showed somewhat stern and gloomy in their vigor, as charged by nature with the admonition that it is not to her more sensitive and joyous favorites she grants the longest term of life. Still, athwart their darker boughs, the sunbeams struck out paths of deeper gold ; and the red light, mantling in among their swarthy branches, used them as foils to set its brightness off, and aid the lustre of the dying day. Martin Chazzlewit, Chap. 2. AUTUMN— The voices of nature. On a healthy autumn day, the Marshalsea prisoner, weak, but otherwise restored, sat listening to a voice that read to him. On a healthy autumn day ; when the golden fields had been reaped and ploughed again, when the summer fruits had ripened and waned, when the green perspectives of hops had been laid low by the busy pickers, when the apples clus- tering in the orchards were russet, and the ber- ries of the mountain ash were crimson among the yellowing foliage. Already, in the woods, glimpses of the hardy winter that was coming, were to be caught through unaccustomed open- ings among the boughs, where the prospect shone defined and clear, free from the bloom of the drowsy summer weather, which had rest- ed on it as the bloom lies on the plum. So, from the sea-shore the ocean was no longer to be seen lying asleep in the heat, but its thousand sparkling eyes were open, and its- whole breadth was in joyful animation, from the cool sand on the beach to the little sails on the horizon, drifting away like autumn-tinted leaves that had drifted from the trees. Changeless and barren, looking ignorantly at all the seasons with its fixed, pinched face of poverty and care, the prison had not a touch of any of these beauties on it. Blossom what would, its bricks and bars bore uniformly the same dead crop. Yet Clennam, listening to the voice as it read to him, heard in it all that great Nature was doing, heard in it all the soothing songs she sings to man. At no Mother’s knee but hers had he ever dwelt in his youth on hopeful promises, on playful fancies, on the harvests of tenderness and humility that lie hidden in the early-fostered seeds of the im- agination ; on the oaks of retreat from blight- ing winds, that have the germs of their strong roots in nursery acorns. But, in the tones of the voice that read to him, there were memo- ries of an old feeling of such things, and echoes of every merciful and loving whisper that had ever stolen to him in his life. Little Dorrit, Chap. 34. AVARICE— The miser. A little further on, a hard-featured old man with a deeply wrinkled face, was intently pe- rusing a lengthy will, with the aid of a pair of horn spectacles ; occasionally pausing from his task, and slily noting down some brief memo- randum of the bequests contained in it. Every wrinkle about his toothless mouth, and sharp keen eyes, told of avarice and cunning. His clothes were nearly threadbare, but it was easy to see that he wore them from choice and not from necessity ; all his looks and gestures, down to the very small pinches of snuff which he every now and then took from a little tin AVARICE 30 BABY canister, told of wealth, and penury, and Avarice. — Scenes , Chap . 8. AVARICE— Fledg-eby, the young- miser. Whether this young gentleman (for he was but three-and-twenty) combined with the miserly vice of an old man any of the open-handed vices of a young one, was a moot point ; so very honorably did he keep his own counsel. He was sensible of the value of appearances as an investment, and liked to dress well ; but he drove a bargain for every moveable about him, from the coat on his back to the china on his breakfast-table ; and every bargain, by repre- senting somebody’s ruin or somebody’s loss, acquired a peculiar charm for him. It was a part of his avarice to take, within narrow bounds, long odds at races ; if he won, he drove harder bargains ; if he lost, he half starved himself until next time. Why money should be so precious to an Ass too dull and mean to exchange it for any other satisfaction, is strange : but there is no animal so sure to get laden with it as the Ass who sees nothing written on the face of the earth and sky but the three letters L. S. D. — not Luxury, Sensuality, Dissoluteness, which they often stand for, but the three dry letters. Your concentrated Fox is seldom comparable to your concentrated Ass in money-breeding. Our Mutual Friend , Book //., Chap. 5. AVARICE AND CUNNING. There is a simplicity of cunning no less than a simplicity of innocence ; and in all matters where a lively faith in knavery and meanness was required as the ground-work of belief, Mr. Jonas was one of the most credulous of men. His ignorance, which was stupendous, may be taken into account, if the reader pleases, sep- arately. This fine young man had all the inclination to be a profligate of the first water, and only lacked the one good trait in the common cata- logue of debauched vices — open-handedness — to be a notable vagabond. But there his grip- ing and penurious habits stepped in ; and as one poison will sometimes neutralize another, vhen wholesome remedies would not avail, so he was restrained by a bad passion from quaf- fing his full measure of evil, when virtue might have sought to hold him back in vain. Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 11. AVARICE— And heartlessness. The education of Mr. Jonas had been con- ducted from his cradle on the strictest princi- ples of the main chance. The very first word he learnt to spell was “gain,” and the second (when he got into two syllables), “money.” But for two results, which were not clearly foreseen perhaps by his watchful parent in the beginning, his training may be said to have been unexceptionable. One of these flaws was, that having been long taught by his father to overreach everybody, he had imperceptibly acquired a love of overreaching that venerable monitor himself. The other, that from his early habits of considering everything as a question of property, he had gradually come to look with impatience on his parent, as a certain amount of personal estate, which had no right whatever to be going at large, but ought to be secured in that particular description of iron safe which is commonly called a coffin, and banked in the grave. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 8. AW AKE— Lying-. “My uncle lay with his eyes half closed, and his nightcap drawn almost down to his nose. Ilis fancy was already wandering, and began to mingle up the present scene with the crater of Vesuvius, the French Opera, the Coliseum at Rome, Dolly’s Chop-house in London, and all the farrago of noted places with which the brain of a traveller is crammed ; in a word, he was just falling asleep.” Thus, that delightful writer, Washington Irving, in his Tales of a Traveller. But, it happened to me the other night to be lying, not with my eyes half closed, but with my eyes wide open ; not with my nightcap drawn almost down to my nose, for on sanitary principles I never wear a nightcap : but with my hair pitchforked and touzled all over the pillow ; not just falling asleep by any means, but glar- ingly, persistently, and obstinately broad awake. Perhaps, with no scientific intention or invention, I was illustrating the theory of the Duality of the Brain ; perhaps one part of my brain, being wakeful, sat up to watch the other part, which was sleepy. Be that as it may, something in me was as desirous to go to sleep as it possibly could be, but something else in me would not go to sleep, and was as obstinate as George the Third. Lying Awake. Reprinted Pieces. AWE. That solemn feeling with which we contem- plate the work of ages that have become but drops of water in the great ocean of eternity. Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 52. B BABY— Its martyrdom— Mr. Meeks’s pro- test. The voice of Nature cries aloud in behalf of Augustus George, my infant son. It is for him that I wish to utter a few plaintive household words. I am not at all angry ; I am mild — but miserable. I wish to know why, when my child, Augus- tus George, was expected in our circle, a provi- sion of pins was made, as if the little stranger was a criminal who was to be put to the torture immediately on his arrival, instead of a holy babe ? I wish to know why haste was made to stick those pins all over his innocent form, in every direction ? I wish to be informed why light and air are excluded from Augustus George, like poisons? Why, 1 ask, is my unoffending infant so hedged into a basket-bedstead, with dimity and calico, with miniature sheets and blankets, that I can only hear him snuffle (and no wonder !) deep dowri under the pink hood of a little bathing-machine, and can never pe- ruse even so much of his lineaments as his nose. Was I expected to be the father of a French Roll, that the brushes of All Nations were laid BABY 31 BABY in, to rasp Augustus George? Am I to be told that his sensitive skin was ever intended by Na- ture to have rashes brought out upon it, by the premature and incessant use of those formida- ble little instruments ? Is my son a Nutmeg, that he is to be grated on the stiff edges of sharp frills? Am I the parent of a Muslin boy, that his yielding sur- face is to be crimped and small-plaited ? Or is my child composed of Paper or of Linen, that impressions of the finer getting-up art, prac- tised by the laundress, are to be printed off, all over his soft arms and legs, as I constantly ob- serve them ? The starch enters his soul ; who can wonder that he cries ? Was Augustus George intended to have limbs, or to be born a Torso? I presume that limbs were the intention, as they are the usual practice. Then, why are my poor child’s limbs fettered and tied up? Am I to be told that there is any analogy between Augustus George Meek and Jack Sheppard? Analyse Castor Oil at any Institution of Chemistry that may be agreed upon, and inform me what resemblance, in taste, it bears to that natural provision which it is at once the pride and duty of Maria Jane to administer to Au- gustus George ! Yet I charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with system- atically forcing Castor Oil on my innocent son, from the first hour of his birth. When that medicine, in its efficient action, causes internal disturbance to Augustus George, I charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with insanely and inconsistently administering opium to allay the storm she has raised ! What is the meaning of this? If the days of Egyptian Mummies are past, how dare Mrs. Prodgit require, for the use of my son, an amount of flannel and linen that would carpet my humble roof? Do I wonder that she requires it? No! This morning, within an hour, I beheld this agonising sight. I beheld my son — Augustus George — in Mrs. Prodgit’s hands, and on Mrs. Prodgit’s knee, being dressed. He was at the moment, com- paratively speaking, in a state-of nature : hav- ing nothing on but an extremely short shirt, remarkably disproportionate to the length of his usual outer garments. Trailing from Mrs. Prodgit’s lap, on the floor, was a long narrow roller or bandage — I should say of several yards in extent. In this, I SAW Mrs. Prodgit tightly roll the body of my unoffending infant, turning him over and over, now presenting his uncon- scious face upwards, now the back of his bald head, until the unnatural feat was accomplished, and the bandage secured by a pin, which I have every reason to believe entered the body of my only child. In this tourniquet he passes the present phase of his existence. Can I know it and smile ? 1 fear I have been betrayed into expressing myself warmly, but I feel deeply. Not for my- self ; for Augustus George. I dare not inter- fere. Will any one? Will any publication? Any doctor ? Any parent ? Any body ? I do not complain that Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abet- ted by Mrs. Bigby) entirely alienates Maria Jane’s affections from me, and interposes an impassable barrier between us. 1 do not com- plain of being made of no account. I do not w,ant to be of anv account. But, Augustus George is a production of Nature (I cannot think otherwise), and I claim that he should be treated with some remote reference to Nature. In my opinion, Mrs. Prodgit is, from first to last, a convention and a superstition. Births — Mrs. Meek. — Repainted Pieces. BABY— Description of a. One of those little carved representations that one sometimes sees blowing a trumpet on a tombstone ! — Tales , Bloomsbury Christening. A weazen little baby, with a heavy head that it couldn’t hold up, and two weak, staring eyes, with which it seemed to be always wondering why it had ever been born. David Co pp erf. eld. Chap. 22. BABY— His welcome of pins. The fatherless little stranger was welcomed by some grosses of prophetic pins in a drawer up- stairs, to a world not at all excited on the sub- ject of his arrival. — David Copper field, Chap. i. BABY TALK. A mechanical power of reproducing scraps of current conversation for the delectation of the baby, with all the sense struck out of them, and all the nouns changed into the plural num- ber. — Cricket on the Hearth , Chap. i. BABY— The birth of a. There are certain polite forms and ceremo- nies which must be observed in civilized life, or mankind relapse into their original barbarism. No genteel lady was ever yet confined — indeed, no genteel confinement can possibly take place — without the accompanying symbol of a muf- fled knocker. Mrs. Kenwigs was a lady of some pretensions to gentility ; Mrs. Kenwigs was confined. And, thei'efore, Mr. Kenwigs tied up the silent knocker on the premises in a white kid glove. “ I’m not quite certain, neither,” said Mr. Kenwigs, arranging his shirt-collar, and walk- ing slowly up-stairs, “ whether, as it’s a boy, I won’t have it in the papers.” Pondering upon the advisability of this step, and the sensation it was likely to create in the neighborhood, Mr. Kenwigs betook himself to the sitting-room, where various extremely diminutive articles of clothing were airing on a horse before the fire, and Mr. Lumbey, the doctor, was dandling the baby — that is, the old baby — not the new one. “ It’s a fine boy, Mr. Kenwigs,” said Mr. Lum- bey, the doctor. You consider him a fine boy, do you, sir?” returned Mr. Kenwigs. “ It’s the finest boy I ever saw in all my life,” said the doctor. “ I never saw such a baby.” It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and fur- nishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world i° a finer one than the last. Hie ho las Nickleby, Chap. 36. B ABY— Cutting- teeth. It was a peculiarity of this baby to be always cutting teeth. Whether they never came, or whether they came and went away again, is not in evidence ; but it had certainly cut BABY 32 BABY enough, on the showing of Mrs. Tetterby, to make a handsome dental provision for the sign of the Bull and Mouth. All sorts of objects were impressed for the rubbing of its gums, notwithstanding that it always carried, dang- ling at its waist (which was immediately under its chin), a bone ring, large enough to have rep- resented the rosary of a young nun. Knife- handles, umbrella-tops, the heads of walking- sticks selected from the stock, the fingers of the family in general, but especially of John- ny, nutmeg-graters, crusts, the handles of doors, and the cool knobs on the tops of pokers, were among the commonest instruments indiscrimi- nately applied for this baby’s relief. The amount of electricity that must have been rubbed out of it in a week, is not to be calcu- lated. Still Mrs. Tetterby always said “ it was coming through, and then the child would be herself ; ” and still it never did come through, and the child continued to be somebody else. Christmas Stories , The Haunted Man , Chap. 3. BABY— A patient. A poor little baby — such a tiny old-faced mite, with a countenance that seemed to be scarcely anything but cap-border, and a little lean, long-fingered hand, always clenched under its chin. It would lie in this attitude all day, with its bright specks of eyes open, wondering (as I used to imagine) how it came to be so small and weak. Whenever it was moved it cried.; but at all other times it was. so patient, that the sole desire of its life appeared to be, to lie quiet, and think. It had curious little dark veins in its face, and curious little dark marks under its eyes, like faint remem- brances of poor Caddy’s inky days ; and al- together, to those who were not used to it, it w'as quite a piteous little sight. Bleak House , Chap. 50. BABY— Announcement of a. As he bent his face to hers, she raised hers to meet it, and laid her little right hand on his eyes, and kept it there. “ Do you remember, John, on the day we were married, Pa’s speaking of the ships that might be sailing towards us. from the unknown seas ? ” “ Perfectly, my darling !” “ I think among them there is a ship upon the ocean bringing to you and me a little baby, John.” Our Mutual Friend , Book IV., Chap. 5. BABY— “ Dot’s.” “ I wish you wouldn’t call me Dot, John. I don’t like it,” said Mrs. Peerybingle, pouting in a way that clearly showed she did like it, very much. “ Why, what else arc you!” returned John, looking down upon her with a smile, and giving hei waist as light a queeze as his huge hand and arm could give. “ A dot and ” — here he glanc- ed at the baby — “ a dot and carry — I won’t say it, for fear I should spoil it ; but I was very near a joke. I don’t know as ever I was nearer.” lie was often near to something or other very h 1 1 1 own account : this lumbering, slow, honest John ; this John, so heavy, but so light of spirit ; so rough upon the surface, but so gentle at the core ; so dull without, so quick within ; so stolid, but so good ! Oh, Mother Na- ture, give thy children the true poetry of heart that hid itself in this poor Carrier’s breast — he was but a Carrier, by the way — and we can bear to have them talking prose, and leading lives of prose ; and bear to bless thee for their company. It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure, and her baby in her arms — a very doll of a baby — glancing with a coquettish thoughtful- ness at the fire, and inclining her delicate little head just enough on one side to let it rest in an odd, half-natural, half-affected, wholly nestling and agreeable manner, on the great rugged figure of the Carrier. It was pleasant to see him, with his tender awkwardness, endeavoring to adapt his rude support to her slight need, and make his burly middle-age a leaning-staff not inappropriate to her blooming youth. It was pleasant to observe how Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the background for the baby, took special cognizance (though in her earliest teens) of this grouping ; and stood with her mouth and eyes wide open, and her head thrust for- ward, taking it in as if it were air. Nor was it less agreeable to observe how John the Carrier, reference being made by Dot to the aforesaid baby, checked his hand when on the point of touching the infant, as if he thought he might crack it ; and bending down, surveyed it from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled pride, such as an amiable mastiff might be supposed to show, if he found himself, one day, the father of a young canary. Cricket on the Hearth, Chap. 1. BABY-A Moloch of a. Another little boy — the biggest there, but still little — was tottering to and fro, bent on one side, and considerably affected in his knees by the weight of a large baby, which he was supposed, by a fiction that obtains some- times in sanguine families, to be hushing to sleep. But oh ! the inexhaustible regions of contemplation and watchfulness into which this baby’s eyes were then only beginning to com- pose themselves to stare, over his unconscious shoulder ! It was a very Moloch of a baby, on whose insatiate altar the whole existence of this par- ticular young brother was offered up a daily sacrifice. Its personality may be said to have consisted in its never being quiet, in any one place, for five consecutive minutes, and never going to sleep when, required. “ T etterby’s baby,” v r as as well known in the neighborhood as the postman or the pot-boy. It roved from door- step to door-step, in the arms of little Johnny Tetterby, and lagged heavily at the rear of troops of juveniles who followed the Tum- blers or the Monkey, and came up, all on one side, a little too late for everything that was attractive, from Monday morning until Satur- day night. Wherever childhood congregated to play, there was little Moloch making Johnny fag and toil. Wherever Johnny desired to stay, little Moloch became fractious, and would not remain. Whenever Johnny wanted to go out, Moloch was asleep, and must be watched. Whenever Johnny wanted to stay at home, Moloch was awake, and must be taken out. Yet Johnny was verily persuaded that it was a faultless baby, without its peer in the realm of BACHELORS 33 BACHELOR BAGSTOCK England ; and was quite content to catch meek glimpses of things in general from behind its skirts, or over its limp flapping bonnet, and to go staggering about with it like a very little porter with a very large parcel, which was not directed to anybody, and could never be deliv- ered anywhere. Christmas Stories. The Haunted Man, Chap. 2. BACHELORS— In society. These are generally old fellows with white heads and red faces, addicted to port wine and Hessian boots, who from some cause, real or imaginary — generally the former, the excellent reason being that they are rich, and their rela- tions poor — grow suspicious of everybody, and do the misanthropical in chambers, taking great delight in thinking themselves unhappy, and making everybody they come near, miserable. You may see such men as these, anywhere ; you will know them at coffee-houses by their discon- tented exclamations and the luxury of their din- ners ; at theatres, by their always sitting in the same place and looking with a jaundiced eye on all the young people near them ; at church, by the pomposity with which they enter, and the loud tone in which they repeat the responses ; at parties, by their getting cross at whist and hating music. An old fellow of this kind will have his chambers splendidly furnished, and collect books, plate, and pictures about him in profusion ; not so much for his own gratification as to be superior to those who have the desire, but not the means, to compete with him. He belongs to two or three clubs, and is envied, and flattered, and hated by the members of them all. Sometimes he will be appealed to by a poor relation — a married nephew perhaps — for some little assistance : and then he will declaim with honest indignation on the improvidence of young married people, the worthlessness of a wife, the insolence of having a family, the atro- city of getting into debt with a hundred and twenty-five pounds a-year, and other unpardon- able crimes ; winding up his exhortations with a complacent review of his own conduct, and a delicate allusion to parochial relief. He dies, some day after dinner, of apoplexy, having be- queathed his property to a Public Society, and the Institution erects a tablet to his memory, expressive of their admiration of his Christian conduct in this world, and their comfortable conviction of his happiness in the next. ( Characters ), Sketches , Chap. i. BACHELOR— A crusty. Mr. Nicodemus Dumps, or, as his acquaint- ance called him, “ long Dumps,” was a bachelor, six. feet high, and fifty years old ; cross,, cadav- erous, odd, and ill-natured. He was never happy but when he was miserable ; and always miserable when he had the best reason to be happy. The only real comfort of his existence was to make everybody about him wretched — then he might be truly said to enjoy life. He was afflicted with a situation in the Bank worth five hundred a year, and he rented a “first- floor furnished,” at Pentonville, which he origi- nally took because it commanded a dismal prospect of an adjacent churchyard. He was familiar with the face of every tombstone, and the burial service seemed to excite his strongest sympathy. His friends said he was surly — he 3 insisted he was nervous ; they thought him a lucky dog, but he protested that he was “ the most unfortunate man in the world.” Cold as he was, and wretched as he declared himself to be, he was not wholly unsusceptible of attach- ments. He revered the memory of Hoyle, as he was himself an admirable and imperturbable whist-player, and he chuckled with delight at a fretful and impatient adversary. He adored King Herod for his massacre of the innocents ; and if he hated one thing more than another, it was a child. However, he could hardly be said to hate anything in particular, because he dis- liked everything in general ; but perhaps his greatest antipathies were cabs, old women, doors that would not shut, musical amateurs, and om- nibus cads. He subscribed to the “ Society for the Suppression of Vice,” for the pleasure of putting a stop to any harmless amusements : and he contributed largely towards the support of two itinerant Methodist parsons, in the amiable hope that if circumstances rendered any people happy in this world, they might perchance be rendered miserable by fears for the next. Sketches , Bloomsbury Christening. BACHELOR— A miserable creature. “ A bachelor is a miserable wretch, sir,” said Mr. Lilly vick. “ Is he ? ” asked Nicholas. “ He is,” rejoined the collector. “ I have lived in the world for nigh sixty year, and I ought to know what it is.” “You ought to know, certainly,” thought Nicholas ; “ but whether you do or not, is another question.” “ If a bachelor happens to have saved a little matter of money,” said Mr. Lillyvick, “ his sis- ters and brothers, and nephews and nieces, look to that money, and not to him ; even if, by be- ing a public character, he is the head of the family, or, as it may be, the main from which all the other little branches are turned on, they still wish him dead all the while, and get low-spir- ited every time they see him looking in good health, because they want to come into his lit- tle property. You see that? ” Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 25. BACHELOR— Major Bagstock. Although Major Bagstock had arrived at what is called in polite literature, the grand meridian of life, and was proceeding on his journey down-hill with hardly any throat, and a very rigid pair of jaw-bones, and long-flap- ped elephantine ears, and his eyes and com- plexion in the state of artificial excitement already mentioned, he was mightily proud of awakening an interest in Miss Tox, and tick- led his vanity with the fiction that she was a splendid woman, who had her eye on him. This he had several times hinted at the club : in connection with little jocularities, of which old Joe Bagstock, old Joey Bagstock, old J. Bagstock, old Josh Bagstock, or so forth, was the perpetual theme : it being, as it were, the Major’s stronghold and donjon-keep of light humor, to be on the most familiar terms with his own name. “ Joey B., Sir,” the Major would say, with a flourish of his walking-stick, “ is worth a dozen of you. If you had a few more of the Bag- stock breed among you, Sir, you’d be none the BAGSTOCK 34 BALL worse for it. Old Joe, Sir, needn’t look far for a wife even now, if he was on the look-out ; but he’s hard-hearted, Sir, is Joe — he’s tough, Sir, tough, and de-vilish sly ! ” After such a dec- laration wheezing sounds would be heard ; and the Major’s blue would deepen into purple, while his eyes strained and started convul- sively . — Dombey & Son, Chap. 7. BAGSTOCK— The saying’s of Major. “An old campaigner, Sir,” said the Major, “ a smoke-dried, sun-burnt, used-up, invalided old dog of a Major, Sir, was not afraid of being condemned for his whim by a man like Mr. Dombey.” He H* H* Sfc HC H* “ My little friend here, Sir, will certify for Joseph Bagstock that he is a thorough-going, downright, plain-spoken, old Trump, Sir, and nothing more.” He He He He He He “None but the tough fellows could live, Sir, at Sandhurst. We put each other to the torture there, Sir. We roasted the new fel- lows at a slow fire, and hung ’em out of a three pair of stairs window, with their heads down- wards. Joseph Bagstock, Sir, was held out of the window by the heels of his boots, for thir- teen minutes by the college clock.” The Major might have appealed to his coun- tenance in corroboration of this story. It cer- tainly looked as if he had hung out a little too long. “ But it made us what we were, Sir,” said the Major, settling his shirt frill. “We were iron, Sir, and it forged us.” Dombey Sf Son, Chap. 10. MONIES— An Italian street. t Corso is a street a mile long ; a street snops, and palaces, and private houses, some- times opening into a broad piazza. There are verandas and balconies, of all shapes and sizes, to almost every house — not on one story alone, but often to one room or another on every story - — -put there in general with so little order or regularity, that if, year after year, and season after season, it had rained balconies, hailed bal- conies, snowed balconies, blown balconies, they could scarcely have come into existence in a more disorderly manner . — Pictures from Italy. BALLOONIST-A. “ Mr. Green is a steady hand, Sir, and there’s no fear about him.” “ Fear !” said the little man : “ isn’t it a love- ly thing to see him and his wife a going up in one balloon, and his own son and his wife a jostling up against them in another, and all of them going twenty or thirty miles in three hours or so, and then coming back in pochay- ses ? I don’t know where this here science is to stop, mind you ; that’s what bothers me.” {Scenes), Sketches, Chap. 14. BALL— A fancy dross. The preparations were on the most delightful scale ; fully realising the prophetic Pott’s antici- pations about the gorgeousness of Eastern fairyland, and at once affording a sufficient contradict ion to the malignant statements of the reptile Independent. 'The grounds were more than an acre and a quarter in extent, and they were filled with people ! Never was such a blaze of beauty, and fashion, and literature. There was the young lady who “ did” the poe- try in the Eatanswill Gazette, in the garb of a sultana, leaning upon the arm of the young gentleman who “did” the review department, and who was appropriately habited in a field marshal's uniform — the boots excepted. There were hosts of these geniuses, and any reason- able person would have thought it honor enough to meet them. But more than these, the e weie half a dozen lions from London — authors, real authors, who had written whole books, and printed them afterwards — and here you might see ’em, walking about, like ordinary men, smiling, and talking — aye, and talking pretty considerable nonsense too, no doubt with the benign intention of rendering themselves intel- ligible to the common people about them. Moreover, there w as a band of music in paste- board caps ; four something-ean singers in the costume of their country, and a dozen hired waiters in the costume of their country — and very dirty costume too. And above all, there was Mrs. Leo Hunter in the character of Mi- nerva, receiving the company, and overflow- ing with pride and gratification at the notion of having called such distinguished individuals together. — Pickwick, Chap. 15. BALLS— Spangles by daylight. What can be prettier than sp 0 ies ! It may be objected that they are not adapted to the daylight, but everybody knows that they would glitter if there were lamps ; and nothing can be clearer than that if people give fancy balls in the day-time, and the dresses do not show quite as well as they would by night, the fault lies solely with the people wdio give the fancy balls, and is in no wise chargeable on the spangles. Pickwick Papers, Chap. 15. BALL— A fashionable. “This is a ball night,” said the M. C., again taking Mr. Pickwdck’s hand, as he rose to go. “ The ball-nights in Ba — th are moments snatched from Paradise ; rendered bewitching by music, beauty, elegance, fashion, etiquette, and — and — above all, by the absence of trades- people, who are quite inconsistent W'ith Para- dise ; and who have an amalgamation of them- selves at - the Guildhall every fortnight, which is, to say the least, remarkable.” Hs H< * H* H« H« In the ball-room, the long card-room, the octagonal card-room, the staircases, and the pas- sages, the hum of many voices, and the sound of many feet, were perfectly bewildering. Dresses rustled, feathers w'aved, lights shone, and jewels sparkled. There w-as the music — not of the quadrille band, for it had not yet commenced ; but the music of soft tiny foot- steps, with now and then a clear merry laugh — low' and gentle, but very pleasant to hear in a female voice, whether in Bath or elsewhere. Brilliant eyes, lighted up W'ith pleasurable ex- pectation, gleamed from every side ; and look where you would, some exquisite form glided gracefully through the throng, and w'as no sooner lost, than it was replaced by another as daintj and bewitching. BANK 35 BANK OFFICIALS In the tea-room, and hovering round the card- tables, were a vast number of queer old ladies and decrepid old gentlemen, discussing all the small talk and scandal of the day, with a relish and gusto which sufficiently bespoke the inten- sity of the pleasure they derived from the occu- pation. Mingled with these groups, were three or four matchmaking mammas, appearing to be wholly absorbed by the conversation in which they were taking part, but failing not from time to time to cast an anxious sidelong glance upon their daughters, who, remembering the maternal injunction to make the best use of their youth, had already commenced incipient flirtations in the mislaying of scarves, putting on gloves, set- ting down cups, and so forth ; slight matters ap- parently, but which may be turned to surpris- ingly good account by expert practitioners. Lounging near the doors, and in -remote cor- ners, were various knots of silly young men, displaying various varieties of puppyism and stupidity ; amusing all sensible people near them with their folly and conceit ; and happily thinking themselves the objects of general ad- miration. A wise and merciful dispensation which no good man will quarrel with. And lastly, seated on some of the back benches, where they had already taken up their positions for the evening, were divers unmarried ladies past their grand climacteric, who, not dancing because there were no partners for them, and not playing cards lest they should be set down p n irretrievably single, were in the favorable situation of being able to abuse every- body without reflecting on themselves. In short, they could abuse everybody, because ev- erybody was there. It was a scene of gaiety, glitter, and show ; of richly-dressed people, handsome mirrors, chalked floors, girandoles, and wax-candles ; and in all parts of the scene, gliding from spot to spot in silent softness, bow- ing obsequiously to this party, nodding famil- iarly to that, and smiling complacently on all, was the sprucely-attired person of Angelo Cy- rus Bantam, Esquire, Master of the Ceremonies. Pickwick Papers, Chap. 35. BANK— An old-fashioned. Tellson’s Bank by Temple Bar was on old- fashioned place, even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in the moral attribute that the partners in the House were proud of its smallness, proud of its dark- ness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its incom- modiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence in those particulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, if it were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. This was no passive belief, but an active weap- on which they flashed at more convenient places of business. Tellson’s (they said) wanted no elbow-room, Tellson’s wanted no light, Tell- son’s wanted no embellishment. Noakes and Co.’s might, or Snooks Brothers’ might ; but Tellson’s, thank Heaven ! — Any one of these partners would have disin- herited his son on the question of rebuilding Tellson’s. In this respect the House was much on a par with the Country ; which did very of- ten disinherit its sons for suggesting improve- ments in laws and customs that had long been highly objectionable, but were only the more respectable. Thus it had come to pass, that Tellsr.n’s was the triumphant perfection of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstina- cy with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson’s down two steps, and came to your senses in a miserable little shop, with two little counters, where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled it, while they examined your signature by the dingiest of win- dows, which were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet Street, and which were made the dingier by their own iron bars proper, and the heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If your business necessitated your seeing “ the House,” you were put into a species of Condemned Hold at the back, where you meditated on a misspent life, until the House came with its hands in its pockets, and you could hardly blink at it in the dismal twilight. Your money came out of, or went into, wormy old wooden drawers, particles of which flew up your nose and down your throat when they were opened and shut. Your bank notes had a musty odor, as if they were fast decomposing into rags again. Your plate was stowed away among the neighboring cesspools, and evil communi- cations corrupted its good polish in a day or two. Your deeds got into extemporized strong- rooms made of kitchens and sculleries, and fret- ted all the fat out of their parchments into the banking-house air. Your lighter boxes of fam- ily papers went up-stairs into a Barmecide room, that always had a great dining-table in it and never had a dinner, and where, even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty, the first letters written to you by your old ’^ T e, or by your little children, were but newly r from the horror of being ogled throi- windows, by the heads exposed on Temf with an insensate brutality and ferocity w'fli of Abyssinia or Ashantee. * * sfc sis * Cramped in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at Tellson’s, the oldest of men carried on the business gravely. When they took a young man into Tellson’s London house, they hid him somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had' the full Tellson flavor and blue-mould up- on him. Then only was he permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches and gaiters into the gene- ral weight of the establishment. Tale of Two Cities , Book II, Chap. 1. BANK OFFICIALS— Their individuality. He pushed open the door with the weak rat- tle in its throat, stumbled down the two steps, got past the two ancient cashiers, and shoulder- ed himself into the musty back closet where Mr. Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron bars to his window as if that w^ere ruled for figures too, and every- thing under the clouds w r ere a sum. “ Halloa !” said Mr Stryver. “ How do you do ? I hope you are w r ell !” It was Stryver’s grand peculiarity that he al- ways seemed too big for any place, or space. He was so much too big for Tellson’s, that old clerks in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance, as though he squeezed them BANKRUPTCY 36 "BARKIS IS W1LL.1N/’ against the wall. The House itself, magnificently reading the paper quite in the far-off perspec- tive, lowered displeased, as if the Stryver head had been butted into its responsible waist- coat. The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he would recommend under the circumstances, “How do you do, Mr. Stryver? How do you do, sir ?” and shook hands. There was a peculiarity in his manner of shaking hands, always to be seen in any clerk at Tell- son’s who shook hands with a customer when the House pervaded the air. He shook in a self-abnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and Co. Tale of Two Cities , Book //., Chap. 12. BANKRUPTCY. The Inquest was over, the letter was public, the Bank was broken, the other model struc- tures of straw had taken fire and were turned to smoke. The admired piratical ship had blown up, in the midst of a vast fleet of ships of all rates, and boats of all sizes ; and on the deep was nothing but ruin : nothing but burn- ing hulls, bursting magazines, great guns self- exploded tearing friends and neighbors to pieces, drowning men clinging to unseaworthy spars and going down every minute, spent swimmers, floating dead, and sharks. Little Dorrit , Chap. 26. BANKRUPTCY-The world’s idea of. Next day it was noised abroad that Dombey and Son had stopped, and next night there was a List of Bankrupts published, headed by that name. The world was very busy now, in sooth, and had a deal to say. It was an innocently credu- lous and a much ill-used world. It was a world in which there was no other sort of bankruptcy whatever. There were no conspicuous people in it, trading far and wide on rotten banks of religion, patriotism, virtue, honor. There was no amount worth mentioning of mere paper in circulation, on which anybody lived pretty handsomely, promising to pay great sums of goodness with no effects. There were no short - comings anywhere, in anything but money. The world was very angry indeed : and the people especially, who, in a worse world, might have been supposed to be bank- rupt traders themselves in shows and pretences, were observed to be mightily indignant. Dombey and Son , Chap. 58. BAR-ROOM — The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. The bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters ^^vas a bar to soften the human breast. The ^available space in it was not much larger than a hn^Jcney-coach : but no one could have wish- ed me bar bigger, that space was so girt in by v cflinulcnt little casks, and by cordial-bottles raffiint with fictitious grapes in bunches, and by lemons in nets, and by biscuits in baskets, and by the polite beer-pulls that made low bows when customers were' served with beer, and by the cheese in a snug corner, and by the landlady’s own small table in a snugger corner near the fire, with the cloth everlastingly laid. Our Mutual Friend , Chap. 6. BAR-ROOM The Maypole. All bars are snug places, but the Maypole’s was the very snuggest, cosiest, and completcst bar, that ever the wit of man devised. Such amazing bottles in old oaken pigeon-holes ; such gleaming tankards dangling from pegs at about the same inclination as thirsty men would hold them to their lips ; such sturdy little Dutch kegs ranged in rows on shelves ; so many lemons hanging in separate nets, and forming the fragrant grove already mentioned in this chronicle, suggestive, with goodly loaves of snowy sugar stowed away hard by, of punch, idealized beyond all mortal knowledge ; such closets, such presses, such drawers full of pipes, such places for putting things away in hollow window-seats, all crammed to the throat with eatables, drinkables, or savory condiments ; lastly, and to crown all, as typical of the im- mense resources of the establishment, and its defiances to all visitors to cut and come again, such a stupendous cheese ! Barnaby Rudge , Chap. 19. B AR-ROOM— A mob in John Willit’s. Yes. Here was the bar — the bar that the boldest never entered without special invitation — the sanctuary, the mystery, the hallowed ground : here it was, crammed with men, clubs, sticks, torches, pistols ; filled with a deafening noise, oaths, shouts, screams, hootings ; chang- ed all at once into a bear-garden, a madhouse, an infernal temple ; men darting in and out, by door and window, smashing the glass, turn- ing the taps, drinking liquor out of China punchbowls, sitting astride of casks, smoking private and personal pipes, cutting down the sacred grove of lemons, hacking and hewing at the celebrated cheese, breaking open inviolable drawers, putting things in their pockets which didn’t belong to them, dividing his own money before his own eyes, wantonly wasting, break- ing, pulling down, and tearing up ; nothing quiet, nothing private ; men everywhere — above, below, overhead, in the bedrooms, in the kitchen, in the yard, in the stables — clam- bering in at windows when there were doors wide open ; dropping out of windows when the stairs were handy ; leaping over the banisters into chasms of passages : new faces and figures presenting themselves every instant — some yell- ing, some singing, some fighting, some break- ing glass and crockery, some laying th§ dust with the liquor they couldn’t drink, some jBnging the bells till they pulled them down, othars beating them with pokers till they beat thenrinto frag- ments : more men still — more, more, more — swarming on like insects : noise, smoke, light, darkness, frolic, anger, laughter, groans, plun- der, fear, and ruin ! Barnaby Rudge , Chap. 54. "BARKIS IS WILLiIN.” He being of a phlegmatic temperament, and not at all conversational — I offered him a cake as a mark of attention, which he ate at one gulp, exactly like an elephant, and which made no more impression on his big face than it would have done on an elephant’s. “ Did she make ’em, now ? ” said Mr. Barkis, always leaning forward, in his slouching way, on the footboard of the cart with an arm on each knee. BARKIS 37 BASHFULNESS “ Peggotty, do you mean, sir ? ” “Ah!” said Mr. Barkis. “Her.” “Yes. She makes all our pastry and does all our cooking.” “ Do she though ? ” said Mr. Barkis. He made up his mouth as if to whistle, but he didn’t whistle. He sat looking at the horse’s ears, as if he saw something new there ; and sat so for a considerable time. By-and-by, he said : “No sweethearts, I b’lieve?” “ Sweetmeats did you say, Mr. Barkis?” For I thought he wanted something else to eat, and had pointedly alluded to that description of re- freshment. “ Hearts,” said Mr. Barkis. “ Sweethearts ; no person walks with her ? ” “ With Peggotty?” “ Ah ! ’* he said. “ Her.” “ Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart.” “Didn’t she, though?” said Mr. Barkis. Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he didn’t whistle, but sat looking at the horse’s ears. “ So she makes,” said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval of reflection, “all the apple parsties, and doos all the cooking, do she ?” I replied that such was the fact. “Well. I’ll tell you what,” said Mr. Barkis. “ P’raps you might be writin’ to her? ” “ I shall certainly write to her,” I rejoined. “Ah!” he said, slowly turning his eyes to- wards me. “ Well ! If you was writin’ to her, p’raps you’d recollect to say that Barkis was willin’ ; would you ? ” “ That Barkis was willing,” I repeated inno- cently. “ Is that all the message ? ” “Ye-es,” he said, considering. “ Ye-es. Barkis is willin’.” “ But you will be at Blunderstone again to- morrow, Mr. Barkis,” I said, faltering a little at the idea of my being far away from it then, “ and could give your own message so much better.” As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head, and once more con- firmed his previous request by saying, with pro- found gravity, “Barkis is willin’. That’s the message,” I readily undertook its transmission. While I was waiting for the coach in the hotel at Yarmouth that very afternoon, I procured a sheet of paper and an inkstand and wrote a note to Peggotty, which ran thus : “ My dear Peggotty. I have come here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to mamma. Yours affec- tionately. P. S. He says he particularly wants you to know — Barkis is willin' .” David Copperjield , Chap. 5. ****** “When a man says he’s willin’,” said Mr. Barkis, turning his glance slowly on me again ; “ it’s as much as to say, that man’s a waitin’ for a answer.” “Well, Mr. Barkis?” “Well,” said Mr. Barkis, carrying his eyes back to his horse’s ears ; “ that man’s been a waitin’ for a answer ever since.” David Copperjield , Chap. 8. BARKIS — 1 ‘ It’s true as taxes is.” As he lay in bed, face upward, and so covered, with that exception, that he seemed to be noth- ing but a face — like a conventional cherubim — he looked the queerest object I ever beheld. “ What name was it as I wrote up in the cart, sir?” said Mr. Barkis, with a slow rheumatic smile. “Ah! Mr. Barkis, we had some grave talks about that matter, hadn’t we?” “I was willin’ a long time, sir!” said Mr. Barkis. “ A long time,” said I. “And I don’t regret it,” said Mr. Barkis. “ Do you remember what you told me once, about her making all the apple parsties and do- ing all the cooking ? ” “Yes, very well,” I returned. “It was as true,” said Mr. Barkis, “ as turnips is. It was as true,” said Mr. Barkis, nodding his nightcap, which was his only means of em- phasis, “ as taxes is. And nothing’s truer than them.” — David Copperjield, Chap. 21. BARKIS— The death of. “ Barkis, my dear ! ” said Peggotty, almost cheerfully, bending over him, while her brother and I stood at the bed’s foot. “ Here’s my dear boy — my dear boy, Master Davy, who brought us together, Barkis ! That you sent messages by, you know! Won’t you speak to Master Davy? ” He was as mute and senseless as the box from which his form derived the only expression it had. “ He’s a going out with the tide,” said Mr. Peggotty to me, behind his hand. My eyes were dim, and so were Mr. Peggot- ty’s ; but I repeated in a whisper, “ With the tide? ” “ People can’t die, along the coast,” said Mr. Peggotty, “ except when the tide’s pretty nigh out. They can’t be born, unless its pretty nigh in — not properly born, till flood. He’s a going out with the tide. It’s ebb at half-arter three, slack water half-an-hour. If he lives ’till it turns, he’ll hold his own till past the flood, and go out with the next tide.” We remained there, watching him, a long time — hours. What mysterious influence my presence had upon him in that state of his senses, I shall not pretend to say ; but when he at last began to wander feebly, it is certain he was muttering about driving me to school. “ He’s coming to himself,” said Peggotty. Mr. Peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence, “ They are both a going out fast.” “ Barkis, my dear ! ” said Peggotty. “ C. P. Barkis,” he cried faintly. “ No better woman anywhere ! ” “Look! Here’s Master Davy!” said Peg- gotty. For he now opened his eyes. I was on the point of asking him if he knew me, when he tried to stretch out his arm, and said to me, distinctly, with a pleasant smil$: “ Barkis is willin’ ! ” And, it being low water, he went out with the tide. — David Copperfield, Chap. 30. BASHFULNESS— of Mr. Toots. “How d’ye do, Miss Dombey?” said Mr. Toots. “ I’m very well, I thank you ; how are you ? ” Mr. Toots — than whom there were few bet- ter fellows in the world, though there may have BATTLE-FIELD 33 been one or two brighter spirits — had labori- ously invented this long burst of discourse with the view of relieving the feelings both of Flor- ence and himself. Hut, finding that he had run through his property, as it were, in an in- judicious manner, by squandering the whole before taking a chair, or before Florence had uttered a word, or before he had well got in at the door, he deemed it advisable to begin again. “How d’ye do, Miss Dombey?” said Mr. Toots. “ I'm very well, I thank you ; how are you ? ” Florence gave him her hand, and said she was very well. “ I’m very well, indeed,” said Mr. Toots, taking a chair. “ Very well, indeed, I am. I don’t remember,” said Mr. Toots, after re- flecting a little, “ that I was ever better, thank you.” “ It’s very kind of you to come,” said Flor- ence, taking up her work. “ I am very glad to see you.” Mr. Toots responded with a chuckle. Think- ing that might be too lively, he corrected it with a sigh. Thinking that might be too melan- choly, he corrected it with a chuckle. Not thoroughly pleasing himself with either mode of reply, he breathed hai'd. Dombey and Son , Chap. 18. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ So shy was Mr. Toots on such occasions, and so flurried ! But Lady Skettles entering at the moment, Mr. Toots was suddenly seized with a passion for asking her how she did, and hoping she was very well ; nor could Mr. Toots by any possibility leave off shaking hands with her, until Sir Barnet appeared : to whom he imme- diately clung with the tenacity of desperation. “We are losing, to-day. Toots,’" said Sir Barnet, turning towards Florence, “ the light of our house, I assure you.” “ Oh, it’s of no conseq 1 mean yes, to be sure,” faltered the embarrassed Toots. “ Good morning ! ” — Dombey and Son, Chap. 28. BATTLE-FIELD— A11 old. Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart England, it matters little where, a fierce battle was fought. It was fought upon a long summer day when the waving grass was green. Many a wild flower formed by the Almighty Hand to be a perfumed goblet for the dew, felt its enamelled cup filled high with blood that day, and shrinking dropped. Many an insect deriving its delicate color from harmless leaves and herbs, was stained anew that day by dying men, and marked its fright- ened way with an unnatural track. The paint- ed butterfly took blood into the air upon the edges of its wings. The stream ran red. The trodden ground became a quagmire, whence, from sullen pools collected in the prints of human feet and horses’ hoofs, the one prevail- ing hue still lowered and glimmered at the sun. Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the sights the moon beheld upon that field, when, coming up above the black line of distant rising ground, softened and blurred at the edge by tree In- rose into the sky and looked upon the plain, strewn with upturned faces that had BATTLE-FIELD once at mothers’ breasts sought mothers' eyes, or slumbered happily. Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the secrets whispered afterwards upon the tainted wind that blew across the scene of that day’s work and that night’s death and suffering ! Many a lonely moon was bright upon the battle-ground, and many a star kept mournful watch upon it, and many a wind from every quarter of the earth blew over it, be- fore the traces of the fight were worn away. They lurked and lingered for a long time, but survived in little things ; for Nature, far above the evil passions of men, soon recovered her serenity, and smiled upon the guilty battle- ground as she had done before, when it was innocent. The larks sang high above it ; the swallows skimmed and dipped and flitted to and fro ; the shadows of the flying clouds pur- sued each other swiftly, over grass and corn and turnip-field and wood, and over roof and church- spire in the nestling town among the trees, away into the bright distance on the borders of the sky and earth, where the red sunsets faded. Crops were sown, and grew up, and were gathered in ; the stream that had been crimsoned, turned a water-mill ; men whistled at the plough ; gleaners and haymakers were seen in quiet groups at work ; sheep and oxen pastured ; boys whooped and called, in fields, to scare away the birds ; smoke rose from cot- tage chimneys ; sabbath bells rang peacefully ; old people lived and died ; the timid creatures of the field, and simple flowers of the bush and garden, grew and withered in their destined terms ; and all upon the fierce and bloody battle-ground, where thousands upon thousands had been killed in the great fight. But there were deep green patches in the growing corn at first, that people looked at awfully. Year after year they reappeared ; and it was known that underneath those fertile spots, heaps of men and horses lay buried, in- discriminately, enriching the ground. The husbandmen who ploughed those places shrur* from the great worms abounding there ; and the sheaves they yielded were, for many a long year, called the Battle Sheaves, and set apart ; and no one ever knew a Battle Sheaf to be among the last load at a Harvest Home. For a long time, every furrow that was turned re- vealed some fragments of the fight. For a long time there were wounded trees upon the battle- ground ; and scraps of hacked and broken fence and wall, where deadly struggles had been made ; and trampled parts where not a leaf or blade would grow. For a long time no village girl would dress her hair or bosom with the sweetest flower from that field of death : and after many a year had come and gone, the ber- ries growing there were still believed to leave too deep a stain upon the hand that plucked them. The Seasons in their course, however, though they passed as lightly as the summer clouds themselves, obliterated, in the lapse of time, even these remains of the old conflict, and wore away such legendary traces of it -as the neighboring people carried in their minds, un- til they dwindled into old wives’ tales, dimly remembered round the winter fire, and waning every year. Where the wild flowers and berries had so long remained upon the stem untouch- ed, gardens arose, and houses were built, and BEAUTY 39 BED-BOOM children played at battles on the turf. The wounded trees had long ago made Christmas logs, and blazed and roared away. The deep green patches were no greener now than the memory of those who lay in dust below. The ploughshare still turned up from time to time some rusty bits of metal, but it was hard to say what use they had ever served, and those who found them wondered and disputed. An old dinted corslet, and a helmet, had been hanging in the church so long, that the same weak, half- blind old man who tried in vain to make them out above the whitewashed arch, had marvelled at them as a baby. If the host slain upon the field could have been for a moment reanimated in the forms in which they fell, each upon the spot that was the bed of his untimely death, gashed and ghastly soldiers would have stared in, hundreds deep, at household door and win- dow ; and would have risen on the hearths of quiet homes ; and would have been the garner- ed store of barns and granaries ; and would have started up between the cradled infant and its nurse ; and would have floated with the stream, and whirled round on the mill, and crowded the orchard, and burdened the meadow, and piled the rickyard high with dying men. So altered was the battle-ground, where thou- sands upon thousands had been killed in the great fight. — Battle of Life , Chap. I. BEAUTY— A grinning- skull beneath. “ I am not a man to be moved by a pretty face,” muttered Ralph sternly. “ There is a grinning skull beneath it, and men like me, who look and work below the surface, see that, and not its delicate covering.” Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 31. BED— “An out-an-outer.” Mr. Weller proceeded to inquire which was the individual bedstead that Mr. Roker had so flatteringly described as an out-an-outer to sleep in. “That’s it,” replied Mr. Roker. pointing to a very rusty one in a corner. “ It would make any one go to sleep, that bedstead would, wheth- er »hey wanted to or not.” “I should think,” said Sam, eyeing the piece of furniture in question with a look of exces- sive disgust, “ I should think poppies was noth- ing to it.” “ Nothing at all,” said Mr. Roker. “ And I s’pose,” said Sam, with a sidelong glance at his master, as if to see whether there were any symptoms of his determination being shaken by what passed, “ I s’pose the other genTmen as sleeps here, are gen’l’men ?” “ Nothing but it,” said Mr. Roker. “ One of ’em takes his twelve pints of ale a-day, and never leaves off smoking even at his meals.” “ He must be a first-rater,” said Sam. “ A r,” replied Mr. Roker. Nothing daunted, even by this intelligence, Mr. Pickwick smilingly announced his deter- mination to test the powers of the narcotic bedstead for that night. Pickwick Papers , Chap. 41. BED-ROOM— Pickwick in tbe wrong-. Having carefully drawn the curtains of his bed on the outside, Mr. Pickwick sat down on the rush bottomed chair, and leisurely divested himself of his shoes and gaiters. He then took off and folded up his coat, waistcoat, and neck- cloth, and slowly drawing on his tasseled night- cap, secured it firmly on his head, by tying beneath his chin the strings which he always had attached to that article of dress. It was at this moment that the absurdity of his recent be- wilderment struck upon his mind. Throwing himself back in the rush-bottomed chair, Mr. Pickwick laughed to himself so heartily, that it would have been quite delightful to any man of well-constituted mind to have watched the smiles that expanded his amiable features as they shone forth from beneath the night-cap. “It is the best idea,” said Mr. Pickwick to himself, smiling till he almost, cracked the night-cap strings : “ it is the best idea, my los- ing myself in this place, and wandering about those staircases, that I ever heard of. Droll, droll, very droll.” Here Mr. Pickwick smiled again, a broader smile than before, and was about to continue the process of undressing, in the best possible humor, when he was sud- denly stopped by a most unexpected interrup- tion ; to wit, the entrance into the room of some person with a candle, who, after locking the door, advanced to the dressing-table, and set down the light upon it. The smile that played on Mr. Pickwick’s fea- tures was instantaneously lost in a look of the most unbounded and wonder-stricken surprise. The person, whoever it was, had come in so suddenly and with so little noise, that Mr. Pickwick had had no time to call out, or oppose their entrance. Who could it be? A rob- ber ? Some evil-minded person who had seen him come up-stairs with a handsome watch in his hand, perhaps. What was he to do ! The only way in which Mr. Pickwick could catch a glimpse of his mysterious visitor with the least danger of being seen himself, was by creeping on to the bed, and peeping out from between the curtains on the opposite side. To this manoeuvre he accordingly resorted. Keeping the curtains carefully closed with his hand, so that nothing more of him could be seen than his face and night-cap, and putting on his spectacles, he mustered up courage, and looked out. Mr. Pickwick almost fainted with horror and dismay. Standing before the dressing- glass was a middle-aged lady, in yellow curl-papers, busily engaged in brushing what ladies call their “ back hair.” However the unconscious middle-aged lady came into that room, it was quite clear that she contemplated remaining there for the night ; for she had brought a rushlight and shade with her, which, with praiseworthy precaution against fire, she had stationed in a basin on the floor, where it was glimmering away, like a gigantic light-house in a particularly small piece of water. “ Bless my soul,” thought Mr. Pickwick, “ what a dreadful thing ! ” “Hem !” said the lady; and in went Mr. Pickwick’s head with automaton-like rapidity. “ I never met with anything so awful as this,” thought poor Mr. Pickwick, the cold perspira- tion starting in drops upon his night-cap. “Never. This is fearful.” It was quite impossible to resist the urgent desire to see what was going forward. So out went Mr. Pickwick’s head again. The prospect BED-ROOM 40 BED-ROOM was worse than before. The middle-aged lady had finished arranging her hair : had carefully enveloped it in a muslin night-cap with a small plaited border ; and was gazing pensively on the fire. “ This matter is growing alarming,” reasoned Mr. Pickwick with himself. “ I can’t allow things to go on in this way. By the self-pos- session of that lady it is clear to me that I must have come into the wrong room. If I call out she’ll alarm the house ; but if I remain here the consequences will be still more frightful.” Mr. Pickwick, it is quite unnecessary to say, was one of the most modest and delicate-mind- ed of mortals. The very idea of exhibiting his night-cap to a lady overpowered him, but he had tied those confounded strings in a knot, and do what he would, he couldn’t get it off. The disclosure must be made. There was only one other way of doing it. He shrunk behind the curtains, and called out very loudly : “ Ha — hum ! ” That the lady started at this unexpected sound was evident, by her falling up against the rush-light shade ; that she persuaded her- self it must have been the effect of imagination was equally clear, for when Mr. Pickwick, under the impression that she had fainted away stone- dead from fright, ventured to peep out again, she was gazing pensively on the fire as before. “ Most extraordinary female this,” thought Mr. Pickwick, popping in again. “ Ha — hum ! ” These last sounds, so like those in which, as legends inform us, the ferocious giant Blunder- bore was in the habit of expressing his opinion that it was time to lay the cloth, wei^e too dis- tinctly audible to be again mistaken for the workings of fancy. “ Gracious Heaven ! ” said the middle aged lady, “ what is that ? ” “ It’s — it’s — only a gentleman, Ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick from behind the curtains. “A gentleman!” said the lady, with a ter- rific scream. “ It’s all over ! ” thought Mr. Pickwick. “ A strange man ! ” shrieked the lady. Another instant and the house would be alarm- ed. Her garments rustled as she rushed to- wards the door. “ Ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick, thrusting out his head, in the extremity of his desperation, “ Ma’am ! ” Now, although Mr. Pickwick was not actuated by any definite object in putting out his head, it was instantaneously productive of a good effect. The lady, as we have already stated, was near the door. She must pass it, to reach the staircase, and she would most undoubtedly have done so by this time, had not the sudden apparition of Mr. Pickwick’s night-cap driven her back into the remotest corner of the apart- ment, where she stood staring wildly at Mr. Pickwick, while Mr. Pickwick in his turn stared wildly at her. “Wretch,” said the lady, covering her eyes with her hands, “ what do you want here ?” “ Nothing, Ma'am ; nothing, whatever, Ma’am;” said Mr. Pickwick earnestly. " Nothing ! ” said the lady, looking up. “Nothing, Ma’am, upon my honor,” said Mr. Pickwick, nodding his head so energetically that the tassel of his night-cap danced again. “ I am almost ready to sink, Ma’am, beneath the confusion of addressing a lady in my night- cap (here the lady hastily snatched off hers), but I can’t get it off, Ma’am (here Mr. Pickwick gave it a tremendous tug, in proof of the state- ment). It is evident to me, Ma’am, now, that I have mistaken this bed-room for my own. I had not been here five minutes, Ma’am, when you suddenly entered it.” “ If this improbable story be really true, sir,” said the lady, sobbing violently, “ you will leave it instantly.” “ I will, Ma’am, with the greatest pleasure,” replied Mr. Pickwick. “ Instantly, sir,” said the lady. “Certainly, Ma’am,” interposed Mr. Pick wick very quickly. “ Certainly, Ma’am. I — I — am very sorry, Ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick, making his appeararice at the bottom of the bed, “ to have been the innocent occasion of this alarm and emotion ; deeply sorry, Ma’am.” The lady pointed to the door. One ex- cellent quality of Mr. Pickwick’s character was beautifully displayed at this moment, under the most trying circumstances. Although he had hastily put on his hat over his night-cap, after the manner of the old patrol ; although he car- ried his shoes and gaiters in his hand, and his coat and waistcoat over his arm, nothing could subdue his native politeness. “ I am exceedingly sorry, Ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick, bowing very low. “ If you are, sir, you will at once leave the room,” said the lady. “ Immediately, Ma’am ; this instant, Ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick, opening the door, and drop- ping both his shoes with a crash in so doing. “ I trust, Ma’am,” resumed Mr. Pickwick, gathering up his shoes, and turning round to bow again : “I trust, Ma’am, that my unblem- ished character, and the devoted respect I en- tertain for your sex, will plead as some slight excuse for this — ” But before Mr. Pickwick could conclude the sentence the lady had thrust him into the passage, and locked and bolted the door behind him. H« He He He * * “Sam,” said Mr. Pickwick, suddenly appear- ing before him, “where’s my bedroom?” Mr. Weller stared at his master with the most emphatic surprise ; and it was not until the question had been repeated three several times, that he turned round, and led the way to the long-sought apartment. “ Sam,” said Mr. Pickwick as he got into bed, “ I have made one of the most extraordinary mistakes to-night, that ever were heard of.” “ Wery likely, sir,” replied Mr. Weller drily. “ But of this I am determined, Sam,” said Mr. Pickwick ; “ that if I were to stop in this house for six months, I would never trust my- self about it, alone, again.” “ That’s the wery prudentest resolution as you could come to, sir,” replied Mr. Weller. “ You rayther want somebody to look arter you, sir, wen your judgment goes out a wisitin’.” “ What do you mean by that, Sam ? ” said Mr. Pickwick. He raised himself in bed and extended his hand, as if he were about to say something more ; but suddenly checking him- self, turned round, and bade his valet “Good night.” “Good night, sir,” replied Mr. Weller. He BEDSTEAD 41 BEGGARS paused when he got outside the door — shook his head — walked on — stopped — snuffed the candle — shook his head again — and finally pro- ceeded slowly to his chamber, apparently buried in the profoundest meditation. Pickwick , Chap. 22. BEDSTEAD— A despotic monster. It was a sort of vault on the ground-floor at the back, with a despotic monster of a four-post bedstead in it, straddling over the whole place, putting one of his arbitrary legs into the fire- place and another into the door- way, and squeez- ing the wretched little washing-stand in quite a Divinely Righteous manner. Great Expectations , Chap. 45. BEDSTEADS— The characteristics of. A turn-up bedstead is a blunt, honest piece of furniture ; it may be slightly disguised with a sham drawer ; and sometimes a mad attempt is even made to pass it off for a book-case ; or- nament it as you will, however, the turn-up bedstead seems to defy disguise, and to insist on having it distinctly understood that he is a turn-up bedstead, and nothing else — that he is indispensably necessary, and that, fleing so use- ful, he disdains to be ornamental. How different is the demeanor of a sofa bed- stead ! Ashamed of its real use, it stx'ives to appear an article of luxury and gentility — an attempt in which it miserably fails. It has neither the respectability of a sofa, nor the vir- tues of a bed ; every man who keeps a sofa bedstead in his house, becomes a party to a wil- ful and designing fraud — we question whether you could insult him more than by insinuating that you entertain the least suspicion of its real use. — Scenes , Chap. 21. BEES— As models of industry. Mr. Skimpole was as agreeable at breakfast as he had been over-night. There was honey on the table, and it led him into a discourse about Bees. He had no objection to honey, he said (and I should think he had not, for he seemed to like it), but he protested against the overweening assumptions of Bees. He didn’t at all see why the busy Bee should be proposed as a model to him ; he supposed the Bee liked to make honey, or he wouldn’t do it — nobody asked him. It was not necessary for the Bee to make such a merit of his tastes. If every confectioner went buzzing about the world, banging against everything that came in his way, and egotistically calling upon everybody to take notice that he was going to his work and must not be interrupted, the world would be quite an unsupportable place. Then, after all, it was a ridiculous position, to be smoked out of your fortune with brimstone, as soon as you had made it. You would have a very mean opinion of a Manchester man, if he spun cot- ton for no other purpose. He must say he thought a Drone the embodiment of a plea- santer and wiser idea. The Drone said, un- affectedly, “ You will excuse me ; I really can- not attend to the shop ! I find myself in a world in which there is so much to see, and so short a time to see it in, that I must take the liberty of looking about me, and begging to be provided for by somebody who doesn’t want to look about him.” This appeared to Mr. Skim- pole to be the Drone philosophy, and he thought it a very good philosophy — always sup- posing the Drone to be willing to be on good terms with the Bee : which, so far as he knew, the easy fellow always was, if the consequential creature would only let him, and not be so con- ceited about his honey !— Bleak House , Chap. b. BEES— Their example a humbug-. “ But there’s nothing like work. Look at the bees.” “ I beg your pardon,” returned Eugene, with a reluctant smile, “ but you will excuse my mentioning that I always protest against being referred to the bees.” “ Do you ? ” said Boffin. “ I object on principle,” said Eugene, “ as a biped ” “ As a what? ” asked Mr. Boffin. “ As a two-footed creature ; — I object on principle, as a two-footed creature, to being constantly referred to insects and four-footed creatures. I object to being required to model my proceedings according to the proceedings of the bee, or the dog, or the spider, or the camel. I fully admit that the camel, for iiv stance, is an excessively temperate person ; but he has several stomachs to entertain himself with, and I have only one. Besides, I am not .fitted up with a convenient cool cellar to keep my drink in.” “ But I said, you know,” urged Boffin, rather at a loss for an answer, “ the bee.” “ Exactly. And may I i-epresent to you that it’s injudicious to say the bee? for the whole case is assumed. Conceding for a moment that there is any analogy between a bee and a man in a shirt and pantaloons (which I deny), and that it is settled that, the man is to learn from the bee (which I also deny), the question still remains, what is he to learn? To imitate? Or to avoid ? When your friends the bees worry themselves to that highly fluttered ex- tent about their sovereign, and become per- fectly distracted touching the slightest mon- archical movement, are we men to learn the greatness of Tuft-hunting, or the littleness of the Court Circular? I am not clear, Mr. Boffin, but that the hive may be satirical.” “ At all events, they work,.” said Mr. Boffin. “Ye-es,” returned Eugene, disparagingly, “ they work ; but don’t you think they overdo it ? They work so much more than they need — they make so much more than they can eat — they are so incessantly boring and buzzing at their one idea till Death comes upon them — that don’t you think they overdo it ? And are human laborers to have no holidays, because of the bees ? And am I never to have change of air, because the bees don’t? Mr. Boffin, I think honey excellent at breakfast ; but, regard- ed in the light of my conventional schoolmaster and moralist, I protest against the tyrannical humbug of your friend the bee.” Our Mutual F'Aend, Chap. 8. BEGGARS— in Italian churches. There is a very interesting subterranean church here ; the roof supported by marble pil- lars, behind each of which there seemed to be at least one beggar in ambush : to say nothing of the tombs and secluded altars. From every BEGGARS 42 BEGGARS one of these lurking-places, such crowds of phantom-looking men and women, leading other men and women with twisted limbs, or chattering jaws, or paralytic gestures, or idiotic- heads, or some other sad infirmity, came hob- bling out to beg, that if the ruined frescoes in the cathedral above had been suddenly anima- ted, and had retired to this lower church, they could hardly have made a greater confusion, or exhibited a more confounding display of arms and legs. — Pictures fro7ii Italy. BEGGARS —Italian. A hollow-cheeked and scowling people they are ! All beggars ; but that’s nothing. Look at them as they gather round. Some aie too indolent to come down stairs, or are too wise- ly mistrustful of the stairs, perhaps, to venture ; so stretch out their lean hands from upper win- dows, and howl ; others come flocking about us, fighting and jostling one another, and de- manding, incessantly, charity for the love of God, charity for the love of the Blessed Vir- gin, charity for the love of all the Saints. A group of miserable children, almost naked, screaming forth the same petition, discover that they can see themselves reflected in the varnish of the carriage, and begin to dance and make grimaces, that they may have the pleasure of seeing their antics repeated in this mirror. A crippled idiot, in the act of striking one of them who drowns his clamorous de- mand for charity, observes his angry counter- part in the panel, stops short, and thrusting out his tongue, begins to wag his head and chat- ter. The shrill cry raised at this, awakens half a dozen wild creatures wrapped in frowsy brown cloaks, who are lying on the church- steps with pots and pans for sale. These, scrambling up, approach, and beg defiantly. “ I am hungry. Give me something. Listen to me, Signor. I am hungry ! ” Then, a ghastly old woman, fearful of being too late, comes hobbling down the street, stretching out one hand, and scratching herself all the way with the other, and screaming, long before she can be heard, “Charity, charity! I’ll go and pray for you directly, beautiful lady, if you’ll give me charity ! ” Lastly, the members of a broth- erhood for burying the dead — hideously mask- ed, and attired in shabby black robes, white at the skirts, with the splashes of many muddy winters, escorted by a dirty priest, and a con- genial cross-bearer — come hurrying past. Sur- rounded by this motley concourse, we move out of Fondi ; bad bright eyes glaring at us, out of . the darkness of every crazy tenement, like glistening fragments of its filth and putrefac- tion. — Pictures from Italy. BEGGARS— of society: the But there are, besides, the individual beg- gars ; and how does the heart of the Secretary fail him when he has to cope with them! And they must be coped with to some extent, be- cause they all enclose documents (they call their scraps documents ; but they are, as to papers deserving the name, what minced veal is to a calf), the non-return of which would be their ruin. That is to say, they are utterly ruined now, but they would be more utterly ruined then. Among these correspondents are several daughters of general officers, long accustomed to every luxury of life (except spelling), who little thought, when their gallant fathers wagtrt war in the Peninsula, that they would ever havt to appeal to those whom Providence, in its inscrutable wisdom, has blessed with untold gold, and from among whom they select the name of Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, for a maiden effort in this wise, understanding that he has such a heart as never was. The Secre- tary learns, too, that confidence between man and wife would seem to obtain but rarely when virtue is in distress, so numerous are the wives who take up their pens to ask Mr. Boffin for money without the knowledge of their devoted husbands, who would never permit it ; while on the other hand, so numerous are the hus bands who take up their pens to ask Mr. Boffin for money without the knowledge of their de - voted wives, who would instantly go out of their senses if they had the least suspicion of the circumstance. There are the inspired beggars, too. These were sitting, only yesterday even- ing, musing over a fragment of candle which must soon go out and leave them in the dark for the rest of their nights, when surely some Angel whispered the name of Nicodemus Bof- fin, Esquire, to their souls, imparting rays of hope, nay, confidence, to which they had long been strangers 1 Akin to these are the sugges- tively-befriended beggars. They were partak- ing of a cold potato and water by the flick- ering and gloomy light of a lucifer-match, in their lodgings (rent considerably in arrear, and heartless landlady threatening expulsion “ like a dog ” into the streets), when a gifted friend happening to look in, said, “Write immediate- ly to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire,” and would take no denial. There are the nobly indepen- dent beggars too. These, in the days of their abundance, ever regarded gold as dross, and have not yet got over that only impediment in the way of their amassing wealth, but they want no dross from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire ; No, Mr. Boffin ; the world may term it pride, paltfy pride if you will, but they wouldn’t take it if you offered it ; a loan, sir — for fourteen weeks to the day, interest calculated at the rate of five per cent, per annum, to be bestoyved upon any charitable institution you may name — is all they want of you, and if you have the meanness to refuse it, count on being despised by these great spirits. There are the beggars of punctual business habits too. These will make an end of themselves at a quarter to one p. m. on Tuesday, if no Post-office order is in the interim received from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire; arriving after a quarter to one P. M. on Tuesday, it need not be sent, as they will then (having made an exact memorandum jnf the heartless circumstances) be “ cold in death:” There are the beggars on horseback too, in an- other sense from the sense of the proverb. These are mounted and ready to start on the highway to affluence. The goal is before them, the road is in the best condition, their spurs are on, the steed is willing, but at the last moment, lor want of some special thing — a clock, a violin, an astronomical telescope, an electrifying ma- chine — they must dismount for ever, unless they receive its equivalent in money from Nicotie- mus Boffin, Esquire. Less given to detail are the beggars who make sporting ventures. I These, usually to be addressed m reply under BEGGING-LETTER WRITER 43 BELLS initials at a country post office, inquire in femi- nine hands, Dare one who cannot disclose her self to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, but whose name might startle him were it revealed, solicit the immediate advance of two hundred pounds from unexpected riches exercising their noblest privilege in the trust of a common humanity ? Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap. 17. BEGGING-LETTER WRITER-The. I ought to know something of the Beg- ging-Letter Writer. He has beseiged my door, at all hours of the day and night; he has fought my servant ; he has lain in ambush for me, go- ing out and coming in ; he has followed me out of town into the country ; he has appeared at provincial hotels, where I have been staying for only a few hours ; he has written to me from immense distances, when I have been out of England. He has fallen sick ; he has died, and been buried ; he has come to life again, and again departed from this transitory scene ; he has been his own son, his own mother, his own baby, his idiot brother, his uncle, his aunt, his aged grandfather. He has wanted a great coat, to go to India in ; a pound to set him up in life for ever ; a pair of boots, to take him to the coast of China; a hat, to get 'him into a per- manent situation under Government. He has frequently been exactly seven-and-sixpence short of independence. He has had such open- ings at Liverpool — posts of great trust and con- fidence in merchants’ houses, which nothing but seven-and-sixpence was wanting to him to se- cure — that I wonder he is. not Mayor of that flourishing town at the present moment. The natural phenomena of which he has been the victim, are of a most astounding nature. He has had two children, who have never grown up ; who have never had anything to cover them at night ; who have been continually driving him mad, by asking in vain for food ; who have never come out of fevers and measles (which, I suppose, has accounted for his fuming his let- ters with tobacco smoke as a disinfectant) ; who have never changed in the least degree, through fourteen long revolving years. As to his wife, what that suffering woman has undergone, no- body knows. She has always been in an inter- esting situation through the same long period, and has never been confined yet. His devotion to her has been unceasing. He has never cared .for himself ; he could have perished — he would rather, in short — but was it not his Christian duty as a man, a husband, and a father, to write begging letters when he looked at her? (He has usually remarked that he would call in the evening for an answer to this question.) He has been the sport of the strangest mis- fortunes. What his brother has done to him would have broken anybody else’s heart. His brother went into business with him, and ran away with the money ; his brother got him to be security for an immense sum, and left him to pay it ; his brother would have given him em- ployment to the tune of hundreds a year, if he would have consented to write letters on a Sun- day ; his brother enunciated principles incom- patible with his religious views, and he could not (in consequence) permit his brother to pro- vide for him. His landlord has never shown a spark of human feeling. When he put in that execution I don’t know, but he has never taken it out. The broker’s man has grown gray in possession. They will have to bury him seme day. He ^has been attached to every conceivable pursuit. He has been in the army, in the navy, in the church, in the law ; connected with the press, the fine arts, public institutions, every de- scription and grade of business. He has been brought up as a gentleman : he has been at every college in Oxford and Cambridge ; he can quote Latin in his letters (but generally mis-spells some minor English word) ; he can tell you what Shakespeare says about begging, better than you know it. It is to be observed, that in the midst of his afflictions he always reads the newspapers ; and rounds off his ap- peals with some allusion, that may be supposed to be in my way, to the popular subject of the hour. His life presents a series of inconsistencies. Sometimes he has never written such a letter before. He blushes with shame. That is the first time ; that shall be the last. Don’t answer it, and let it be understood that, then, he will kill himself quietly. Sometimes (and more fre- quently) he has written a few such letters. Then he encloses the answers, with an intimation that they are of inestimable value to him, and a re- quest that they may be carefully returned. He is fond of enclosing something — verses, letteis, pawnbrokers’ duplicates, anything to necessitate an answer. Pie is very severe upon “ the pam- pered minion of fortune,” who refused him the half-sovereign referred to in the enclosure number two — but he knows me better. He writes in a variety of styles ; sometimes in low spirits ; sometimes quite jocosely. When he is in low spirits, he writes down-hill, and repeats words — these little indications being expressive of the perturbation of his mind. When he is more vivacious, he is frank with me ; he is quite the agreeable rattle. I know what human nature is — who better? Well! He had a little money once, and he ran through it — as many men have done before him. He finds his old friends turn away from him now — many men have done that before him, too ! Shall he tell me why he writes to me ? Be- cause he has no kind of claim upon me. He puts it on that ground, plainly ; and begs to ask for the loan (as I know human nature) of two sovereigns, to be repaid next Tuesday six weeks, before twelve at noon. w ^ The poor never write these letters. Nothing could be more unlike their habits. The writers are public robbers ; and we who support them are parties to their depredations. They trade upon every circumstance within their know- ledge that affects us, public or private, joyful or sorrowful ; they pervert the lessons of our lives ; they change what ought to be our strength and virtue, into weakness and encouragement of vice. There is a plain remedy, and it is in our own hands. We must resolve, at any sacrifice of feeling, to be deaf to such appeals, and crush the trade. — Reprinted Pieces. BELLS— The associations of Sunday. It was Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and stale. Maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, crack- ed and clear, fast and slow, made the brick and BELLS BELL mortar echoes hideous. Melancholy streets, in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of the people who were condemned to look at them out of windows, in dire despondency. In every thoroughfare, up almost every alley, and down almost every turning, some doleful bell was throbbing, jerking, tolling, as if the Plague were in the city and the dead-carts were going round. Everything was bolted and barred that could by possibility furnish relief to an over- worked people. No pictures, no unfamiliar an- imals, no rare plants or flowers, no natural or artificial wonders of the ancient world — all taboo with that enlightened strictness that the ugly South Sea gods in the British Museum might have supposed themselves at home again. Nothing to see but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to breathe but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to change the brooding mind, or raise it up. Nothing for the spent toiler to do, but to compare the monotony of his seventh day with the monotony of his six days, think what a weary life he led, and make the best of it — or the worst, according to the probabilities. * * * *• * * Mr. Arthur Clennam sat in the window of the coffee-house on Ludgate Hill, counting one of the neighboring bells, making sentences and burdens of songs out of it in spite of himself, and wondering how many sick people it might be the death of in the course of a year. As the hour approached, its changes of measure made it more and more exasperating. At the quar- ter, it went off into a condition of deadly lively importunity, urging the populace in a voluble manner to Come to church, Come to church, Come to church ! At the ten minutes, it be- came aware that the congregation would be scanty, and slowly hammered out in low spirits, They wont come, they worit come, they wont come ! At the five minutes it abandoned hope, and shook every house in the neighborhood for three hundred seconds, with one dismal swing per second, as a groan of despair. BELLS— Grown worldly. ^ Since the time of noble Whittington, fair flower of merchants, bells have come to have less sympathy with humankind.- They only ring for money and on state occasions. Wan- derers have increased in number ; ships leave the Thames for distant regions, carrying from stem to stern no other cargo ; the bells are si- lent ; they ring out no entreaties or regrets ; they are used to it and have grown worldly. Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 31. BELL— The voice of the alarm. This time Mr. Willet indicated it correctly. The man was hurrying to the door, when sud- denly there came towards them, on the wind, the loud and rapid tolling of an alarm bell, and then a bright and vivid glare streamed up, which illumined, not only the whole chamber, but all the country. It was not the sudden change from darkness to this dreadful light, it was not the sound of distant shrieks and shouts of triumph, it was not this dread invasion of the serenity and peace of night, that drove the man back as though a thunderbolt had struck him. It was the Bell. If the ghastliest shape the human mind has ever pictured in its wildest dreams had risen up before him, he could not have stag- gered backward from its touch, as he did from the first sound of that loud iron voice. With eyes that started from his head, his limbs con- vulsed, his face most horrible to see, he raised one arm high up into the air, and holding some- thing visionary, back and down, with his other hand, drove at it as though he held a knife and stabbed it to the heart. He clutched his hair, and stopped his ears, and travelled madly round and round ; then gave a frightful cry, and with it rushed away : still, still, the Bell tolled on and seemed to follow him — louder and louder, hotter and hotter yet. The glare grew bright- er, the roar of voices deeper ; the crash of heavy bodies falling, shook the air ; bright streams of sparks rose up into the sky ; but louder than them all — rising faster far, to Heav- en — a million times more fierce and furious — pouring forth dreadful secrets after its long si- lence — speaking the language of the dead — the Bell— the Bell ! What hunt of spectres could surpass that dread pursuit and flight ! Had there been a legion of them on his track, he could have bet- ter borne it. They would have had a begin- ning and an end, but here all space was full. The one pursuing voice was everywhere : it sounded in the earth, the air ; shook the long grass, and howled among the trembling trees. The echoes caught it up, the owls hooted as it flew upon the breeze, the nightingale was silent and hid herself among the thickest boughs : it seemed to goad and urge the angry fire, and lash it into madness; everything was steeped in one prevailing red ; the glow was everywhere ; nature was drenched in blood : still the remorse- less crying of that awful voice — the Bell — the Bell ! It ceased ; but not in his ears. The knell was at his heart. No woik of man had ever voice like that which sounded there, and warn- ed him that it cried unceasingly to Heaven. Who could hear that bell, and not know what it said ! There was murder in its every note — cruel, relentless, savage murder — the murder of a confiding man, by one who held his every trust. Its ringing summoned phantoms from their graves. What face was that, in which a friendly smile changed to a look of half incred- ulous horror, which stiffened for a moment into one of pain, then changed again into an im- ploring glance at Heaven, and so fell idly down with upturned eyes, like the dead stags he had often peeped at when a little child, shrinking and shuddering — there was a dread- ful thing to think of now ! — and clinging to an apron as he looked ! He sank upon the ground, and grovelling down as if he would dig himself a place to hide in, covered his face and ears ; but no, no, no — a hundred walls and roofs of brass would not shut out that bell, for in it spoke the wrathful voice of God, and from that voice, the whole wide universe could not afford a refuge 1 — Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 55. BELL Its vibrations. The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became in- visible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as BELLS 45 BELLS if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there . — Christmas Carols Stave I. BELLS— Church. So many bells are ringing, when I stand un- decided at a street corner, that every sheep in the ecclesiastical fold might be a bell-wether. The discordance is fearful. My state of inde- cision is referable to, and about equally divisi- ble among, four great churches, which are all within sight and sound — all within the space of a few square yards. As I stand at the street corner. I don’t see as many as four people at once going to church, though I see as many as four churches with their steeples clamoring for people. — Uncommercial Ti'aveller, Chap. 9. BELLS— At midnig-ht. When a church clock strikes on houseless ears in the dead of the night, it may be at first mistaken for company, and hailed as such. But as the spreading circles of vibration, which you may perceive at such a time with great clearness, go opening out, for ever and ever afterwards widening perhaps (as the philosopher has sug- gested) in eternal space, the mistake is rectified, and the sense of loneliness is profounder. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 13. BELL— The last stroke of the year. We have scarcely written the last word of the previous sentence, when the first stroke of twelve peals from the neighboring churches. There certainly — we must confess it — is some- thing awful in the sound. Strictly speaking, it may not be more impressive now than at any other time ; for the hours steal as swiftly on at other periods, and their flight is little heeded. But we measure man’s life by years, and it is a solemn knell that warns us we have passed an- other of the landmarks which stand between us and the grave. Disguise it as we may, the re- flection will force itself on our minds, that when the next bell announces the arrival of a new year, we may be insensible alike of the timely warning we have so often neglected, and of all the warm feelings that glow within us now. Sketches ( Characters ), Chap. 3. BELLS— The Chimes. High up in the steeple of an old church, far above the light and murmur of the town and far below the flying clouds that shadow it, is the wild and dreary place at night : and high up in the steeple of an old church, dwelt the Chimes I tell of. They were old Chimes, trust me. Centuries ago, these Bells had been baptized by bishops : so many centuries ago, that the register of their baptism was lost long, long before the memory of man, and no one knew their names. They had had their Godfathers and Godmothers, these Bells (for my own part, by the way, I would rather incur the responsibility of being God- father to a Bell than a Boy), and had had their silver mugs no doubt, besides. But Time had mowed down their sponsors, and Henry the Eighth had melted down their mugs ; and they now hung, nameless and mugless, in the church tower. Not speechless, though. Far from it. They had clear, loud, lusty, sounding voices, had these Bells ; and far and wide they might be heard upon the wind. Much too sturdy Chimes were they, to be dependent on the pleasure of the wind, moreover ; for, fighting gallantly against it when it took an adverse whim, they would pour their cheerful notes into a listening ear right royally ; and bent on being heard, on stormy nights, by some poor mother watching a sick child, or some lone wife whose husband was at sea, they had been sometimes known to beat a blustering Nor’ Wester; aye, “all to fits,” as Toby Veck said — ****** For, being but a simple man, he invested them with a strange and solemn character. They were so mysterious, often heard and never seen ; so high up, so far off, so full of such deep strong melody, that he regarded them with a species of awe : and sometimes when he looked up at the dark, arched windows in the tower, he half expected to be beckoned to by something which was not a Bell, and yet what he heard so often sounding in the Chimes. ****** As he was stooping to sit down, the Chimes rang. • “Amen!” said Trotty, pulling off his hat and looking up towards them. “ Amen to the Bells, father?” cried Meg. “ They broke in like a grace, my dear,” said Trotty, taking his seat. “ They’d say a good one, I am sure, if they could. Many’s the kind thing they say to me.” “ The Bells do, father ! ” laughed Meg, as she set the basin, and a knife and fork before him. “ Well ! ” “Seem to, my Pet,” said Trotty, falling to with great vigor. “ And where’s the difference ? If I hear ’em, what does it matter whether they speak it or not ? Why tlesc you, my dear,” said Toby, pointing at the tower with his fork, and becoming more animated under the influ- ence of dinner, “ how often have I heard them bells say, ‘ Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby ! Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keejD a good heart, Toby!’ A million times? More!” “Well, I ^BBWM«cried Meg. She had, Bough — over and over again. For it was Tobm . constant topic. “ When nfings is very bad,” said Trotty; “very bad indeed, I mean ; almost at the worst ; then it’s ‘Toby Veck, Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby ! Toby Veck, Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby ! ’ That way.” Christmas Stories , Chimes , Chap. 1. BELLS— The Fairies of the. Awake, and standing on his feet upon the boards where he had lately lain, he saw this Goblin Sight. He saw the tower, whither his charmed foot- steps had brought him, swarming with dwarf phantoms, spirits, elfin creatui-es of the Bells. He saw them leaping, flying, dropping, pouring from the Bells without a pause. He saw them round him on the ground ; above him in the air, clambering from him, by the ropes below ; look- ing down upon him, from the massive iron- girded beams ; peeping in upon him, through the chinks and loopholes in the walls ; spreading away and away from him in enlarging circles, as the water ripples give place to a huge stone that suddenly comes plashing in among them. He saw them, of all aspects and all shapes. He BENEVOLENCE 40 BETSEY TROTWOOD saw them ugly, handsome, crippled, exquisitely formed. He saw them young, he saw them old, he saw them kind, he saw them cruel, he saw them merry, he saw them grim ; he saw them dance, and heard them sing ;.he saw them tear their hair, and heard them howl. He saw the air thick with them. He saw them come and go, incessantly. He saw them riding down- ward, soaring upward, sailing off afar, perching near at hand, all restless and all violently active. Stone, and brick, and slate; and tile, became transparent to him as to them. He saw them in the houses, busy at the sleepers’ beds. He saw them soothing people in their dreams ; he saw them beating them with knotted whips ; he saw them yelling in their ears ; he saw them playing softest music on their pillows ; he saw them cheering some with the songs of birds and the perfume of flowers ; he saw them flashing awful faces on the troubled rest of others, from en- chanted mirrors which they carried in their hands. He saw these creatures, not only among sleep- ing men, but waking also, active in pursuits irreconcileable with one another, and possessing or assuming natures the most opposite, fie saw' one buckling on innumerable wings to increase his speed ; another loading himself with chains and weights, to retard his. He saw some put- ting the hands of clocks forward, some putting the hands of clocks backward, some endeavor- ing to stop the clock entirely. He saw them representing, here a marriage ceremony, there a funeral ; in this chamber an election, in that a ball ; he saw, everywhere, restless and untiring motion. Bewildered by the host of shifting and extra- ordinary figures, as well as by the uproar of the Bells, which all this while were ringing, Trotty clung to a wooden pillar for support, and turned his white face here and there, in mute and stunned astonishment. As he gazed, the Chimes stopped. ■34- sj« :Jc 5j; Sf. -34- Then and not before, did Trotty see in every Bell a bearded figure of the bulk and stature of the Bell — incomprehensibly, a figure and the Bell itself. Gigantic, grave, and darkly watch- ful of him as he stood I'ooted to the ground. Mysterious and awful figures ! Resting on nothing: poised in the night air of the tower, with their draped and hooded heads merged in the dim roof; motionless and shadowy. Shadowy and dark, although he saw them by some light belonging to themselves — none else was there — each with its muffled hand upon its goblin mouth. — Christmas Stories , Chap. 3. BENEVOLENCE— King Lear an Exempli- fication of. “A very prepossessing old gentleman, Mr. Richard — charming countenance, sir — extremely calm — benevolence in every feature, sir. He quite realizes my idea of King Lear, as he ap- peared when in possession of his kingdom, Mr. Richard —the same good humor, the same white hair and partial baldness, the same liability to be imposed upon. Ah ! A sweet subject for contemplation, sir, very sweet !” Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 57. BETSEY TROTWOOD and Mrs. Crupp. My aunt had obtained a signal victory over Mrs. Crupp, by paying her off, throwing the first pitcher she planted on the stairs out of the window, and protecting, in person, up and down the staircase, a supernumerary whom she en- gaged from the outer world. These vigorous measures struck such terror to the breast of Mrs. Crupp, that she subsided into her own kitchen, under the impression that my aunt was mad. My aunt being supremely indifferent to Mrs. Crupp’s opinion and everybody else’s, and rather favoring than discouraging the idea, Mrs. Crupp, of late the bold, became within a few days so faint-hearted, that, rather than encounter my aunt upon the staircase, she would endeavor to hide her portly form behind doors — leaving visible, however, a wide margin of flannel petti- coat — or would shrink into dark corners. This gave my aunt such unspeakable sa isfaction, that I believe she took a delight in prowling up and dowm, with her bonnet insanely perched on the top of her head, at times when Mrs. Crupp was likely to be in the way. David Ccpperfield , Chap. 37. BETSEY TROTWOOD and Uriah Heep. “ Deuce take the man ! ” said my aunt sternly, “ what’s he about ? Don’t be galvanic, sir ! ” “ I ask your pardon, Miss Trotwood,” re- turned Uriah ; “I’m aware you’re nervous.” “ Go along with you, sir ! ” said my aunt, anything but appeased. “ Don’t presume to say so ! I am nothing of the sort. If you’re an eel, sir, conduct yourself like one. If you’re a man, control your limbs, sir ! Good God ! ” said my aunt, with great indignation, “ I am not going to be serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses ! ” Mr. Heep was rather abashed, as most people might have been, by this explosion ; which de- rived great additional force from the indignant manner in which my aunt afterwards moved in her chair, and shook her head as if she were making 'snaps or bounces at him. David Copperfiield, Chap. 35. BETSEY TROTWOOD— “Janet ! Donkeys ! ” My au,nt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but by no means ill-looking. There was an inflexi- bility in her face, in her voice, in her gait and carriage, amply sufficient to account for the effect she had made upon a gentle creature like my mother ; but her features were rather hand- some than otherwise, though unbending' and austere. I particularly noticed that she had a very quick, bright eye. Her hair, which was grey, was arranged in two plain divisions, under what I believe would be called a mob-cap ; I mean a cap, much more common then than now, with side-pieces fastening under the chin. Her dress was of a lavender color, and perfectly neat, but scantily made, as if she desired to be as little encumbered as possible. I remember that I thought it, in form, more like a riding habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than anything else. She wove at her side a gentle- man’s gold watch, if I might judge from its size and make, with an appropriate chain and seals ; she had some linen at her throat not un- like a shirt-collar, and things at her wrists like little shirt wristbands. >|: * * * * * Janet had gone away to get the bath ready BIBLE 47 BIRDS when my aunt, to my great alarm, became in one moment rigid with indignation, and had hardly voice to cry out, “Janet! Donkeys!” Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in flames, darted out on a little piece of green in front, and warned off two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that had presumed to set hoof upon it ; while my aunt, rushing out of the house, seized the bridle of a third animal laden with a bestriding child, turned him, led him forth from those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in attendance who had dared to profane that hallowed ground. To this hour I don’t know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way over that patch of green ; but she had settled it in her own mind that she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great outrage of her life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey over that immaculate spot. In what- ever occupation she was engaged, however interesting to her the conversation in which she was taking part, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was upon him straight. Jugs of water, and watering pots, were kept in secret places ready to be discharged on the offending boys ; sticks were laid in ambush behind the door ; sallies were made at all hours ; and incessant war prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the donkey-boys : or, perhaps, the more sagacious of the donkeys, understanding how the case stood, delighted with constitutional obstinacy in coming that way. I only know that there were three alarms before the bath was ready ; and that, on the oc- casion of the last and most desperate of all, I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to comprehend what was the matter. These interruptions were the more ridiculous to me, because 'she was giving me broth out of a table- spoon at the time (having firmly persuaded her- self that I was actually starving, and must re- ceive nourishment at first in very small quan- tities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the spoon, she would put it back into the basin, cry, “ Janet ! Donkeys ! ” and go out to the assault. — David Copper field, Chap. 13. BIBLE- The. Harriet complied and read — read the eternal book for all the weary and the heavy-laden ; for all the wretched, fallen, and neglected of this earth — read the blessed history, in which the blind, lame, palsied beggar, the criminal, the woman stained with shame, the shunned of all our dainty clay, has each a portion, that no hu- man pride, indifference, or sophistry, through all the ages that this world shall last, can take away, or by the thousandth atom of a grain re- duce — read the ministry of Him who, through the round of human life, and all its hopes and griefs, from birth to death, from infancy to age, had sweet compassion for, and interest in, its every scene and stage, its every suffering and sorrow. — Doi 7 ibey 6° Son, Chap. 59. BILL— A. A bill, by the by, is the most extraordinary locomotive engine that the genius of man ever produced. It would keep on running during the longest lifetime, without ever once stopping of its own accord. Pickwick Papers, Chap. 32. BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS— The differ- ence. Quadruped lions are said to be savage only when they are hungry ; biped lions are. rarely sulky longer than when their appetite for dis- tinction remains un appeased. Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 15. BIRDS— The unhappiness of cagred. In every pane of glass there was at least one tiny bird in a tiny bird-cage, twittering and hop- ping his little ballet of despair, and knocking his head against the roof : while one unhappy goldfinch who lived outside a red villa with his name on the door, drew the water for his own drinking, and mutely appealed to some good man to drop a farthing’s worth of poison in it. Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 19. BIRDS— The traits of. Nothing in shy neighborhoods perplexes my mind more than the bad company birds keep. Foreign birds often get into good society, but British birds are inseparable from low associates. There is a whole street of them in St. Giles’s ; and I always find them in poor and immoral neighborhoods, convenient to the public-house or the pawnbroker’s. They seem to lead peo- ple into drinking, and even the man who makes their cages usually gets into a chronic state of black eye. Why is this ? Also, they will do things for people in short-skirted velveteen coats with bone buttons, or in sleeved waistcoats and fur caps, which they cannot be persuaded by the respectable oi'ders of society to undertake. In a dirty court in Spitalfields, once, I found a goldfinch drawing his own water, and drawing as nyich of it as if he were in a consuming fever. That goldfinch lived at a bird-shop, and offered, in writing, to barter himself against old clothes, empty bottles, or even kitchen-stuff. Surely a low thing and a depraved taste in any finch ! I bought that goldfinch for money. He was sent home, and hung upon a nail over against my table. He lived outside a counter- feit dwelling-house, supposed (as I argued) to be a dyei'’s ; othei'wise it woixld have been im- possible to accouixt for his perch sticking out of the garret window. From the time of his ap- pearance iix my room, either he left off being thirsty — which was not in the bond — or he could not. make up his mind to hear his little bucket drop back into his well when he let it go — a shock which in the best of times had made him tremble. lie drew no water but by stealth and txnder the cloak of night. After an interval of futile and at length hopeless expectation, the merchant who had edixcated him was appealed to. The merchant was a bow-legged chai'acter, with a flat and cushiony nose, like the last new strawberry. He wore a fur cap, and shorts, and was of the velveteen race velveteeny. He sent woi'd that he would “ look round.” He looked round, appeared in the doorway of the room, and slightly cocked up his evil eye at the gold- finch. Instantly a raging thirst beset that bird ; when it was appeased, he still drew sevei'al un- necessary buckets of water ; and finally leaped about his perch, and shai'pened his bill, as if he BIRD 48 BLUNTNESS had been to the nearest wine-vaults and got drunk. — Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. io. BIRD— The Raven of Barnaby. “ Halloa ! ” cried a hoarse voice in his ear. “ Halloa, halloa, halloa ! Bow wow wow. What’s the matter here ! Hal-loa ! ” The speaker — who made the locksmith start, as if he had seen some supernatural agent — was a large raven, who had perched upon the top of the easy chair, unseen by him and Edward, and listened with a polite attention and a most ex- traordinary appearance of comprehending every woi'd, to all they had said up to this point ; turn- ing his head from one to the other, as if his office were to judge between them, and it were of the very last importance that he should not lose a word. “ Look at him !” said Varden, divided be- tween admiration of the bird and a kind of fear of him. “ Was there ever such a knowing imp as that ! Oh, he’s a dreadful fellow ! ” The raven, with his head very much on one side, and his bright eye shining like a diamond, preserved a thoughtful silence for a few seconds, and then replied in a voice so hoarse and distant, that it seemed to come through his thick feathers rather than out of his mouth. “ Halloa, halloa, halloa ! What’s the matter here ! Keep up your spirits. Never say die. Bow wow wow. I’m a devil, I’m a devil, I’m a devil. Hurrah ! ” — And then, as if exulting in his infernal character, he began to whistle. “ I more than half believe he speaks the truth. Upon my word I do,” said Varden. “ Do you see how he looks at me, as if he knew what I was saying ? ” * To which the bird, balancing himself on tip- toe, as it were, and moving his body up and down in a sort of grave dance, rejoined, “ I’m a devil, I’m a devil, I’m a devil ! ” and flapped his wings against his sides as if he were bursting with laughter. Barnaby clapped his hands, and fairly rolled upon the ground in an ecstacy of delight. “ Strange companions, sir,” said the lock- smith, shaking his head and looking from one to the other. “ The bird has all the wit.” “ Strange indeed !” said Edward, holding out his forefinger to the raven, who, in acknow- ledgement of the attention, made a dive at it immediately with his iron bill. “ Is he old ? ” “ A mere boy, sir,” replied the locksmith. “ A hundred and twenty, or thereabouts. Call him down, Barnaby, my man.” “ Call him !” echoed Barnaby, sitting upright upon the floor, and staring vacantly at Gabriel as he thrust his hair back from his face. “ But who can make him come ! He calls me, and makes me go where he will. He goes on before, and I follow. He’s the master, and I’m the man. Is that the truth, Grip?” The raven gave a short, comfortable, confi- dential kind of croak — a most expressive croak, which seemed to say, “ You need’nt let these fellows intu our secrets. We understand each other. It’s all right ” “/ make ///’;// come f ” cried Barnaby, point- ing to the bird, “ Him, who never goes to sleep, or so much as winks ! — Why, any time of night, you may see his eyes in my dark room, shining like two sparks. And every night, and all night too, he’s broad awake, talking to himself, think- ing what he shall do to-morrow, where we shall go, and what he shall steal, and hide, and bury. / make him come ! Ha, ha, ha ! ” On second thoughts, the bird appeared dis- posed to come of himself. After a short survey of the ground, and a few sidelong looks at the ceiling and at everybody present in turn, he fluttered to the floor and went to Barnaby— not in a hop, or walk, or run, but in a pace like that of a very particular gentleman with exceedingly tight boots on, trying to walk fast over loose pebbles. Then, stepping into his extended hand, and condescending to be held out at arm’s length, he gave vent to a succession of sounds, not unlike the drawing of some eight or ten dozen of long corks, and again asserted his brimstone birth and parentage with great dis tinctness . — Barnaby Budge, Chap. 6. ****** The raven was in a highly reflective state ; walking up and down when he had dined, with an air of elderly complacency which was strongly suggestive of his having his hands under his coat-tails ; and appearing to read the tomb-stones with a very critical taste. Some- times, after a long inspection of an epitaph, he would strop his beak upon the grave to which it referred, and cry in his hoarse tones, “ I’m a devil, I’m a devil, I’m a devil ! ” but whether he addressed his observations to any supposed person below, or merely threw them off as a general remark, is matter of uncertainty. Barnaby Budge, Chap. 25. BLINDNESS— The various degrees of. “ There are various degrees and kinds of blindness, widow. There is the connubial blindness, ma’am, which perhaps you may have observed in the course of your own experience, and which is a kind of wilful and self-damaging blindness. There is the blindness of party, ma’am, and public men, which is the blindness of a mad bull in the midst of a regiment of soldiers clothed in red. There is the blind con- fidence of youth, which is the blindness of young kittens, whose eyes have not yet opened on the world : and there is ' that physical blindness, ma’am, of which I am, contrary to my own de- sire, a most illustrious example. Added to these, ma’am, is that blindness of the intellect, of which we have a specimen in your interesting son, and which, having sometimes glimmerings and dawnings of the light, is scarcely to be trusted as a total darkness.” Barnaby Budge , Chap. 45. BLUSTER. He had a certain air of being a handsome man — which he was not ; and a certain air of being a well-bred man — which he was not. It was mere swagger and challenge ; but in this particular, as in many others, blustering asser- tion goes for proof, half over the world. Little Dorrit , Book /. Chap. I. BLUNTNESS Versus Sincerity. Mr. Gabriel Parsons was a rich sugar-baker, who mistook rudeness for honesty, and abrupt bluntness for an open and candid manner ; many besides Gabriel mistake bluntness for sin cerity. — Talcs , Chap. 10. BIRTH 43 BOARDING-HOUSE BIRTH— The Curse on Adam. A ceremony to which the usage of gossips has given that name which expresses, in two syllables, the curse pronounced on Adam. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. ig. BLIND— The Faces of the. It is strange to watch the faces of the blind, and see how free they are from all concealment of what is passing in their thoughts ; observing which, a man with his eyes may blush to con- template the mask he wears. Allowing for one shade of anxious expression which is never ab- sent from their countenances, and the like of which we may readily detect in our own faces if we try to feel our way in the dark, every idea, as it rises within them, is expressed with the lightning’s speed and nature’s truth. If the company at a rout, or drawing-room at court, could only for one time be as unconscious of the eyes upon them as blind men and women are, what secrets would come out, and what a worker of hypocrisy this sight, the loss of which we so much pity, would appear to be ! The thought occurred to me as I sat down in another room before a girl, blind, deaf, and dumb, destitute of smell, and nearly so of taste — before a fair young creature with every human faculty and hope and power of goodness and affection enclosed within her delicate frame, and but one outward sense — the sense of touch. There she was before me ; built up, as it were, in a marble cell, impervious to any ray of light or particle of sound ; with her poor white hand peeping through a chink in the wall, beckoning to some good man for help, that an immortal soul might be awakened. Long before I looked upon her, the help had come. Her face was radiant with intelligence and pleasure. Her hair, braided by her own hands, was bound about a head whose intellect- ual capacity and development were beautifully expressed in its graceful outline and its broad, open brow ; her dress, arranged by herself, was a pattern of neatness and simplicity ; the work she had knitted lay beside her ; her writing- book was on the desk she leaned upon. From the mournful ruin of such bereavement there had slowly risen up this gentle, tender, guileless, grateful-hearted being. ****** Ye who have eyes and see not, and have ears and hear not ; ye who are as the hypocrites, of sad countenances, and disfigure your faces that ye may seem unto men to fast ; learn healthy cheer- fulness and mild contentment, from the deaf, and dumb, and blind ! Self-elected saints with gloomy brows, this sightless, careless, voiceless child piay teach you lessons you will do well to follow. Let that poor hand of hers lie gently on your hearts, for there may be something in its healing touch akin to that of the Great Master, whose precepts you misconstrue, whose lessons you pervert, of whose charity and sym- pathy with all the world not one among you in his daily practice knows as much as many of the worst among those fallen sinners to whom you are liberal in nothing but the preachment of per- dition. — American Notes , Chap. 3. BLOOD Versus Liquid Aggravation. “ Ecod, you may say what you like of my father, then, and so I give you leave,” said Jonas. “ I think it’s liquid aggravation that circulates through his veins, and not regular blood.” — Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 11. BLOOD— The Aristocracy of. Traddles and I were separated at table, being billeted in two remote corners ; he, in the glare of a red velvet lady : I, in the gloom of Hamlet’s aunt. The dinner was very long, and the con- versation was about the Aristocracy — and Blood. Mrs. Waterbi-ook repeatedly told us, that if she had a weakness, it was Blood. ****** We might have been a party of Ogres, the conversation assumed such a sanguine com- plexion. “ I confess I am of Mrs. Waterbrook’s opin- ion,” said Mr. Waterbrook, with his wine-glass at his eye. “ Other things are all very well in their way, but give me Blood ! ” “ Oh ! Thei'e is nothing,” observed Hamlet’s aunt, “so satisfactory to one ! There is nothing that is so much one’s beau ideal of — of all that sort of thing, speaking generally. There are some low minds (not many, I am happy to be- lieve, but there are some ) that would prefer to do what I should call bow down before idols. Positively Idols ! Before services, intel- lect, and so on. But these are intangible points. Blood is not so. We see Blood in a nose, and we know it. We meet with it in a chin, and we say, ‘There it is! That’s Blood!’ It is an actual matter of fact. We point it out. It ad- mits of no doubt.” The simpering fellow with the weak legs, who had taken Agnes down, stated the question more decisively yet, I thought. “ Oh, you know, deuce take it,” said this gentleman, looking round the board with an imbecile smile, “we can’t forego Blood, you know. We must have Blood, you know. Some young fellows, you know, may be a little behind their station, perhaps, in point of education and behavior, and may go a little wrong, you know, and get themselves and other people into a variety of fixes — and all that — but, deuce take it, it’s delightful to reflect that they’ve got Blood in ’em ! Myself, I’d rather at any time be knocked down by a man who had got Blood in him, than I’d be picked up by a man who hadn’t ! ” David Copperfield , Chap. 25. BLUSH— A. Mr. Watkins Tottle blushed up to the eyes and down to the chin, and exhibited a most ex- tensive combination of colors as he confessed the soft impeachment. — Tales , Chap. 10. BOARDING-HOUSE-Mrs. Todg-ers. M. Todgers’s Commercial Boarding-House was a house of that sort which is likely to be dark at any time ; but that morning it was especially dark. There was an odd smell in the passage, as if the concentrated essence of all the dinners that had been cooked in the kitchen since the house was built, lingered at the top of the kitchen stairs to that hour, and, like the Black Friar in Don Juan, “ wouldn’t be driven away.” In particular, there was a sensation of cabbage : as if all the greens that had ever beeti boiled there were evergreens, and flourished in immor- tal strength. The parlor was wainscoted, and BOARDING-HOUSE-KEEPER 50 BOOTS communicated to strangers a magnetic and in- stinctive consciousness of rats and mice. The staircase was very gloomy and very broad, with balustrades so thick and heavy that they would have served for a bridge. In a sombre corner on the first landing, stood a gruff old giant. of a clock, with a preposterous coronet of three brass balls on his head ; whom few had ever seen — none ever looked in the face — and who seemed to continue his heavy tick for no other reason than to warn heedless people from running into him accidentally. It had not been papered or painted, hadn’t Todgers’s, within the memory of man. It was very black, begrimed, and mouldy. And, at the top of the staircase, was an old, disjointed, rickety, ill-favored skylight, patched and mended, in all kinds of ways, which looked distrustfully down at everything that passed below, and covered Todgers’s up as if it were a sort of human citcumber-frame, and only people of a peculiar growth were reared there. M. Todgers was a lady, rather a bony and hard-featured lady, with a row of curls in front of her head, shaped like little barrels of beer ; and on the top of it something made of net — you couldn’t call it a cap exactly — which looked like a black cobweb. She had a little basket on her arm, and in it a bunch of keys that jingled as she came. In her other hand she bore a flaming tallow candle, which, after surveying Mr. Pecksniff for one instant by its light, she put down upon the table, to the end that she might receive him with the greater cordiality. Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 8. BOARDING-HOUSE-KEEPER— Mrs. lod- gers. Commercial gentlemen and gravy had tried Mrs. Todgers’s temper ; the main chance — it was such a very small one in her case, that she might have been excused for looking sharp after it, lest it should entirely vanish from her sight — had taken a firm hold on Mrs. Todgers’s atten- tion. But in some odd nook in Mrs. Todgers’s breast, up a great many steps, and in a corner easy to be overlooked, there was a secret door, with “ Woman” written on the spring, which, at a touch from Mercy’s hand, had flown wide open, and admitted her for shelter. When boarding-house accounts are balanced with all other ledgers, and the books of the Recording Angel are made up for ever, perhaps there may be seen an entry to thy credit, lean Mrs. Todgers, which shall make thee beautiful ! Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 37. BOHEMIANS The gypsies of gentility. The venerable inhabitants of that venerable pile seemed, in those times, to be encamped there like a sort of civilized gypsies. There was a temporary air about their establishments, as if they were going .away the moment they could get anything better ; there was also a dis- satisfied air about themselves, as if they took it very ill that they had not already got something much better, (lented blinds and make-shifts were more or less observable as soon as their doors were opened ; screens not half high enough, which made dining-rooms out of arched passages, and warded off obscure corners where footboyg slept at night with their heads among the knives and forks ; curtains which called upon you to believe that they didn’t hide any- 1 thing ; panes of glass which requested you not to see them ; many objects of various forms, feign- ing to have no connection with their guilty se- cret, a bed ; disguised traps in walls, which were clearly coal-cellars ; affectations of no thoroughfares, which were evidently doors to little kitchens. Mental reservations and artful mysteries grew out of these things. Callers, looking steadily into the eyes of their receivers, pretended not to smell cooking three feet off ; people, confronting closets accidentally left open, pretended not to see bottles ; visitors, with their heads against a partition of thin can- vas, and a page and a young female at high words on the other side, made believe to be sit- ting in a primeval silence. There was no end to the small social accommodation-bills of this nature which the gypsies of gentility were con- stantly drawing upon, and accepting for, one an- other. Some of these Bohemians were of an irritable temperament, as constantly soured and vexed by two mental trials ; the first, the consciousness that they had never got enough out of the pub- lic ; the second, the consciousness that the pub- lic were admitted into the building. Under the latter great wrong, a few suffered dreadfully — particularly on Sundays, when they had for some time expected the earth to open and swal- low the public up ; but which desirable event had not yet occurred, in consequence of some reprehensible laxity in the arrangements of the Universe. — Little Don it, Book /., Chap. 26. BOLDNESS. “ A man can well afford to be as bold as brass, my good fellow, when he gets gold in exchange ! ” Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 27. BOOKS— The readers of. No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot. Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap. 3. BOOK— Of reference. * * * “ His Lexicon has got so dropsical from constant reference, that it won’t shut, and yawns as if it really could not bear to be so bothered.” — Dombey Sf Son , Chap. 41. BOOKS -The lost. Master Humphrey’s Clock, as originally con- structed, became one of the lost books of the earth — which, we all know, are far more precious than any that can be read for love or money. Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. I. BOOTS— TIGHT— Their relation to the stom- ach. I have my doubts, too, founded on the acute experience acquired at this period of my life, whether a sound enjoyment of animal food can develop itself freely in any human subject which is always in torment from tight boots. I think the extremities require to be at peace before the stomach will conduct itself with vigor. David Copper field , Chap. 28. BOOTS— Irreparable. We were going up to the house, among some dark, heavy trees, when he called after my con- ductor, “Hallo !” BORES 51 BOWER We looked back, and he was standing at the door of a little lodge, where he lived, with a pair of boots in his hand. “ Here ! The cobbler’s been,” he said, “ since you’ve been out, Mr. Mell, and he says he can’t mend ’em any more. He says there ain’t a bit of the original boot left, and he wonders you expect it .” — David Copperjield , Chap. 5. BORES. It is unnecessary to say that we keep a bore. Everybody does. But, the bore whom we have the pleasure and honor of enumerating among our particular friends, is such a generic bore, and has so many traits (as it appears to us) in com- mon with the great bore family, that we are tempted to make him the subject of the present notes. May he be generally accepted ! Our bore is admitted on all hands to be a good-hearted man. He may put fifty people out of temper, but he keeps his own. lie preserves a sickly stolid smile upon his face, when other faces are ruffled by the perfection he has at- tained in his art, and has an equable voice which never travels out of one key or rises above one pitch. His manner is a manner of tranquil in- terest. None of his opinions are startling. Among his deepest-rooted convictions, it may be mentioned that he considers the air of Eng- land damp, and holds that our lively neighbors — he always calls the French our lively neigh- bors — have the advantage of us in that particu- lar. Nevertheless, he is unable to forget that John Bull is John Bull all the world over, and that England with all her faults is England still. Our bore has travelled. He could not possi- bly be a complete bore without having travelled. He rarely speaks of his travels without intro- ducing, sometimes on his own plan of construc- tion, morsels of the language of the country — which he always translates. You cannot name to him any little remote town in France, Italy, Germany, or Switzerland, but he knows it well ; stayed there a fortnight under peculiar circum- stances. And, talking of that little place, per- haps you know a statue over an old fountain, up a little court, which is the second — no, the third — stay — yes, the third turning on the right, after you come out of the Post-house, going up the hill towards the market? You dor? I know that statue? Nor that fountain ? You surprise him ! They are not usually seen by travellers (most extraordinary, he has never yet met with a single traveller who knew them, except one Ger- man, the most intelligent man he ever met in his life !) but he thought that YOU would have been the man to find them out. And then he de- scribes them, in a circumstantial lecture half an hour long, generally delivered behind a door which is constantly being opened from the other side ; and implores you, if you ever revisit that place, now do go and look at that statue and fountain ! ****** The instinct with which our bore finds out another bore, and closes with him, is amazing. We have seen him pick his man out of fifty men, in a couple of minutes. They love to go (which they do naturally) into a slow argument on a previously exhausted subject, and to con- tradict each other, and to wear the hearers out, without impairing their own perennial freshness as bores. It improves the good understanding | between them, and they get together afterwards, and bore each other amicably. Whenever we see our bore behind a door with another bore, we know that when he comes forth, he will praise the other bore as one of the most intelli- gent men he ever met. And this bringing us to the close of what we had to say about our bore, we are anxious to have it understood that he never bestowed this praise on us. Our Bore — Reprinted Pieces. BORE— A Practical. The incompatibility of Mr. Barlow with all other portions of my young life but himself, the adamantine inadaptability of the man to my favorite fancies and amusements, is the thing for which I hate him most. What right had he to bore his way into my Arabian Nights? Yet he did. He was always hinting doubts of the veracity of Sindbad the Sailor. If he could have got hold of the Wonderful Lamp, I knew he would have trimmed it, and lighted it, and de- livered a lecture over it on the qualities of sperm oil, with a glance at the whale-fisheries. He would so soon have found out — on mechan- ical principles — the peg in the neck of the En- chanted Horse, and would have turned it the right way in so workmanlike a manner, that the horse could never have got any height into the air, and the story couldn’t have been. He would have proved, by map and compass, that there was no such kingdom as the delightful kingdom of Casgar, on the fron- tiers of Tartary. He would have caused that hypocritical young prig, Harry, to make an experiment — with the aid of a temporary building in the garden and a dummy — demon- strating that you couldn’t let a choked Hunch- back down an eastern chimney with a cord, and leave him upright on the hearth to terrify the Sultan’s purveyor. :jc sj: * * * * With the dread upon me of developing into a Harry, and with the further dread upon me of being Barlowed if I made inquiries, by bringing down upon myself a cold shower-bath of explanations and experiments, I forebore en- lightenment in my youth, and became, as they say in melodramas, “ the wreck you now be- hold.” * * * * * * Thought I, with a shudder, “ Mr. Barlow is a bore, with an immense constructive power of making bores. His prize specimen is a bore. He seeks to make a bore of me. That Know- ledge is Power, I am not prepared to gainsay ; but, with Mr. Barlow, Knowledge is Power to bore.” Therefore, I took refuge in the Caves of Ignorance, wherein I have resided ever since, and which are still my private address. Mr. Barlow , New Unco?n. Samples. BOTTLES. * * * A shelf laden with tall Flemish drink- ing-glasses, and quaint bottles . some with necks like so many storks, and others with square, Dutch-built bodies and short, fat, apoplectic throats. — Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 51. BOWER. There was a bower at the further end, with honeysuckle, jessamine, and creeping plants— one BOY 52 BOY of those sweet retreats which humane men erect for the accommodation of spiders. Pickwick Papers , Chap. 8. BOY— Advice as to his Lodgings. “Major," I says, “be cool, and advise me what to do with Joshua, my dead and gone Lir- riper’s own youngest brother.” “ Madam,” says the Major, “my advice is that you board and lodge him in a Powder Mill, with a handsome gratuity to the proprietor when exploded.” Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy , Chap. I. BOY— The Spartan. * * Like the Spartan boy with the fox biting him, which 1 hope you’ll excuse my bringing up, for of all the tiresome boys that will go tum- bling into every sort of company, that boy’s the tiresomest.” — Little Dornt , Book /., Chap. 24. BOY— At Mugby. I am the boy at Mugby. That’s about what / am. You don’t know what I mean? What a pity ! But I think you do. I think you must. Look here. I am the Boy at what is called The Re- freshment-Room at Mugby Junction, and what’s proudest boast is, that it never yet refreshed a mortal being. Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment- Room at Mugby Junction, in the height of twenty- seven cross draughts (I’ve often counted ’em while they brush the First Class hair twenty-seven ways), behind the bottles, among the glasses, bounded on the nor’ west by the beer, stood pretty far to the right of a metallic object that’s at times the tea-urn and at times the soup-tureen according to the nature of the last twang im- parted to its contents, which are the same ground- work, fended off from the traveller by a barrier of stale spongecakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly exposed sideways to the glare of Our Missis’s eye — you ask a Boy so sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything to drink ; you take particular notice that he’ll try to seem not to hear you, that he’ll appear in a absent manner to survey the Line through a transparent medium composed of your head and body, and that he won’t serve you as long as you can possibly bear it. That’s me. Boy at Mugby. BOY— A Street. His son began to execute commissions in a knowing manner, and to be of the prison, pris- onous, and of the street, streety. Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 6. BOY— A Vagrant. I I is social existence had been more like that of an early Christian, than an innocent child of the nineteenth century. He had been stoned in the streets ; he had been over- thrown into gutters ; bespattered with mud ; violently flattened against posts. Entire strangers to li is person had lifted his yellow cap off his head, and 1 1 1 1 1 to the winds. His legs had not only undergone verbal criticisms and revilings, but had been handled and pinched. That very morning, lie had received a perfectly unsolicited black eye on his way to the Crindcrs’ establish- ment, and had been punished for it by the master ; a superannuated old Grinder of savage disposition, who had been appointed school- master because he didn’t know anything, and wasn’t fit for anything, and for whose cruel cane all chubby little boys had a perfect fascination, Dombey and Son , Chap. 6. BOY— A Depraved. A bundle of tatters, held together by a hand, in size and form almost an infant’s, but, in its greedy, desperate little clutch, a bad old man’s. A face rounded and smoothed by some half- dozen years, but pinched and twisted by the ex- periences of a life. Bright eyes, but not youth- ful. Naked feet, beautiful in their childish delicacy — ugly in the blood and dirt that cracked upon them. A baby savage, a young monster, a child who had never been a child, a creature who might live to take the outward form of man, but who, within, would live and perish a mere beast. — LLaunted Man , Chap. 1. BOY— “ Jo ” the Outcast. As Allan Woodcourt and Jo proceed along the streets, where the high church spires and the distances are so near and clear in the morn- ing light that the city itself seems renewed by rest, Allan revolves in his mind how and where he shall bestow his companion. “ It surely is a strange fact,” he considers, “ that in the heart of a civilized world this creature in human form should be more difficult to dispose of than an unowned dog.” But it is none the less a fact because of its strangeness, and the difficulty re- mains. At first, he looks behind him often, to assure himself that Jo is still really following. But look where he will, he still beholds him close to the opposite houses, making his way with his wary hand from brick to brick, and from door to door, and often, as he creeps along, glancing over at him, watchfully. Soon satisfied that the last thing in his thoughts is to give him the slip, Allan goes on ; considering with a less divided attention what he shall do. A breakfast-stall at a street corner suggests the first thing to be done. He stops there, looks round, and beckons Jo. Jo crosses, and comes halting and shuffling, slowly scooping the knuckles of his right hand round and round in the hollowed palm of his left — kneading dirt with a natural pestle and mortar. What is a dainty repast to Jo is then set before him, and he begins to gulp the coffee, and to gnaw the bread-and-butter ; looking anxiously about him in all directions, as he eats and drinks, like a scared animal. But he is so sick and miserable, that even hunger has abandoned him. “ I thought I was a’most a-starvin’, sir,” says Jo, soon putting down his food : “ but I don’t know nothink — not even that. I don’t care for eating wittles nor yet for drinking on ’em.” And Jo stands shivering, and looking at the breakfast wonder- ingly. Allan Woodcourt lays his hand upon his pulse and on his chest. “Draw breath, Jo!” “It draws,” says Jo, “ as heavy as a cart.” He might add, “ and rattles like it but he only mutters, “ I’m a-moving on, sir.” Allan looks about lor an apothecary’s shop. There is none at hand, bi , tavern does as well or better. He obtains a little measure of wine, BOY 53 BOY and gives the lad a portion of it very carefully. He begins to revive almost as soon as it passes his lips. “We may repeat that dose, Jo,” ob- serves Allan, after watching him with his atten- tive face. “ So ! we will now take five minutes’ rest, and then go on again.” Leaving the boy sitting on the bench of the breakfast-stall, with his back against an iron railing, Allan Woodcourt paces up and down in the early sunshine, casting an occasional look towards him without appearing to watch him. It requires no discernment to perceive that he is warmed and refreshed.’ If a face so 'shaded can brighten, his face brightens somewhat ; and, by little and little, he eats the slice of bread he had so hopelessly laid down. Observant of these signs of improvement, Allan engages him in conversation ; and elicits, to his no small won- der, the adventure of the lady in the veil, with all its consequences. Jo slowly munches, as he slowly tells it. When he has finished his story and his bread, they go on again. Bleak House , Chap. 47. “ Who took you away ? ” “ I dustn’t name him,” says Jo. “ [ dustn’t do it, sir.” “ But I want, in the young lady’s name, to know. You may trust me. No one else shall hear.” “Ah, but I don’t know,” replies Jo, shaking his head fearfully, “ as he don't hear.” “ Why, he is not in this place.” “ Oh. ain’t he though?” says Jo. “He’s in all manner of places, all at wunst.” Allan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning and good faith at the bottom of this bewildering reply. He patiently awaits an explicit answer ; and Jo, more baffled by his patience than anything else, at last desperately whispers a name in his ear. “ Aye ! ” says Allan. “ Why, what had you been doing ? ” “ Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble, ’sept in not moving on, and the Inkwhich. But I’m a-moving on now. I’m a moving on to the berryin ground— that’s the move as I’m up to.” “ No, no, we will try to prevent that. But what did he do with you ? ” “Put me in a horsepittle,” replied Jo, whis- pering, “ till I was discharged, then gave me a little money — four half-bulls, wot you may call half-crowns — and ses ‘ Hook it ! Nobody wants you here,’ he ses. ‘You hook it. You go and tramp,’ he ses. ‘ You move on,’ he ses. * Don’t let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of London, or you’ll repent it.’ So I shall, if ever he does see me, and he’ll see me if I’m above ground,” concludes Jo, nervously repeat- ing all his former precautions and investiga- tions. Allan considers a little ; then remarks, turn- ing to the woman, but keeping an encouraging eye on Jo ; “ He is not so ungrateful as you sup- posed. He had a reason for going away, though it was an insufficient one.” “Thank’ee, sir, thank’ee!” exclaims Jo. “ There now ! See how hard you wos upon me. But ony you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and it’s all right. For you wos wei*y good to me too, and I knows it.” 1 Now, Jo,” says Allan, keeping his eye upon him, “ come with me, and I will find you a bet- ter place than this to lie down and hide in. If I take one side of the way, and you the other, to avoid observation, you will not run away, I know very well, if you make me a promise.” “ I won’t, not unless I wos to see him a-com- ing, sir.” — Bleak House , Chap. 46. ****** “ Look here, Jo ! ” says Allan. “ This is Mr. George.” Jo searches the floor for some time longer, then looks up for a moment, and then down again. “ He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging-room here.” Jo makes a scoop with one hand, which is supposed to be a bow. After a little more con- sideration, and some backing and changing of the foot on which he rests, he mutters that he is “ wery thankful.” “ You are quite safe here. All you have to do at present is to be obedient, and to get strong. And mind you tell us the truth here, whatever you do, Jo.” “ Wishermaydie if I don’t, sir,” says Jo, re- verting to his favorite declaration. “ I never done nothink yit, but wot you knows on, to get myself into no trouble. I never was in no other trouble at all, sir — ’sept not knowin’ no- think and starwation.” * * * * * * To Mr. Jarndyce, Jo repeats in substance what he said in the morning ; without any ma- terial variation. Only, that cart of his is heavier to draw, and draws with a hollower sound. “ Let me lay here quiet, and not be chivied no more,” falters Jo ; “and be so kind any .person as is a-passin’ nigh where I used fur to sweep, as jist to say to Mr. Sangsby that Jo, wot he known once, is a-moving on right forards with his duty, and I’ll be wery thankful. I’d be more thank- ful than I am a’ready, if it wos any ways possi- ble for an unfortnet to be it.” Bleak House , Chap. 47. BOY- An old “ Bailey.” Mr. Bailey spoke as if he already had a leg and three-quarters in the grave, and this had happened twenty or thirty years ago. Paul Sweedlepipe, the meek, was so perfectly con- founded by his precocious ‘self-possession, and his patronising manner, as well .as by his boots, cockade, and livery, that a mist swam before his eyes, and he saw — not the Bailey of acknow- ledged juvenility, from Todger’s Commercial Boarding House, who had made his acquaint- ance within a twelve-month, by purchasing, at sundry times, small birds at two-pence each — but a highly condensed embodiment of all the sporting grooms in London ; an abstract of all the stable-knowledge of the time ; a something at a high pressure that must have had existence many years, and was fraught with terrible ex- periences. And truly, though in the cloudy at- mosphere of Todgers’s, Mr. Bailey’s genius had ever shone out brightly in this particular re- spect, it now eclipsed both time and space, cheated beholders of their senses, and worked on their belief in defiance of all natural laws. He walked along the tangible and real stones of Holborn Hill, an under-sized boy ; and yet he winked the winks, and thought the thoughts BOZ 54 BREAD AND BUTTER and did the deeds, and said the sayings of an an- cient man. There was an old principle within him, and a young surface without. lie became an inexplicable creature: a breeched and booted Sphinx. There was no course open to the barber but to go distracted himself, or to take Bailey for granted : and he wisely chose the latter. — Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 26. “ BOZ ’’—The Original. “ Boz,” my signature in the Morning Chronicle, and in the Old Monthly Magazine, appended to the monthly cover of this book, and retained long afterwards, was the nick-name of a pet child, a younger brother, whom I dubbed Moses, in honor of the Vicar of Wakefield ; which being facetiously pronounced through the nose, became Boses, and, being shortened, became Boz. Boz was a very familiar house- hold word to me, long before I was an ‘author, and so I came to adopt it. Preface to Pickwick . BROKER— Pancks’ Opinion of a. “Noble old boy; ain’t he?” said Mr. Pancks, entering on a series of the dryest of snorts. “ Generous old buck. Confiding old boy. Philanthropic old buck. Benevolent old boy ! Twenty per cent. I engaged to pay him, sir. But we never do business for less, at our shop.” Arthur felt an awkward consciousness of hav- ing in his exultant condition been a little prema- ture. “ I said to that — boiling-over old Christian,” Mr. Pancks pursued, appearing greatly to relish this descriptive epithet, “ that I had got a little project on hand ; a hopeful one ; I told him a hopeful one ; which wanted a certain small capi- tal. I proposed to him to lend me the money on my note. Which he did, at twenty ; sticking the twenty on in a business-like way, and put- ting it into the note to look like a part of the principal. If I had broken down after that, I should have been his grubber for the next seven years at half wages and double grind. But he is a perfect Patriarch : and it would do a man good to serve him on such terms — on any terms.” * * * * * * “ As to the brim of his hat, it’s narrow. And there’s no more benevolence bubbling out of him than out of a ninepin.” Little Dorrit, Chap. 35. BROKER— In Second-Hand Furniture. There lived in those days, round the corner — in Bishopsgate Street Without — one Brogley, sworn broker and appraiser, who kept a shop where every description of second-hand furni- ture was exhibited in the most uncomfortable aspect, and under circumstances and in com- binations the most completely foreign to its purpose. Dozens of chairs hooked on to wash- ing-stands, which with difficulty poised them- selves on the shoulders of sideboards, which in their turn stood upon the wrong side of dining- tables, gymnastic with their legs upward on the tops of other dining tables, were among its liiost reasonable arrangements. A banquet array of dish-covers, wine glasses, and decanters was generally to be seen spread forth upon the bosom of a four-post bedstead, for the entertain- ment of such genial company as half-a-dozen pokers, and a hall lamp. A set of window cur- tains with no windows belonging to them, would be seen gracefully draping a barricade of chests of drawers, loaded with little jars from chemists' shops ; while a homeless hearthrug, severed from its natural companion the fireside, braved the shrewd east wind in its adversity, and trem- bled in melancholy accord with the shrill com- plainings of a caljinet piano, wasting away, a string a day, and faintly resounding to the noises of the street in its jangling and distracted brain. Of motionless clocks that never stirred a finger, and seemed as incapable of being successfully wound up as the pecuniary affairs of their former owners, there was always great choice in Mr. Brogley’s shop: and various looking-glasses accidentally placed at compound interest of re- flection and refraction, presented to the eye an eternal perspective of bankruptcy and ruin. Mr. Brogley himself was a moist-eyed, pink- complexioned, crisp-haired man, of a bulky fig- ure and an easy temper — for that class of Caius Marius who sits upon the ruins of other peo- ple’s Carthages, can keep up his spirits well enough. — Dotnbey and Son, Chap. 9. BROKERS’-SHOPS. Our readers must often have observed in some by-street, in a poor neighborhood, a small, dirty shop, exposing for sale the most extraordinary and confused jumble of old, worn out, wretched articles, that can well be imagined. Our won- der at their ever having been bought, is only to be equalled by our astonishment at the idea of their ever being sold again. On a board at the side of the door are placed about twenty books — all odd volumes ; and as many wine-glasses — all different patterns ; several locks, an old earthenware pan, full of rusty keys ; two or three gaudy chimney ornaments — cracked, of course ; the remains of a lustre, without any drops ; a round frame like a capital O, which has once held a mirror ; a flute, complete, with the exception of the middle joint ; a pair of curling- irons ; and a tinder-box. In front of the shop- window are ranged some half-dozen high-backed chairs, with spinal complaints and wasted legs ; a corner cupboard ; two or three very dark ma- hogany tables with flaps like mathematical problems ; some pickle jars ; some surgeons’ dit- to, with gilt labels and without stoppers ; an unframed portrait of some lady who flourished about the beginning of the thirteenth century, by an artist who never flourished at all ; an in- calculable host of miscellanies of every descrip- tion, including bottles and cabinets, rags and bones, fenders and street-door knockers, fire- irons, wearing-apparel and bedding, a hall-lamp, and a room -door. Imagine, in addition to this incongruous mass, a black doll in a white frock, with two faces — one looking up the street, and the other looking down, swinging over the door ; aboard with the squeezed-up inscription “Deal- er in marine stores,” in lanky white letters, whose height is strangely out of proportion to their width ; and you have before you precisely the kind of shop to which we wish to direct your attention. — Scenes, Chap. 21. BREAD AND BUTTER. Mr. Trabb had sliced his hot roll into three BREATH 55 BUTCHER feather beds, and was slipping butter in between the blankets, and covering it up. Great Expectations , Chap. 19. BREATH— A short. “ And how have you been since ? ” Very well, I thanked him, as I hoped he had been too. “ Oh ! nothing to grumble at, you know,” said Mr. Omer. “ I find my breath gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I take it as it comes, and make the most of it. That’s the best way, ain’t it ? ” David Copperfield, Chap. 21. BRUISES— of Mr. Squeers. “ I was one blessed bruise, sir,” said Squeers, touching first the roots of his hair, and then the toes of his boots, “ from here to there. Vinegar and brown paper, vinegar and brown paper, from morning to night. I suppose there was a matter of half a ream of brown paper stuck upon me, from first to last. As I laid all of a heap in our kitchen, plastered all over, you might have thought I was a large brown paper parcel, chock full of nothing but groans.” Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 34. BUSINESS MANAGER-Capt. Cuttle as a. “ And how is master, Rob ? ” said Polly. “Well, I don’t know, mother; not much to boast on. There ain’t no bis'ness done, you see. He don’t know anything about it, the Cap’en don’t. There was a man come into the shop this very day, and says, ‘ I want a so-and- so,’ he says — some hard name or another. * A which ? ’ says the Cap’en. ‘ A so-'and-so,’ says the man. ‘ Brother,’ says the Cap’en, ‘ will you take a observation round the shop ? ’ ‘ Well,’ says the man, ‘ I’ve done it.’ ‘ Do you see what you want?’ says the Cap’en. ‘No, I don’t,’ says the man. * Do you know it when you do see it?’ says the Cap’en. ‘No, I don’t,” says the man. ‘ Why, then I tell you wot, my lad,’ says the Cap’en, ‘ you’d better go back and ask wot it’s like, outside, for no more don’t I ! ’ ” “ That ain’t the way to make money, though, is it ?” said Polly. “ Money, mother ! He’ll never make money.” Dombey & Son , Chap. 38. Captain Cuttle, also, as a man of business, took to keeping books. In these he entered ob- servations on the weather, and on the currents of the wagons and other vehicles ; which he observed, in that quarter, to set westward in the morning and during the greater part of the day, and eastward towards the evening. Two or three stragglers appearing in one week, who “ spoke him ” — so the Captain entered it — on the subject of spectacles, and who, without posi- tively purchasing, said they would look in again, the Captain decided that the business was im- proving, and made an entry in the day-book to that effect : the wind then blowing (which he first recorded) pretty fresh, west and by north ; having changed in the night. Dombey Son, Chap. 39. BUSINESS MANAGER-Carker the. Mr. Carker the Manager sat at his desk, smooth and soft as usual, reading those letters which were reserved for him to open, backing them occasionally with such memoranda and references as their business purport required, and parcelling them out into little heaps for dis- tribution through the several departments of the House. The post had come in heavy that morn- ing, and Mr. Carker the Manager had a good deal to do. The general action of a man so engaged — pausing to look over a bundle of papers in his hand, dealing them round in various portions, taking up another bundle and examining its con- tents with knitted brows and pursed-out lips — dealing, and sorting, and pondering by turns — would easily suggest some whimsical resemblance to a player at cards. The face of Mr. Carker the Manager was in good keeping with such a fancy. It was the face of a man who studied his play, warily : who made himself master of all the strong and weak points of the game : who registered the cards in his mind as they fell about him, knew exactly what was on them, what they missed, and what they made : who was crafty to find out what the other players held, and who never betrayed his own hand. The letters were in various languages, but Mr. Carker the Manager read them all. If there had been anything in the offices of Dombey and Son that he could not read, there would have been a card wanting in the pack. He read almost at a glance, and made combinations of one letter with another and one business with another as he went on, adding new matter to the heaps — much as a man would know the cards at sight, and work out their combinations in his mind after they were turned. Something too deep for a partner, and much too deep for an adversary, Mr. Carker the Manager sat in the rays of the sun that came down slanting on him through the skylight, playing his game alone. Dotribey Son , Chap. 22. Frequently, when the clerks were all gone, the offices dark and empty, and all similar places of business shut up, Mr. Carker, with the whole anatomy of the iron room laid bare be- fore him, would explore the mysteries of books and papers, with the patient progress of a man who was dissecting the minutest nerves and fibres of his subject. Dombey &> Son , Chap. 46. BUSINESS-The motto of Pancks. “ Take all you can get, and keep back all you can’t be forced to give up. That’s business.” Little Dorr it, Book /., Chap. 24. BUTCHER— Artistically considered. To see the butcher slap the steak, before he laid it on the block, and give his knife a sharpen- ing, was to forget breakfast instantly. It waL. agreeable, too — it really was — to see him cut it off, so smooth and juicy. There was nothing savage in the act, although the knife was large and keen ; it was a piece of art — high art ; there was delicacy of touch, clearness of tone, skillful handling of the subject, fine shading. It was the triumph of mind over matter ; quite. Perhaps the greenest cabbage-leaf ever grown in a garden was wrapped about this steak, be- fore it was delivered over to Tom. But the butcher had a sentiment for his business, and knew how to refine upon it. When he saw Tom putting the cabbage -leaf into his pocket awk- BUTTONED-UP MEN 50 CANAL-BOAT wardly, he begged to be allowed to do it for him “ for meat,” he said with some emotion, “must be humored, not drove.” Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap . 39. BUTTONED-TJP MEN Their importance. Mr. Tite Barnacle was a buttoned-up man, and consequently a weighty one. All buttoned- up men are weighty. All buttoned-up men are believed in. Whether or no the reserved and never-exercised power of unbuttoning, fascinates mankind ; whether or no wisdom is supposed to condense and augment when buttoned up, and to evaporate when unbuttoned ; it is certain that the man to whom importance is accorded is the buttoned-up man. Mr. Tite Barnacle never would have passed for half his current value, unless his coat had been always buttoned up to his white cravat. Little Dorrit , Book //., Chap. 12. c CABS AND DRIVERS— Description of. Of all the cabriolet-drivers whom we ever had the honor and gratification of knowing by sight — and our acquaintance in this way has been most extensive — there is one who made an impression on our mind which can never be effaced, and who awakened in our bosom a feel- ing of admiration and respect, which we enter- tain a fatal presentiment will never be called forth again by any human being. He was a man of most simple and prepossessing appear- ance. He was a brown-whiskered, white-hatted, no-coated cabman ; his nose was generally red, and his bright blue eye not unfrequently stood out in bold relief against a black border of artificial workmanship ; his boots were of the Wellington form, pulled up to meet his corduroy knee smalls, or at least to approach as near them as their di- mensions would admit of ; and his neck was usually garnished with a bright yellow hand- kerchief. In summer he carried in his mouth a flower ; in winter, a straw — slight, but to a con- templative mind, certain indications of a love of nature, and a taste for botany. His cabriolet was gorgeously painted — a bright red ; and wherever we went, City or West End, Paddington or Holloway, North, East, West, or South, there was the red cab, bumping up against the posts at the street cor- ners, and turning in and out, among hackney- coaches, and drays, and carts, and wagons, and omnibuses, and contriving by some strange means or other to get out of places which no other vehicle but the red cab could ever by any possibility have contrived to get into at all. Our fondness for that red cab is unbounded. How we should have liked to see it in the circle at Astley’s ! Our life upon it, that it should have performed such evolutions as would have put the whole company to shame — Indian chiefs, knights, Swiss peasants, and all. Some people object to the exertion of getting into cabs, and others object to the difficulty of getting out of them ; we think both these are objections which take their rise in perverse and ill-conditioned minds. The getting into a cab is a very pretty and graceful process, which, when well performed, is essentially melodra- matic. First, there is the expressive pantomime of every one of the eighteen cabmen on the stand, the moment you raise your eyes from the ground. Then there is your own pantomime in reply — quite a little ballet. Four cabs immedi- ately leave the stand, for your especial accom- modation ; and the evolutions of the animals who draw them are beautiful in the extreme, as they grate the wheels of the cabs against the curb-stones, and sport playfully in the kennel. You single out a particular cab, and dart swiftly towards it. One bound, and you are on the first step ; turn your body lightly round to the right, and you are on the second ; bend grace- fully beneath the reins, working round to the left at the same time, and you are in the cab. There is no difficulty in finding a seat : the apron knocks you comfortably into it at once, and off you go. — Scenes , Chap. 17. CANAL-BOAT— An American. I have mentioned my having been in some uncertainty and doubt, at first, relative to the sleeping-arrangements on board this boat. I remained in the same vague state of mind until ten o’clock or thereabouts, when, going below, I found, suspended on either side of the cabin, three long tiers of hanging book-shelves, de- signed apparently for volumes of the small oc- tavo size. Looking with greater attention at these contrivances (wondering to find such liter- ary preparations in such a place), I descried on each shelf a sort of microscopic sheet and blan- ket ; then I began dimly to comprehend that the passengers were the library, and that they were to be arranged, edgewise, on these shelves till morning. I was assisted to this conclusion by seeing some of them gathered round the master of the boat, at one of the tables, drawing lots with all the anxieties and passions of gamesters depicted in their countenances ; while others, with small pieces of card-board in their hands, were grop- ing among the shelves in search of numbers corresponding with those they had drawn. As soon as any gentleman found his number, he took possession of it by immediately undressing himself and crawling into bed. The rapidity with which an agitated gambler subsided into a snoring slumberer was one of the most singular effects I have ever witnessed. As to the ladies, they were already abed, behind the red curtain, which was carefully drawn and pinned up the centre ; though, as every cough, or sneeze, or whisper behind this curtain was perfectly audible before it, we had still a lively consciousness of their society. The politeness of the person in authority had secured to me a shelf in a nook near this red curtain, in some degree removed from the great body of sleepers — to which place I retired, with many acknowledgments to him for his attention. I found it, on after-measurement, just the width of an ordinary sheet of Bath post letter-paper ; and I was at first in some uncertainty as to the best means of getting into it. But, the shelf being a bottom one, 1 finally determined on lying upon the floor, rolling gently in, stopping immediately I touched the mattress, and remain- CANDLE 57 CAPTAIN CUTTLE ing for the night with that side uppermost, what- ever it might be. Luckily, I came upon my back at exactly the right moment. I was much alarmed, on looking upward, to see, by the shape of his half-yard of sacking (which his weight had bent into an exceedingly tight bag),- that there was a very heavy gentleman above me, whom the slender cords seemed quite incapable of holding ; and I could not help reflecting upon the grief of my wife and family in the event of his coming down in the night. But as I could not have got up again without a severe bodily struggle, which might have alarmed the ladies, and as I had nowhere to go to, even if I had, I shut my eyes upon the danger, and remained there. — American Notes , Chap. io. CANDLE— Lighting- a. The wretched candle burns down ; the woman takes its expiring end between her fin- gers, lights another at it, crams the guttering, frying morsel deep into the candlestick, and rams it home with the new candle, as if she were loading some ill-savored and unseemly weapon of witchcraft. — Edwin Drood, Chap. 23. CAPTAIN CUTTLE — His reverence for Science. “ I suppose he could make a clock if he tried ? ” “ I shouldn’t wonder, Captain Cuttle,” re- turned the boy. “ And it would go ! ” said Captain Cuttle, making a species of serpent in the air with his hook. “ Lord, how that clock would go ! ” ' . For a moment or two he seemed quite lost in contemplating the pace of this ideal timepiece, and sat looking at the boy as if his face were the dial. “ But he’s chockfull of science,” he observed, waving his hook towards the stock-in-trade. “ Look ’ye here ! Here’s a collection of ’em. Earth, air, or water. It’s all one. Only say where you’ll have it. Up in a balloon? There you are. Down in a bell ? There you are. D’ye want to put the North Star in a pair of scales and weigh it ? He’ll do it for you.” It may be gathered from these remarks that Captain Cuttle’s reverence for the stock of in- struments was profound, and that his philosophy knew little or no distinction between trading in it and inventing it. “ Ah !” he said, with a sigh, “ it’s a fine thing to understand ’em. And yet it’s a fine thing not to understand ’em. I hardly know 1 which is best. It’s so comfortable to sit here and feel that you might be weighed, measured, magnified, electrified, polarized, played the very devil with ; and never know how.” — Dombey 6° Son , Ch. 4. CAPTAIN CUTTLE— His observations and characteristics. His rooms were very small, and strongly im- pregnated with tobacco-smoke, but snug enough ; everything being stowed away, as if there were an earthquake regularly every half hour. — Ch. q. “ Sol Gills ! The observation as I’m a-going to make is calc’lated to blow every stitch of sail as you can carry, clean out of the bolt-ropes, and bring you on your beam ends with a lurch. Not one of them letters was ever delivered to Ed’ard Cuttle. Not one o’ them letters,” re- peated the Captain, to make his declaration the more solemn and impressive, “ was ever deliver- ed unto Ed’ard Cuttle, Mariner, of England, as lives at home at ease, and doth improve each shining hour ! ” — Chah. 56. “ And with regard to old Sol Gills,” here the Captain became solemn, “ who I’ll stand by, and not desert until death doe us part, when the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow — over haul the Catechism,” said the Captain paren- thetically, “ and there you’ll find them expres- sions — if it would console Sol Gills to have the opinion of a seafaring man as has got a mind equal to any undertaking that he puts it along- side of, and as was all but smashed in his ’pren- ticeship, and of which the name is Bunsby, that ’ere man shall give him such an opinion in his own parlor as’ll stun him. Ah ! ” said Captain Cuttle, vauntingly, “ as much as if he’d gone and knocked his head again a door ! ” — Ch. 23. “ My lady lass ! ” said the Captain, “ you’re as safe here as if you was at the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral, with the ladder cast off. Sleep is what you want, afore all other things, and may you be able to show yourself smart with that there balsam for the still small woice of a wounded mind ! When there’s anything you want, my Heart’s Delight, as this here humble house or' town can offer, pass the word to Ed’ard Cuttle, as’ll stand off and on outside that door, and that there man will wibrate with joy.” — Chap. 48. “ Wal’r is a lad as’ll bring as much success to that ’ere brig as a lad is capable on. Wal’r,” said the Captain, his eyes glistening with the praise of his young friend, and his hook raised to announce a beautiful quotation, “ is what you may call a out’ard and visible sign of a in’ard and spirited grasp, and when found, make a note of.” — Chap. 23. Florence had no words to answer with. She only said, “ Oh, dear, dear Paul ! oh, Walter !” “ The wery planks she walked on,” murmured the Captain, looking at her drooping face, “ was as high esteemed by Wal’r, as the water brooks is by the hart which never rejices ! I see him now, the wery day as he was rated on them Dombey books, a speaking of her with his face a glistening with doo — leastways with his modest sentiments — like a new blowed rose, at dinner. Well, well ! If our poor Wal’r was here, my lady lass — or if he could be — for he’s drownded, an’t he ? ” — Chap. 49. “ But the ship’s a good ship, and the lad’s a good lad ; and it ain’t easy, thank the Lord,” the Captain made a little bow, “ to break up hearts of oak, whether they’re in brigs or buz- zums. Here we have ’em both ways, which is bringing it up with a round turn, and so I ain’t a bit afeard as yet C—Chap. 23. “ Half a loaf’s better than no bread, and the same remark holds good with crumbs.” — Ch. to. “ Wal’r, my lad,” observed the Captain in a deep voice : “ stand by ! ” At the same time the Captain, coming a little further in, brought out his wide suit of blue, his conspicuous shirt-collar, and his knobby nose in CAPTAIN CUTTLE 58 CARDS full relief, and stood bowing to Mr. Dombey, and waving his hook politely to the ladies, with the hard glazed hat in his one hand, and a red equator round his head, which it had newly im- printed there. — Chap. io. “Wal’r, my boy," replied the Captain, “in the Proverbs of Solomon you will find the fol- lowing words, * May we never want a friend in need, nor a bottle to give him !’ When found, make a note of.” — Chap. 15. “ Bunsby,” said the Captain, striking home at once, “ here you are ; a man of mind, and a man as can give an opinion. Here’s a young lady as wants to take that opinion, in regard to my friend Wal’r ; likewise my t’other friend, Sol Gills, which is a character for you to come within hail of, being a man of science, which is the mo- ther of inwention, and knows no law.’’ — Ch. 23. The Captain, pale as Florence, pale in the very knobs upon his face, raised her like a baby, and laid her on the same old sofa upon which she had slumbered long ago. “It’s Heart’s Delight!” said the Captain, looking intently in her face. “ It’s the sweet creetur grow’d a woman ! ” Captain Cuttle was so respectful of her, and had such a reverence for her in this new charac- ter, that he would not have held her in his arms, while she was unconscious, for a thousand pounds. “ My Heart’s Delight ! ” said the Captain, withdrawing to a little distance, with the great- est alarm and sympathy depicted on his coun- tenance. “ If you can hail Ned Cuttle with a finger, do it ! ” But Florence did not stir. “ My Heart’s Delight ! ” said the trembling Captain. “ For the sake of Wal’r drownded in the briny deep, turn to, and histe up something or another, if able.” — Dombey Son , Ch. 48. CAPTAIN CUTTLE and Mrs. MacStinger. “We had some words about the swabbing of these here planks, and she— in short,” said the Captain, eyeing the door, and relieving himself with a long breath, “ she stopped my liberty.” “ Oh ! I wish she had me to deal with ! ” said Susan, reddening with the energy of the wish, “ I’d stop her ! ” “ Would you, do you think, my dear ? ” rejoined the Captain, shaking his head doubtfully, but re- garding the desperate courage of the fair aspirant with obvious admiration. “ I don’t know. It’s difficult navigation. She’s very hard to carry on with, my dear. You never can tell how she’ll head, you see. She’s full one minute, and round upon you next. And when she is a tartar,” said the Captain, with the perspiration breaking out upon his forehead — . There was nothing but a whistle emphatic enough for the conclusion of the sentence, so the Captain whistled tremu- lously. — Dombey dr* Son, Chap. 23. He * * * $ $ Honest Captain Cuttle, as the weeks flew over him in his fortified retreat, by no means abated any of his prudent provisions against surprise, because of the non-appearance of the enemy. The ( aptain argued that his present security was too profound and wonderful to endure much longer : he knew that when the wind stood in a fair quarter, the weathercock was seldom nailed there ; and he was too well acquainted with the determined and dauntless character of Mrs. Mac- Stinger, to doubt that that heroic woman had de- voted herself to the task of his discovery and cap- ture. Trembling beneath the weight of these reasons, Captain Cuttle lived a very close and re- tired life ; seldom stirring abroad until after dark ; venturing even then only into the obscurest streets ; never going forth at all on Sundays ; and both within and without the walls of his retreat, avoiding bonnets, as if they were worn by raging lions. The Captain never dreamed that in the event of his being pounced upon by Mrs. MacStinger, in his walks, it would be possible to offer resist- ance. He felt that it could not be done. He saw himself, in his mind’s eye, put meekly in a hackney-coach, and carried off to his old lodg- ings. He foresaw that, once immured there, he was a lost man. ****** “ Now, my lad, stand by ! If ever I’m took — ” “ Took, Captain ! ” interposed Rob, with his round eyes wide open. “Ah ! ” said Captain Cuttle, darkly, “ if ever I goes away, meaning to come back to supper, and don’t come within hail again twenty-four hours arter my loss, go you to Brig Place and whistle that ’ere tune near my old moorings — not as if you was a meaning of it, you understand, but as if you’d drifted there, promiscuous. If I answer in that tune, you sheer off, my lad, and come back four-and-twenty hours arterwards ; if I answer in another tune, do you stand off and on, and wait till I throw' out further signals.” Dombey < 2 r* Son, Chap. 32. CAPTAIN CUTTLE and Mr. Toots. “ Mr. Gills — ” “ Awast ! ” said the Captain. “ My name’s Cuttle.” Mr. Toots looked greatly disconcerted, while the Captain proceeded gravely. “ Cap’en Cuttle is my name, and England is my nation, this here is my dwelling-place, and blessed be creation — Job,” said the Captain, as an index to his authority. “ Oh ! I couldn’t see Mr. Gills, could I ?” said Mr. Toots ; “because — ” “ If you could see Sol Gills, young gen’l’m’n,” said the Captain, impressively, and laying his heavy hand on Mr. Toots’ knee, “ old Sol, mind you — wdth your own eyes — as you sit there — you’d be welcomer to me than a wind astarn to a ship becalmed. But you can’t see Sol Gills. And whjr can’t you see Sol Gills ? ” said the Captain, ap- prised by the face of Mr. Toots that he was making a profound impression on that gentle- man’s mind. “ Because he’s inwisible.” Do?nbey 6° Son, Chap. 32. CARDS— A game for love. Two people who cannot afford to play cards for money, sometimes sit down to a quiet game for love . — Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 1. CARDS-Of Callers. Next day, and the day after, and every day, all graced by more dinner company, cards descend- ed on Mr. Dorrit, like theatrical snow. Little Dorrit, Book II., Chap. 16. CARES 59 CATACOMBS OF ROME CARES— Second-hand. The confidential bachek r clerks in Tellson’s Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people ; and perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on. Tale of Two Cities , Chap. 4. CARES— The oppressiveness of. Although a man may lose a sense of his own importance when he is a mere unit among a busy throng, all utterly regardless of him, it by no means follows that he can dispossess himself, with equal facility, of a v.ery strong sense of the importance and magnitude of his cares. Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 16. CARPET-SHAKING— The pleasures of. It is not half as innocent a thing as it looks, that shaking little pieces of carpet — at least, there may be no great harm in the shaking, but the folding is a very insidious process. So long as the shaking lasts, and the two parties are kept the carpet’s length apart, it is as innocent an amusement as can well be devised ; but when the folding begins, and the distance between them gets gradually lessened from one-half its former length to a quarter, and then to an eighth, and then to a sixteenth, and then to a thirty- second, if the carpet be long enough : it becomes dangerous. We do not know, to a nicety, how many pieces of carpet were folded in this instance ; but we can venture to state that as many pieces as there were, so many times did Sam kiss the pretty housemaid. — Pickwick , Chap. 39. CARVING— The art of. We have already had occasion to observe that Mrs. Chirrup is an incomparable housewife. In all the arts of domestic arrangement and man- agement, in all the mysteries of confectionery- making, pickling, and preserving, never was such a thorough adept as that nice little body. She is, besides, a cunning worker in muslin and fine linen, and a special hand at marketing to the very best advantage. But if there be one branch of housekeeping in which she excels to an utter- ly unparalleled and unprecedented extent, it is in the important one of carving. A roast goose is universally allowed to be the great stumbling- block in the way of young aspirants to perfection in this department of science ; many promising carvers, beginning with legs of mutton, and preserving a good reputation through fillets of veal, sirloins of beef, quarters of lamb, fowls, and even ducks, have sunk before a roast goose, and lost ca'fete and character forever. To Mrs. Chirrup the resolving a goose into its smallest component parts is a pleasant pastime — a prac- tical joke — a thing to be done in a minute or so, without the smallest interruption to the conver- sation of the time. No handing the dish over to an unfortunate man upon her right or left, no wild sharpening of the knife, no hacking and sawing at an unruly joint, no noise, no splash, no heat, no leaving off in despair ; all is confi- dence and cheerfulness. The dish is set upon the table, the cover is removed ; for an instant, and only an instant, you observe that Mrs. Chir- rup’s attention is distracted ; she smiles, but heareth not. You proceed with your story ; meanwhile the glittering knife is slowly upraised, both Mrs. Chirrup’s wrists are slightly but not | ungracefully agitated, she compresses her lips for an instant, then breaks into a smile, and all is over. The legs of the bird slide gently down into a pool of gravy, the wings seem to melt from the body, the breast separates into a row of juicy slices, the smaller and more complicated parts of his anatomy are perfectly developed, a cavern of stuffing is revealed, and the goose is gone ! — C ketches of Couples. CAT— Mrs. Pipchin and Paul. Mrs. Pipchin had an old black cat, who gen- erally lay coiled upon the centre foot of the fender, purring egotistically, and winking at the fire until the contracted pupils of his eyes were like two notes of admiration. The good old lady might have been — ny> Chap. 4. SQUOD, PHIL. — “Shut up shop, Phil ! ” As Phil moves about to execute this order, it appears that he is lame, though able to move very quickly. On the speckled side of his face he has no eyebrow, and on the other side he has a bushy black one, which want of uniformity gives him a very singular and rather sinister ap- pearance. Everything seems to have happened to his hands that could possibly take place, con- sistently with the retention of all the fingers ; for they are notched, and seamed, and crumpled all over. He appears to be very strong, and lifts heavy benches about as if he had no idea what weight w r as. He has a curious way of limping round the gallery with his shoulder against the wall, and tacking off at objects he wants to lay hold of, instead of going straight to them, which has left a smear all round the four walls, conventionally called “ Phil’s mark.” ❖ * * * ❖ * The little man is dressed something like a gunsmith, in a green baize apron and cap ; and his face and hands are dirty with gunpowder, and begrimed with the loading of guns. As he lies in the light, before a glaring white target, the black upon him shines again. Not far off is the strong, rough, primitive table, with a vice upon it, at which he has been working. He is a little man with a face all crushed together, who appears, from a certain blue and speckled ap- pearance that one of his cheeks presents, to have been blown up, in the w'ay of business, at some odd time or times. — Bleak House , Chap. 21. STIGGLNS {the Reverend Shepherd). — “ Now, then ! ” said a shrill female voice the instant Sam thrust his head in at the door, “ what do you want, young man ? ” Sam looked round in the direction whence the voice proceeded. It came from a rather stout lady of comfortable appearance, who was seated beside the fire-place in the bar, blowing the fire to make the kettle boil for tea. She was not CHARACTERS AND 76 CHARACTERISTICS alone ; for on the other side of the fire-place, sitting bolt upright in a high-backed chair, was a man in threadbare black clothes, with a back almost as long and stiff as that of the chair itself, who caught Sam’s most particular and especial attention at once. He was a prim-faced, red nosed man, with a long, thin countenance, and a semi-rattlesnake sort of eye — rather sharp, but decidedly bad. He wore very short trousers, and black cotton stockings, which, like the rest of his apparel, were particularly rusty. His looks were starched, but his white neckerchief was not, and its long limp ends straggled over Jiis closely-buttoned waistcoat in a very uncouth and unpicturesque fashion. A pair of old, worn beaver gloves, a broad-brimmed hat, and a faded green umbrella, with plenty of whalebone sticking through the bottom, as if to counterbalance the want of a handle at the top, lay on a chair beside him, and, being disposed in a very tidy and careful man- ner, seemed to imply that the red-nosed man, whoever he was, had no intention of going away in a hurry. To do the red-nosed man justice, he would have been very far from wise if he had enter- tained any such intention ; for, to judge from all appearances, he must have been possessed of a most desirable circle of acquaintance, if he could have reasonably expected to be more comfortable anywhere else. The fire was blazing brightly under the influence of the bellows, and the ket- tle was singing gaily under the influence of both. A small tray of tea-things was arranged on the table, a plate of hot buttered toast was gently simmering before the fire, and the red nosed man himself was busily engaged in converting a large slice of bread into the same agreeable edible, through the instrumentality of a long brass toasting-fork. Beside him stood a glass of reeking hot pine-apple rum and water, with a slice of lemon in it ; and every time the red- nosed man stopped to bring the round of toast to his eye, with the view of ascertaining how it got on, he imbibed a drop or two of the hot pine-apple rum and water, and smiled upon the rather stout lady, as she blew the fire. Pickwick , Chap. 27. STRYVER (Lawyer). — So, he pushed open the door with the weak rattle in its throat, stumbled down the two steps, got past the two ancient cashiers, and shouldered himself into the musty back closet where Mr. Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron bars to his window as if that were ruled for fig- ures too, and everything under the clouds were a sum. “ Halloa ! ” said Mr. Stryver. “ How do you do ? I hope you are well ! ” It was Stryver’s grand peculiarity that he al- ways seemed too big for any place, or space. He was so much too big for Tcllson’s, that old clerks in distant corners looked up with looks of re- monstrance, as though he squeezed them against the wall. The House itself, magnificently read- ing the paper quite in the far-off perspective, lowered displeased, as if the Stryver head had been butted into its responsible waistcoat. Tale of 7 'wo Cities , Chap . 12. SI'RONG , Dr. — Doctor Strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall iron rails and gates outside the house ; and almost as stiff and heavy as the great stone urns that flanked them, and were set up, on the top of the red- brick wall, at regular distances all round the court, like sublimated slyttles, for Time to play at. He was in his library (I mean Doctor Strong was), with his clothes not particularly well- brushed, and his hair not particularly well- combed ; his knee-smalls unbraced ; his long black gaiters unbuttoned ; and his shoes yawn- ing like two caverns on the hearth-rug. 'fum- ing upon me a lustreless eye, that reminded me of a long-forgotten blind old horse who once used to crop the grass, and tumble over the graves, in Blunderstone churchyard, he said he was glad to see me ; and then he gave me his hand ; which I didn’t know what to do with, as it did nothing for itself. David Copperfield , Chap. 16. SWIVELLER , DICK. — It was perhaps not very unreasonable to suspect from what had al- ready passed, that Mr. Swiveller was not quite recovered from the effects of the powerful sun- light to which he had made allusion ; but if no such suspicion had been awakened by his speech, his wiry hair, dull eyes, and sallow face, would still have been strong witnesses against him. His attire was not, as he had himself hinted, remarkable for the nicest arrangement, but was in a state of disorder which strongly induced the idea that he had gone to bed in it. It con- sisted of a brown body-coat with a great many brass buttons up the front, and only one behind ; a bright check neckerchief, a plaid waistcoat, soiled white trousers, and a very limp hat, worn with the wrong side foremost, to hide a hole in the brim. The breast of his coat was ornamented with an outside pocket from which there peeped forth the cleanest end of a very large and very ill-favored handkerchief ; his dirty wristbands were pulled down as far as possible and ostenta- tiously folded back over his cuffs ; he displayed no gloves, and carried a yellow cane having at the top a bone hand with the semblance of a ring on its little finger and a black ball in its grasp. With all these personal advantages (to which may be added a strong savor of tobacco- smoke, and a prevailing greasiness of appear- ance) Mr. Swiveller leaned back in his chair with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and occasionally pitching his voice to the needful key, obliged the company with a few bars of an intensely dismal air, and then, in the middle of a note, relapsed into his former silence. Old Cunosity Shop , Chap. 2. TACKLE TON. — He didn’t look much like a Bridegroom, as he stood in the Carrier’s kit- chen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked down into the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic ill-conditioned self peering out of one little cor- ner of one little eye, like the concentrated es- sence of any number of ravens. But, a Bride- groom he designed to be. Cricket on the Hearth , Chap. 1. TAPPER TIT, SIMON. — Sim, as he was called in the locksmith’s family, or Mr. Simon Tappertit, as he called himself, and required all men to style him out of doors, on holidays, and CHARACTEItS AND 77 CHASA 3TEHI3TIC3 Sundays out — was an old-fashioned, thin-faced, sleek-haired, sharp-nosed, small eyed little fel- low, very little more than five feet high, and thoroughly convinced in his own mind that he was above the middle size ; rather tall, in fact, than otherwise. Of his figure, which was well enough formed, though somewhat of the leanest, he entertained the highest admiration ; and with his legs, which, in knee-breeches, were perfect curiosities of littleness, he was enraptured to a degree amounting to enthusiasm. He also had some majestic, shadowy ideas, which had never been quite fathomed by his intimate friends, concerning the power of his eye. Indeed, he had been known to go so far as to boast that he could utterly quell and subdue the haughtiest beauty by a simple process, which he termed “ eyeing her over ; ” but it must be added, that neither of this faculty, nor of the power he claim- ed to have, through the same gift, of vanquishing and heaving down dumb animals, even in a rabid state, had he ever furnished evidence which could be deemed quite satisfactory and conclusive. It may be inferred from these premises, that in the small body of Mr. Tappertit there was locked up an ambitious and aspiring soul. As certain liquors, confined in casks too cramped in their dimensions, will ferment, and fret, and chafe in their imprisonment, so the spiritual es- sence or soul of Mr. Tappertit. would sometimes fume within that previous cask, his body, until, with great foam and froth and splutter, it would force a vent, and carry all before it. It was his custom to remark, in reference to any one of these occasions, that his soul had got into his head ; and in this novel kind of intoxication, many scrapes and mishaps befell him, which he had frequently concealed with no small difficulty from his worthy master. Sim Tappertit, among the other fancies upon which his before-mentioned soul was for ever feasting and regaling itself (and which fancies, like the liver of Prometheus, grew as they were fed upon), had a mighty notion of his order ; and had been heard by the servant-maid openly ex- piessing his regret that the ’prentices no longer carried clubs wherewith to mace the citizens ; that was his strong expression. * * * * * * In respect of dress and personal decoration, Sim Tappertit was no less of an adventurous and enterprising character. He had been seen beyond dispute to pull off ruffles' of the finest quality at the corner of the street on Sunday night, and to put them carefully in his pocket before returning home ; and it was quite notori- ous that on all great holiday occasions it was his habit to exchange his plain steel knee-buckles for a pair of glittering paste, under cover of a friendly post, planted most conveniently in that same spot. Add to this, that he was in years just twenty, in his looks much older, and in con- ceit at least two hundred ; that he had no ob- jection to be jested with, touching his admira- tion of his master’s daughter ; and had even, when called upon at a certain obscure tavern to pledge the lady whom he honored with his love, toasted with many winks and leers, a fair crea- ture whose Christian name, he said, began with a P — I — and as much is known of Sim Tappertit, who has by this time followed the locksmith in to breakfast, as is necessary to be known in making his acquaintance . — Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 4. TIBBS , Mr. and Mrs. — Mrs. Tibbs was somewhat short of stature, and Mr. Tibbs was by no means a large man. He had, moreover, very short legs, but, by way of indemnification, his face was peculiarly long. He was to his wife what the o is in 90 — he was of some impor- tance with her — he was nothing without her. Mrs. Tibbs was always talking. Mr. Tibbs rarely spoke ; but, if it were at any time possible to put in a word when he should have said nothing at all, he had that talent. Mrs. Tibbs detested long stories, and Mr. Tibbs had one, the conclusion of which had never been heard by his most intimate friends. It always began, “ I recollect when I was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred and six,” — but, as he spoke very slowly and softly, and his better half very quickly and loudly, he rarely got beyond the introductory sentence. He was a melancholy specimen of the story-teller. He was the wan- dering jew of Joe Millerism. Tales. The Boarding-House , Chap. 1. TIGG, MONTAGUE.— Mr. Pecksniff found himself immediately collared by something which smelt like several damp umbrellas, a barrel of beer, a cask of warm brandy-and-water, and a small parlor-full of stale tobacco-smoke mixed ; and was straightway led down stairs into the bar from which he had lately come, where he found himself standing opposite to, and in the grasp of, a perfectly strange gentleman of still stranger appearance, who, with his disengaged hand, rubbed his own head very hard, and looked at him, Pecksniff, with an evil counte- nance. The gentleman was of that order of appear- ance which is currently termed shabby-genteel, though in respect of his dress he can hardly be said to have been in any extremities, as his fin- gers were a long way out of his gloves, and the soles of his feet were at an inconvenient dis- tance from the upper leather of his boots. His nether garments were of a bluish gray — violent in its colors once, but sobered now by age and din- giness — and were so stretched and strained in a tough conflict between his braces and his straps, that they appeared every moment in danger of flying asunder at the knees. His coat, in color blue and of a military cut, was buttoned and frogged up to his chin. His cravat was, in hue and pattern, like one of those mantles which hair-dressers are accustomed to wrap about their clients, during the progress of the professional mysteries. His hat had arrived at such a pass that it would have been hard to determine whether it was originally white or black. But he wore a moustache — a shaggy moustache, too ; nothing in the meek and merciful way, but quite in the fierce and scornful style ; the regular Sa- tanic sort of thing — and he wore, besides, a vast quantity of unbrushed hair. He was very dirty and very jaunty ; very bold and very mean ; very swaggering and very slinking ; very much like a man who might have been something bet- ter, and unspeakably like a man who deserved to be something worse. Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 4. TIGG ( the Financier *.) — The appearance of Mr. Bailey’s governor as he drove along, fully justified that enthusiastic youth’s description of him to the wondering Poll. He had a world C H AH A. CTE R 3 AND 73 CHARACTERISTIC! of jet-black shining hair upon his head, upon his cheeks, upon his chin, upon his upper lip. His clothes, symmetrically made, were of the newest fashion and the costliest kind. Flowers of gold and blue, and green and blushing red, were on his waistcoat ; precious chains and jew- els sparkled on his breast ; his fingers, clogged with brilliant rings, were as unwieldy as summer flies but newly rescued from a honey-pot. The daylight mantled in his gleaming hat and boots as in a polished glass. And yet, though changed his name, and changed his outward surface, it was Tigg. Though turned and twisted upside down, and inside out, as great men have been sometimes known to be ; though no longer Mon- tague Tigg, but Tigg Montague ; still it was Tigg ; the same Satanic, gallant, military Tigg. The brass was burnished, lacquered, newly- stamped ; yet it was the true Tigg metal not- withstanding. — Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap . 27. TOODLE , Mr. — He was a strong, loose, round shouldered, shuffling, shaggy fellow, on whom his clothes sat negligently ; with a good deal of hair and whisker, deepened in its natural tint, perhaps, by smoke and coal-dust ; hard knotty hands ; and a square forehead, as coarse in grain as the bark of an oak. ****** He was dressed in a canvas suit abundantly besmeared with coal-dust and oil, and had cin- ders in his whiskers, and a smell of half-slaked ashes all over him. He was not a bad-looking fellow, nor even what could be fairly called a dirty looking fellow, in spite of this ; and, in short, he was Mr. Toodle, professionally clothed. Dombey Son, Chap. 2. TOOTS, Mr . — There young Toots was, pos- sessed of the gruffest of voices and the shrillest of minds ; sticking ornamental pins into his shirt, and keeping a ring in his waistcoat pocket to put on his little finger by stealth, when the pupils went out walking ; constantly falling in love by sight with nurserymaids, who had no idea of his existence; and looking- at the gas- lighted world over the little iron bars in the left-hand corner window of the front three pairs of stairs, after bed-time, like a greatly overgrown cherub who had sat up aloft much too long. Dojnbey & Son, Chap. 11. TOTTLE, WATICINS [a Bachelor).— Mr. Watkins Tottle was a rather uncommon com- pound of strong uxorious inclinations, and an unparalleled degree of anti-connubial timidity. Fie was about fifty years of age ; stood four feet six inches and three-quarters in his socks — for he never stood in stocking at all — plump, clean, and rosy. lie looked something like a vignette to one of Richardson’s novels, and had a clean- crava/idi formality of manner, and kitchen- pokcrness of carriage, which Sir Charles Grandi- son himself might have envied. lie lived on an annuity, which was well adapted to the indi- vidual who received it, in one respect — it was rather small. He received it in periodical payments on every alternate Monday ; but he ran himself out, about a day after the expiration of the first week, as regularly as an eight-day clock ; and then, lo make the comparison com- plele, his landlady wound him up, and he went ou with a regular tick. Mr. Watkins Tottle had long lived in a state of single blessedness, as bachelors say, or single cursedness, as spinsters think ; but the idea of matrimony had never ceased to haunt him. Tales , Chap. 10 . 7'UGGSES, 7'he. — Once upon a time, there dwelt, in a narrow street on the Surrey side of the water, within three minutes’ walk of old London Bridge, Mr. Joseph Tuggs — a little dark- faced man, with shiny hair, twinkling eyes, short legs, and a body of very considerable thickness, measuring from the centre button of his waist- coat in front to the ornamental buttons of his coat behind. The figure of the amiable Mrs. Tuggs, if not perfectly symmetrical, was decided- ly comfortable ; and the form of her only daugh- ter, the accomplished Miss Charlotte Tuggs, was fast ripening into that state of luxuriant plump- ness which had enchanted the eyes, and capti- vated the heart, of Mr. Joseph Tuggs in his earlier days. Mr. Simon Tuggs, his only son, and Miss Charlotte Tuggs’s only brother, was as differently formed in body, as he was differently constituted in mind, from the remainder of his family. There was that elongation in his thoughtful face, and that tendency to weakness in his interesting legs, which tell so forcibly of a great mind and romantic disposition. The slightest traits of character in such a being pos- sess no mean interest to speculative minds. He usually appeared in public in capacious shoes, with black cotton stockings ; and was observed to be particularly attached to a black glazed stock, without tie or ornament of any descrip- tion. — Tales, Chap. 4. TURVEYDROP (. Deportment ).— Just then, there appeared from a side-door old Mr. Turvey- drop, in the full lustre of his Deportment. He was a fat old gentleman, with a false com- plexion, false teeth, false whiskers, and a wig. He had a fur collar, and he had a padded breast to his coat, which only wanted a star or a broad blue ribbon to be complete. He was pinched in, and swelled out, and got up, and strapped down, as much as he could possibly bear. He had such a neckcloth on (puffing his very eyes out of their natural shape), and his chin and even his ears so sunk into it, that it seemed as though he must inevitably double up, if it were cast loose. He had, under his arm, a hat of great size and weight, shelving downward from the crown to the brim ; and in his hand a pair of white gloves, with which he flapped it, as he stood poised on one leg, in a high shouldered, round-elbowed state of elegance not to be sur- passed. He had a cane, he had an eye-glass, he had a snuff-box, he had rings, he had wristbands, he had everything but any touch of nature ; he was not like youth, he was not like age, he was not like anything in the world but a model of Deportment. “ Father ! A visitor. Miss Jellyby’s friend, Miss Summerson.” “Distinguished,” said Mr. Turveydrop, “ by Miss Summerson’s presence.” As he bowed to me in that tight state, I almost believe I saw creases come into the whites of his eyes. Bleak House, Chap. 14 . VAGABOND, A . — This last man was an ad- mirable specimen of a class of gentry which CHARACTERS AND 79 CHARACTERISTICS never can be seen in full perfection but in such places ; they may be met with, in an imperfect state, occasionally about stable-yards and pub- lic-houses ; but they never attain their full bloom except in these hot-beds, which would almost seem to be considerately provided by the Legis- lature for the sole purpose of rearing them. He was a tall fellow, with an olive complexion, long dark hair, and very thick bushy whiskers meeting under his chin. He wore no necker- chief, as he had been playing rackets all day, and his open shirt-collar displayed their full luxuriance. On his head he wore one of the common eighteenpenny French skull-caps, with a gaudy tassel dangling therefrom, very happily in keeping with the common fustian coat. His legs — which, being long, were afflicted with weakness — graced a pair of Oxford-mixture trou - sers, made to show the full symmetry of those limbs. Being somewhat negligently braced, how- ever, and, moreover, but imperfectly buttoned, they fell in a series of not the most graceful folds over a pair of shoes sufficiently down at heel to display a pair of very soiled white stockings. There was a rakish, vagabond smartness, and a kind of boastful rascality, about the whole man, that was worth a mine of gold. This figure was the first to perceive that Mr. Pickwick was looking on ; upon which he winked to the Zephyr, and entreated him, with mock gravity, not to wake the gentleman. Pickwick , Chap. 41. V HOLES ( the Lawyer). — Mr. Vholes is a very respectable man. He has not a large bus- iness, but he is a very respectable man. He is allowed by the greater attorneys who have made good fortunes, or are making them, to be a most respectable man. He never misses a chance in his practice ; which is a mark of respectability. He never takes any pleasure ; which is another mark of respectability. He is reserved and serious ; which is another mark of respectability. His digestion is impaired, which is highly re- spectable. And he is making hay of the grass which is flesh, for his three daughters. And his father is dependenc on him in the Vale of Taun- ton. The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme, and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make bus- iness for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble. — Bleak House , Chap. 39. WEMMICK , Mr. — Casting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see what he was like in the light of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wood- en face, whose expression seemed to have been imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. There were some marks in it that might have been dimples, if the material had been softer and the instrument finer,- but which, as it was, were only dints. The chisel had made three or four of these attempts at embellishment over his nose, but had given them up without an effort to smooth them off. I judged him to be a bachelor | from the frayed condition of his linen, and he ! appeared to have sustained a good many bereave* ments ; for he wore at least four mourning rings, besides a brooch representing a lady and a weeping willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, that several rings and seals hung at his watch-chain, as if he were quite laden with remembrances of departed friends. He had glit- tering eyes — small, keen, and black — and thin wide mottled lips. He had had them, to the best of my belief, from forty to fifty years. * - 55 - * -* * * He wore his hat on the back of his head, and looked straight before him ; walking in a self- contained way as if there were nothing in the streets to claim his attention. His mouth was such a post-office of a mouth that he had a me- chanical appearance of smiling. We had got to the top of Holborn Hill before I knew that it was merely a mechanical appearance, and that he was not smiling at all. Great Expectations , Chap. 21. WLLFER , REGLNALD, the Conventional Cherub. — Reginald Wilfer is a name with rathei a grand sound, suggesting on first acquaintance brasses in country churches, scrolls in stained- glass windows, and generally the De Wilfers who came over with the Conqueror, For it is a re- markable fact in genealogy that no De Anyones ever came over with Anybody else. But, the Reginald Wilfer family were of such common-place extraction and pursuits, that their forefathers had for generations modestly subsisted on the Docks, the Excise Office and the Custom House, and the existing R. Wilfer was a poor clerk. So poor a clerk, though hav- ing a limited salary and an unlimited family, that he had never yet attained the modest object of his ambition ; which was, to wear a complete new suit of clothes, hat and boots included, at one time. His black hat was brown before he could afford a coat, his pantaloons were white at the seams and knees before he could buy a pair of boots, his boots had worn out before he could treat himself to new pantaloons, and, by the time he worked round to the hat again, that shining modern article roofed-in an ancient ruin of va- rious periods. If the conventional Cherub could ever grow up and be clothed, he might be photographed as a portrait of Wilfer. His chubby, smooth, in- nocent appearance was a reason for his being always treated with condescension when he was not put down. A stranger entering his own poor house at about ten o’clock p.m. might have been surprised to find him sitting up to supper. So boyish was he in his curves and proportions, that his old schoolmaster, meeting him in Cheap- side, might have been unable to withstand the temptation of caning him on the spot. In short, he was the conventional Cherub, rather gray, with signs of care on his expression, and in decidedly insolvent circumstances. ^ ^ sfc He was shy, and unwilling to own to the name of Reginald, as being too aspiring and self-assertive a name. In his signature he used only the initial R., and imparted what it really stood for, to none but chosen friends, under the seal of confidence. Out of this, the facetious habit had arisen in the neighborhood surround- ing Mincing Lane of making Christian names for him of adjectives and participles beginning CHARACTERS AND 80 CHARACTERISTICS with R. Some of these were more or less appro- priate : as Rusty, Retiring, Ruddy, Round, Ripe, Ridiculous, Ruminative ; others derived their point from their want of application, as Raging, Rattling, Roaring, Raffish. But his popular name was Rumty, which in a moment of inspi- ration had been bestowed upon him by a gentle- man of convivial habits connected with the drug market, as the beginning of a social chorus, his leading part in the execution of which had led this gentleman to the Temple of Fame, and of which the whole expressive burden ran : “ Rumty, idclify, row dow dow, Sing toodlely, teed lei y, bow wow wow.” Thus he was constantly addressed, even in minor notes on business, as “ Dear Rumty ; ” in answer to which, he sedately 'signed himself, “Yours truly, R. Wilfer.” Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap. 4. WILICINS , SAMUEL.— Mr. Samuel Wil- kins was a carpenter, a journeyman carpenter, of small dimensions, decidedly below the middle size — bordering, perhaps, upon the dwarfish. His face was round and shining, and his hair carefully twisted into the outer corner of each eye, till it formed a variety of that description of semi- curls, usually known as “ aggerawators.” IT is earnings were all-sufficient for his wants, varying from eighteen shillings to one pound five, weekly — his manner undeniable — his Sabbath waist- coats dazzling. — Sketches ( Characters ), Chap. 4. WILLIAM , , Mr. and Mrs.— Mrs. William, like Mr. William, was a simple, innocent-looking person, in whose smooth cheeks the cheerful red of her . husband’s official waistcoat was very pleasantly repeated. But whereas Mr. Wil- liam’s light hair stood on end all over his head, and seemed to draw his eyes up with it in an excess of bustling readiness for anything, the dark brown hair of Mrs. William was carefully smoothed down, and waved away under a trim tidy cap, in the most exact and quiet manner imaginable. Whereas Mr. William’s very trou- sers hitched themselves up at the ankles, as if it were not in their iron-gray nature to rest with- out looking about them, Mrs. William’s neatly- flowered skirts — red and white, like her own pretty face — were as composed and orderly as if the very wind that blew so hard out of doors could not disturb one of their folds. Whereas his coat had something of a fly-away and half-off appearance about the collar and breast, her little bodice was so placid and neat, that there should have been protection for her, in it, had she needed any, with the roughest people. Who could have had Lhe heart to make so calm a bosom swell with grief, or throb with fear, or flutter with a thought of shame ! To whom would its repose and peace have not appealed against disturb- ance, like the innocent slumber of a child ! Haunted Man , Chap. 1. WIT \ a “ Social .” — lie could imitate the French horn to admiration, sang comic songs most inimitably, and had the most insinuating way of saying impertinent nothings to his doting female admirers. He had acquired, somehow or other, the reputation of being a great wit, and accordingly, whenever he opened his mouth, everybody who knew him laughed very heartily. 7 'ales, Chap. 1 1 . W A TER BROOK, Mr., and Company. — 1 found Mr. Waterbrook to be a middle-aged gen- tleman, with a short throat, and a good deal of shirt collar, who only wanted a black nose to be the portrait of a pug dog. He told me he was happy to have the honor of making my acquaint- ance ; and when I had paid my homage to Mrs. Waterbrook, presented me, with much cere- mony, to a very awful lady in a black velvet dress, and a great black velvet hat, whom I re- member as looking like a near relation of Ham- let’s — say his aunt. Mrs. Henry Spiker was this lady’s name ; and her husband was there too ; so cold a man, that his head, instead of being gray, seemed to be sprinkled with hoar frost. Immense deference was shown to the Henry Spikers, male and fe- male, which Agnes told me was on account of Mr. Henry Spiker being solicitor to something or to somebody, I forget what or which, remotely connected with the Treasury. I found Uriah Heep among the company, in a suit of black, and in deep humility. He told me, when I shook hands with him, that he was proud to be noticed by me, and that he really felt obliged to me for my condescension. I could have wished he had been less obliged to me, for he hovered about me in his gratitude all the rest of the evening ; and whenever I said a word to Agnes, was sure, with his shadowless eyes and cadaverous face, to be looking gauntly down upon us from behind. There were other guests — all iced for the oc- casion, as it struck me, like the wine. But there was one who attracted my attention before he came in, on account of my hearing him an- nounced as Mr. Traddles ! My mind flew back to Salem House; and could it be Tommy, I thought, who used to draw the skeletons ! I looked for Mr. Traddles with unusual inter- est. He was a sober, steady-looking young man, of retiring manners, with a comic head of hair, and eyes that were rather wide open ; and he got into an obscure corner so soon, that I had some difficulty in making him out. At length I had a good view*of him, and either my vision de- ceived me, or it was the old unfortunate Tommy. David Copper field, Chap. 25. CHARACTERS— General Description of. Tobacco-smoky Frenchman in Algerine wrap- per, with peaked hood behind, who might be Abd-el-Kader dyed rifle-green, and who seems to be dressed entirely in dirt and braid, carries pineapples in a covered basket. Tall, grave, melancholy Frenchman, with black Vandyke beard, and hair close-cropped, with expansive chest to waistcoat, and compressive waist to coat : saturnine as to his pantaloons, calm as to his feminine boots, precious as to his jewelry, smooth and white as to his linen ; dark-eyed, high-foreheaded, hawk-nosed — got up, one thinks, like Lucifer, or Mephistopheles, or Za- miel, transformed into a highly genteel Parisian — has the green end of a pineapple sticking out of his neat valise. — A Flight. — Reprinted Pieces. CHARACTERS. -A Haunted Man. Who could have seen his hollow cheek, his sunken brilliant eye ; his black-attired figure, indefinably grim, although well-knit and well- proportioned ; his grizzled hair hanging, like tangled sea-weed, about his face — as if he had CHARACTERS AND 81 CHARACTERISTICS been, through his whole life, a lonely mark for hj the chafing anci beating of the great deep of | humanity — but might have said he looked like a i 1 haunted man ? — Haunted Alan, Chap. i. It was the voice of the same Richard, who had ; come upon them unobserved, and stood before the father and daughter ; looking down upon them with a face as glowing as the iron on which his stout sledge-hammer daily rung. A hand- some, well-made, powerful youngster he was ; with eyes that sparkled like the' red-hot drop- pings from a furnace-fire ; black hair that curled about his swarthy temples rarely ; and a smile — a smile that bore out Meg’s eulogium on his : style of conversation. Christinas Chimes , 1st Quarter. CHARACTERS— A Eamily Party at Peck- sniff’s, | If ever Mr. Pecksniff wore an apostolic look, he wore it on this memorable day. If ever his unruffled smile proclaimed the words : “ I am a messenger of peace ! ” that was its mission now. If ever man combined within himself all the I mild qualities of the lamb with a considerable touch of the dove, and not a dash of the croeo- | dile, or the least possible suggestion of the very I mildest seasoning of the serpent, that man was | he. And, oh, the two Miss Pecksniff's ! Oh, the serene expression on the face of Charity, which seemed to say, “ I know that all my family have i injured me beyond the possibility of reparation, ) but I forgive them, for it is my duty so to do ! ” I And, oh, the gay simplicity of Mercy ; so charm- | ing, innocent, and infant-like, that if she had gone out walking by herself, and it had been a little earlier in the season, the robin-redbreasts I might have covered her with leaves against her will, believing her to be one of the sweet chil- j dren in the wood, come out of it, and issuing | forth once more to look for blackberries, in the | young freshness of her heart ! What words can | paint the Pecksniffs in that trying hour ? Oh, | none ; for words have naughty company among I them, and the Pecksniffs were all goodness ! 1 Fut when the company arrived ! That was the time. When Mr. Pecksniff, rising from his seat at the table’s head, with a.daughter on either ij hand, received his guests in the best parlor and I motioned them to chairs, with eyes so pver- flovving a _nd countenance so damp with gracious I perspiration, that he may be said to have been in jj a kind of moist meekness ! And the company ; li the jealous, stony-hearted, distrustful company,’ who were all shut up in themselves, and had no faith in anybody, and wouldn’t believe anything, i an d would no more allow themselves to be soft- ened or lulled asleep by the Pecksniffs than if they had been so many hedgehogs or porcupines ! First, there was Mr. Spottletoe, who was so bald and had such big whiskers, that he seemed to have stopped his hair, by the sudden applica- tion of some powerful remedy, in the very act of falling off his head, and to have fastened it irre- vocably on his face. Then there was Mrs. Spot- tletoe, who, being too slim for her years, and of . a poetical constitution, was accustomed to inform her more intimate friends that the said whiskers were “ the lodestar of her existence and who could now, by reason of her strong affection for her uncle Chuzzlewit, and the shock it gave her to be suspected of testamentary designs upon 6 ' him, do nothing but cry — except moan. Then there was Anthony Chuzzlewit, and his son Jonas : the face of the old man so sharpened by the wariness and cunning of his life, that it seemed to cut him a passage through the crowd- ed room, as he edged away behind the remotest chairs ; while the son had so well profited by the precept and example of the father, that he looked a year or two the elder of the twain, as they stood winking their red eyes, side by side, and whispering to each other softly. Then there was the widow of a deceased brother of Mr. Mar- tin Chuzzlewit, who being almost supernaturally disagreeable, and having a dreary face and a bony figure and a masculine voice, was, in right of these qualities, what is commonly called a strong-minded woman ; and who, if she could, would have established her claim to the title, and have shown herself, mentally speaking, a perfect Samson, by shutting up her brother-in- law in a private mad-house, until he proved his complete sanity by loving her very much. Be- side her sat her spinster daughters, three in num- ber, and of gentlemanly deportment, who had so mortified themselves with tight stays, that their tempers were reduced to something less than their waists, and sharp lacing was expressed in their very noses. Then there was a young gentleman, grand-nephew of Mr. Martin Chuz- zlewit, very dark and very hairy, and apparently born for no particular purpose but to save look- j n g-gl asses the trouble of reflecting more than just the first idea and sketchy notion of a face, which had never been carried out. Then there was a solitary female cousin who was remarkable for nothing but being very deaf, and living by herself, and always having the toothache. Then there was George Chuzzlewit, a gay bachelor- cousin, who claimed to be young, but had been younger, and was inclined to corpulency, and rather, over-fed himself : to that extent, indeed, that his eyes were strained in their sockets, as if with constant surprise ; and he had such an ob- vious disposition to pimples, that the bright spots on his cravat, the rich pattern on his waist- coat, and even his glittering trinkets, seemed to have broken out upon him, and not to have come into existence comfortably. Last of all there were present Mr. Chevy Slyme and his friend Tigg. And it is worthy of remark, that although each person present disliked the other,, mainly because he or she did belong to the family, they one and all concurred in hating Mr. Tigg because he didn’t. SS Such was the pleasant little family circle now assembled in Mr. Pecksniff’s best parlor, agree- ably prepared to fall foul of Mr. Pecksniff or any- body else who might venture to say anything whatever upon any subject. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap . 4. CHARACTERS — Miscellaneous. A corpulent man, with a fortnight’s napkin under his arm and coeval stockings on his legs. Pickwick , Chap. 22. “ Humph ! Caleb, come here ! Who’s that with the gray hair ? ” “ I don't know, sir,” returned Caleb, in a whisper. “ Never see him before, in all my life. A beautiful figure for a nut-cracker ; quite a new model. With a screw-jaw opening down into his waistcoat, he’d be lovely.” CHARACTERS AND 82 CHARACTERISTICS “ Not ugly enough,” said Tackleton. “Or for a fire-box, either,” observed Caleb, in deep eontemplation, “ what a model ! Unscrew his heacl to put the matches in ; turn him heels up’ards for the light ; and what a fire-box for a gentleman’s mantel-shelf, just as he stands ! ” “ Not half ugly enough,” said Tackleton. “No- thing in him at all.” Cricket on the Hearth , Chap. i. Two other gentlemen had come out with him. One was a low-spirited gentleman of middle age, of a meagre habit, and a disconsolate face ; who kept his hands continually in the pockets of his scanty pepper-and-salt trousers, very large and dog’s eared from that •custom ; and was not par- ticularly well brushed or washed. The other, a full sized, sleek, well-conditioned gentleman, in a blue coat with bright buttons, and a white cravat. This gentleman had a very red face, as if an undue proportion of the blood in his body were squeezed up into his head ; which perhaps accounted for his having also the appearance of being rather cold about the heart. Christmas Chimes , 1st Quarter. A mighty man at cutting and drying, he was ; a government officer ; in his way (and in most other people’s too) a professed pugilist ; always in training, always with a system to force down the general throat like a bolus, always to be heard of at the bar of his little Public-office, ready to fight All England. To continue in fistic phrase- ology, he had a genius for coming up to the scratch, wherever and whatever it was, and prov ing himself an ugly customer. He would go in and damage any subject whatever with his right, follow up with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore his opponent (he always fought All Eng- land) to the ropes, and fall upon him neatly. He was certain to knock the wind out of com- mon sense, and render that unlucky adversary deaf to the call of time. Hard Times , Book /., Chap. 2 . There was a hanger on at that establishment (a supernaturally preserved Druid, I believe him to have been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off : who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who seemed to be ever watching for the reap- pearance, on the verge of the horizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that had been mu ton for many ages. He was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them ; likewise, that any one who counted them three times nine times, and then stood in the centre and said “ I dare ! ” would behold a tremendous apparition, and be stricken dead. The Holly- Tree. CHARACTERS— Female. MISS M URD STONE.— It was Miss Murd- stone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she was ; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and voice ; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose, as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers, she had car- ried them to that account. She brought with her two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the coachman she look her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady al- together as Miss Murdstone was. * * * * * * She began to “ help ” my mother next morn- ing, and was in and out of the store-closet all day, putting things to rights, and making havoc in the old arrangements. Almost the first re- markable thing I observed in Miss Murdstone was, her being constantly haunted by a suspicion that the servants had a man secreted somewhere on the premises. Under the influence of this delusion, she dived into the coal-cellar at the most untimely hours, and scarcely ever opened the door of a dark cupboard without clapping it to again, in the belief that she had got him. Though there was nothing very airy about Miss Murdstone, she was a perfect Lark in point of getting up. She was up (and, as I believe to this hour, looking for that man) before anybody in the house was stirring. Peggotty gave it as her opinion that she even slept with one eye open ; but I could not concur in this idea ; for I tried it myself after hearing the suggestion thrown out, and found it couldn’t be done. David Copperfield , Chap. 4 . CLEMENCY NE WCOME.— She was about thirty years old, and had a sufficiently plump and cheerful face, though it was twisted up into an odd expression of tightness that made it comical. But the extraordinary homeliness of her gait and manner would have superseded any face in the world. To say that she had two left legs, and somebody else’s arms, and that all four limbs seemed to be out of joint, and to start from per- fectly wrong places when they were set in mo- tion, is to offer the mildest outline of the reality. To say that she was perfectly content and satis- fied with these arrangements, and regarded them as being no business of hers, and that she took her arms and legs as they came, and allowed them to dispose of themselves just as it happened, is to render faint justice to her equanimity. Her dress was a prodigious pair of self-willed shoes, that never wanted to go where her feet went ; blue stockings ; a printed gown of many colors and the most hideous pattern procurable for money ; and a white apron. She always wore short sleeves, and always had, by some accident, grazed elbows, in which she took so lively an interest, that she was continually trying to turn them round and get impossible views of them. In general, a little cap perched somewhere on her head ; though it was rarely to be met with in the place usually occupied in other subjects by that article of dress ; but from head to foot she was scrupulously clean, and maintained a kind of dislocated tidiness. Indeed, her laudable anxiety to be tidy and compact in her own con- science as well as in the public eye, gave rise to one of her most startling evolutions, which was to grasp herself sometimes by a sort of wooden handle (part of her clothing, and familiarly called a busk), and wrestle as it were with her gar- ments, until they fell into a symmetrical arrange- ment. — The Battle of Life, Chap. I. TEGGOTTY . — The first objects that assume a distinct presence before me, as I look far back, CHARACTERS AND 83 CHARACTERISTICS into the blank of my infancy, are my mother, with her pretty hair and youthful shape, and Peggotty, with no shape at all, and eyes so dark that they seemed to darken their whole neigh- borhood in her face, and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wondered that the birds didn’t peck her in preference to apples. I believe I can remember these two at a little distance apart, dwarfed to my sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and I going un- steadily from the one to the other. I have an impression on my mind which I cannot distin- guish from actual remembrance, of the touch of Peggotty’s fore-finger as she used to hold it out to me, and of its being roughened by needle- work, like a pocket nutmeg-grater. David Copper field. Chap. 2. DOLL Y V ARDEN .— How well she looked ! Well? Why, if he had exhausted every lauda- tory adjective in the dictionary, it wouldn’t have been praise enough. When and where was there ever such a plump, roguish, comely, bright-eyed, enticing, bewitching, captivating, maddening lit- tle puss in all this world, as Dolly ! What was the Dolly of five years ago to the Dolly of that day ! How many coach-makers, saddlers, cabinet-ma- kers, and professors of other useful arts, had de- serted their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and, most of all, their cousins, for the love of her ! How many unknown gentlemen — supposed to be of mighty fortunes, if not titles — had waited round the corner after dark, and tempted Miggs, the incorruptible, with golden guineas, to deliver offers of marriage folded up in love letters ! How many disconsolate fathers and substantial trades- men had waited on the locksmith for the same purpose, with dismal tales of how their sons had lost their appetites, and taken to shut themselves up in dark bed-rooms, and wandering in deso- late suburbs with pale faces, and all because of Dolly Varden’s loveliness and cruelty ! How many young men, . in all previous times of unpre- cedented steadiness, had turned suddenly wild and wicked for the same reason, and, in an ecstasy of unrequited love, taken to wrench off door knockers, and invert the boxes of rheu- matic watchmen ! How had she recruited the king’s service, both by sea and land, through rendering desperate his loving subjects between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five ! How many young ladies had publicly professed with tears in their eyes, that for their tastes she was much too short, too tall, too bold, too cold, too stout, too thin, too fair, too dark — too everything but handsome ! How many old ladies, taking counsel together, had thanked Heaven their daughters were not like her, and had hoped she might come to no harm, and had thought she would come to no good, and had wondered what people saw in her, and had arrived at the con- clusion that she was “ going off” in her looks, or had never come on in them, and that she was a thorough imposition and a popular mistake ! Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 41. MR. F's AUNT . — There was a fourth and most original figure in the Patriarchal tent, who also appeared before dinner. This was an amazing little old woman, with a face like a staring wooden doll too cheap for expression, and a stiff yellow wig perched unevenly on the top of her head, as if the child who owned the doll had driven a tack through it anywhere, so that it only got fastened on. Another remark- able thing in this little old woman was, that the same child seemed to have damaged her' face in two or three places with some blunt instrument in the nature of a spoon ; her countenance, and particularly the tip of her nose, presenting the phenomena of several dints, generally answering to the bowl of that article. A further remark- able thing in this little old woman was, that she had no name but Mr. F’s Aunt. Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 13. Mr. F’s Aunt was so stiffened that she had the appearance of being past bending, by any means short of powerful mechanical pressure. Her bonnet was cocked up behind in a terrific man- ner ; and her stony reticule was as rigid as if it had been petrified by the Gorgon’s head, and had got it at that moment inside. Little Dorrit, Book //., Chap, 34. SALL V BRA SS . — The office commonly held two examples of animated nature, more to the purpose of this history, and in whom it has a stronger interest and more particular concern. Of these, one was Mr. Brass himself, who has already appeared in these pages. The other was his clerk, assistant, housekeeper, secretary, con- fidential plotter, adviser, intriguer, and bill of- cost increaser, Miss Brass — a kind of Amazon at common law, of whom it may be desirable to offer a brief description. Miss Sally Brass, then, was a lady of thirty- five or thereabouts, of a gaunt and bony figure, and a resolute bearing, which, if it repressed the softer emotions of love, and kept admirers at a distance, certainly inspired a feeling akin to awe in the breasts of those male strangers who had the happiness to approach her. In face she bore a striking resemblance to her brother Sampson — so exact, indeed, was the likeness between them, that had it consorted with Miss Brass’s maiden modesty and gentle womanhood to have assumed her brother’s clothes in a frolic and sat down be- side him, it would have been difficult for the old- est friend of the family to determine which was Sampson and which Sally, especially as the lady carried upon her upper lip certain reddish demonstrations, which, if the imagination had been assisted by her attire, might have been mistaken for a beard. These were, however, in all probability, nothing more than eye-lashes in a wrong place, as the eyes of Miss Brass were free quite from any such natural impertinencies. In complexion Miss Brass was sallow — rather a dirty sallow, so to speak — but this hue was agreeably relieved by the healthy glow which mantled in the extreme tip of her laughing nose. Her voice was exceedingly impressive — deep and rich in quality, and, once heard, not easily for- gotten. Her usual dress was a green gown, in color not unlike the curtain of the office-window, made tight to the figure, and terminating at the throat, where it was fastened behind by a pe- culiarly large and massive button. Feeling, no doubt, that simplicity and plainness are the soul of elegance, Miss Brass wore no collar or ker- chief except upon her head, which was invariably ornamented with a brown gauze scarf, like the wing of the fabled vampire, and which, twisted into any form that happened to suggest itself, formed an easy and graceful head-dress. Old Cu?iosity Shop, Chap . 33. CHARACTERS AND C4 CHARACTERISTICS ROSA DARTLE. — There was a second lady in the dining-room, of a slight, short figure, dark, and not agreeable to look at, but with some ap- pearance of good looks too, who attracted my attention : perhaps because I had not expected to see her ; perhaps because I found myself sitting opposite to her: perhaps because of something really remarkable in her. She had black hair and eager black eyes, and was thin, and had a scar upon her lip. It was an old scar — I should rather call it seam, for it was not discolored, and had healed years ago — which had once cut through her mouth, downward towards the chin, but was now barely visible across the table, ex- cept above and on her upper lip, the shape of which it had altered. I concluded in my own mind that she was about thirty years of age, and that she wished to be married She was a little dilapidated — like a house — with having been so long to let ; yet had, as I have said, an appear- ance of good looks. Her thinness seemed to be the effect of some wasting fire within her. which found a vent in her gaunt eyes. David Copper field. Chap. 20. MADAME DEFARGE. — Madame Defarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the counter as he came in. Madame Defarge was a stout woman of about his own age, with a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything, a large hand heavily ringed, a steady face, strong features, and great composure of manner. There was a character about Madame Defarge, from which one might have predicted that she did not often make mistakes against herself in any of the reckonings over which she presided. Madame Defarge being sensitive to cold, was wrapped in lur, and had a quantity of bright shawl twined about her head, though not to the concealment of her large ear-rings. Her knitting was before her, but she had laid it down to pick her teeth with a toothpick. Thus engaged, with her right elbow supported by her left hand, Madame De- farge said nothing when her lord came in, but coughed just one grain of cough. This, in com- bination with the lifting of her darkly-defined eyebrows over her toothpick by the breadth of a line, suggested to her husband that he would do well to look round the shop among the custom- ers, for any new customer who had dropped in while he stepped over the way. Tale of Two Cities , Chap. 5. LI TTLE DORRIT. — It was not easy to make out Little Dorrit’s face ; she was so retiring, plied her needle in such removed corners, and started away so scared if encountered on the stairs. But it seemed to be a pale transparent face, quick in expression, though not. beautiful in feature, its soft hazel eyes excepted. A delicately bent head, a tiny form, a quick little pair of busy hands, and a shabby dress — it must needs have been very shabby to look at all so, being so neat — were Little Dorrit as she sat at work. Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 5. SAIRE Y GAME— She was a fat old wo- man, this Mrs. Gamp, with a husky voice and a moist eye, which she had a remarkable power of turning up, and only showing the white of it. Having very little neck, it cost her some trouble to look over herself, if one may say so, at those lo whom she talked. She wore a very rusty black gown, rather the worse for snuff, and a shawl and bonnet to correspond. In these dilapidated articles of dress she had, on prin- ciple, arrayed herself, time out of mind, on such occasions as the present ; for this at once ex- pressed a decent amount of veneration for the deceased, and invited the next of kin to present her with a fresher suit of weeds ; an appeal so frequently successful, that the very fetch and ghost of Mrs. Gamp, bonnet and all, might be seen hanging up, any hour in the day, in at least a dozen of the second hand clothes shops about Holborn. The face of Mrs. Gamp — the nose in particular — was somewhat red and swollen, and it was difficult to enjoy her society without be- coming conscious of a smell of spirits. Like most persons who have attained to great emi- nence in their profession, she took to hers very kindly ; insomuch, that setting aside her natural predilections as a woman, she went to a lying-in or a laying-out with equal zest and relish. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 19. Mrs. JOE GARGER Y . — My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbors because she had brought me up “ by hand.” Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand. She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed \yith their own whites. He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy- going, foolish, dear fellow — a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness. My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin that I some- times used to wonder whether it was possible she w ashed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and almost alw'ays wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure be- hind with tw'O loops, and having a square impreg- nable bib in front, that w ? as stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this apron so much. Though I really see no reason wdry she should have worn it at all ; or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it off every day of her life. Great Expectations , Chap. 2. “ And she ain’t over-partial to having scholars on the premises,” Joe continued, “and in par- tickler would not be over-partial to my being a scholar, for fear as I might rise. Like a sort of rebel, don’t you see ? ” I was going to retort with an inquiry, and had got as far as “ Why — ” when Joe stopped me. “ Stay a bit. I know wffiat you’re a going to say, Pip ; stay a bit ! I don’t deny that your sister comes the Mo-gul over us, now and again. I don’t deny that she do throw us back-falls, and that she do drop down upon us heavy. At such limes as when your sister is on the Ram-page, CHARACTERS AND 85 CHARACTERISTICS | Pip,” Joe sank his voice to a whisper and glanced ! at the door, “ candor compels fur to admit that j she is a buster.” Joe pronounced this word as if it began with , at least twelve capital B’s. “ Why don’t I rise? That were your observa- tion when I broke it off, Pip ? ” “ Yes, Joe.” “Well,” said Joe, passing the poker into his left hand, that he might feel his whisker ; and I had no hope of him whenever he took to that placid occupation ; “ your sister’s a master-mind. A master-mind.” “What’s that?” I asked, in some hope of bringing him to a stand. But Joe was readier with his definition than I had expected, and com- pletely stopped me by arguing circularly, and answering with a fixed look, “ her.” “And I ain’t a master-mind,” Joe resumed, when he had unfixed his look, and got back to his whisker. “ And last of all, Pip— and this I want to say very serous to you, old chap — I see so much in my poor mother, of a woman drudg- ing and slaving and breaking her honest hart and never getting no peace in her mortal days, that I’m dead afeerd of going wrong in the way of not doing what’s right by a woman, and I’d fur rather of the two go wrong the ’tother way, and be a little ill-conwenienced myself. I wish it was only me that got put out, Pip ; I wish there warn’t no tickler for you, old chap ; I wish I could take it all on myself ; but this is the up- and-down-and-s.traight on it, Pip, and I hope you’ll overlook shortcomings.” Great Expectations , Chap. 7. MRS. GENERAL.— In person, Mrs. Gen- eral, including her skirts, which had much to do with it, was of a dignified and imposing appear- ance ; ample, rustling, gravely voluminous ; al- ways upright behind the proprieties. She might have been taken — had been taken — to the top of the Alps and the bottom of Herculaneum, without disarranging a fold in her dress, or displacing a pin. If her countenance and hair had rather a floury appearance, as though from living in some transcendently genteel Mill, it was rather because she was a chalky creation altogether, than be- cause she mended her complexion with violet powder, or had turned gray. If her eyes had no expression, it was probably because they had nothing to express. If she had few wrinkles, it was because her mind had never traced its name or any other inscription on her face. A cool, waxy, blown-out woman, who had never lighted well. Mrs. General had no opinions. Her way of forming a mind was to prevent it from forming opinions. She had a little circular set of mental grooves or rails, on which she started little trains of other people’s opinions, which never overtook one another, and never got anywhere. Even her propriety could not dispute that there was im- propriety in the world ; but Mrs. General’s way of getting rid of it was to put it out of sight, and make believe that there was no such thing. This was another of her ways of forming a mind — to cram all articles of difficulty into cupboards, lock them up, and say they had no existence. It was the easiest way, and, beyond all comparison, the properest. Mrs. General was not to be told of anything shocking. Accidents, miseries, and offences, were never to be mentioned before her. Passion was to go to sleep in the presence of Mrs. Gen- eral, and blood was to change to milk and water. The little that was left in the world, when all these deductions were made, it was Mrs. Gen- eral’s province to varnish. In that formation process of hers, she dipped the smallest of brushes into the largest of pots, and varnished the surface of every object that came under con- sideration. The more cracked it was, the more Mrs. General varnished it. There was varnish in Mrs. General’s voice, varnish in Mrs. General’s touch, an atmosphere of varnish round Mrs. General’s figure. Mrs. General’s dreams ought to have been varnished — if she had any — lying asleep in the arms of the good Saint Bernard, with the feathery snow fall- ing on his house-top. Little Dorr it. Book //., Chap. 2. “ G US TER” Mrs. Snags by s Maid. — Guster, really aged three or four and twenty, but looking a round ten years older, goes cheap with this un- accountable drawback of fits ; and is so appre- hensive of being returned on the hands of her patron saint, that, except when she is found with her head in the pail, or the sink, or the copper, or the dinner, or anything else that happens to be near her at the time of her seizure, she is al- ways at work. She is a satisfaction to the parents and guardians of the ’prentices, who feel that there is little danger of her inspiring tender emotions in the breast of youth ; she is a satis- faction to Mrs. Snagsby, who can always find fault with her ; she is a satisfaction to Mr. Snagsby, who thinks it a charity to keep her. The law-stationer’s establishment is, in Guster’s eyes, a Temple of plenty and splendor. She be- lieves the little drawing room up stairs, always kept, as one may say, with its hair in papers and its pinafore on, to be the most elegant apart- ment in Christendom. Bleak House , Chap. 10. MRS. HUBBLE.— I remember Mrs. Hubble as a little, curly, sharp-edged person in sky-blue, who held a conventionally juvenile position, be- cause she had married Mr. Hubble — I don’t know at what remote period — when she was much younger than he. I remember Mr. Hub- ble as a tough, high- shouldered, stooping old man, of a sawdusty fragrance, with his legs extraor- dinarily wide apart ; so that in my short days I always saw some miles of open country between them when I met him coming up the lane. Great Expectations , Chap. 4. TILL Y SLO WBO V— It may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her rejecting the cau- tion with some vivacity, that she had a rare and surprising talent for getting this baby into diffi- culties ; and had several times imperilled its short life, in a quiet way peculiarly her own. She was of a spare and straight shape, this young lady, insomuch that her garments appeared to be in constant danger of sliding off those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which they were loosely hung. Her costume was remarkable for the partial development, on all possible occa- sions, of some flannel vestment of a singular structure ; also for affording glimpses, in the region of the back, of a corset, or pair of stays, in color a dead-green. Being always in a state CHARACTERS AND 80 CHARACTERISTICS of gaping admiration at everything, and ab- sorbed, besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress’s perfections and the baby’s, Miss Slowboy, in her little errors of judgment may be said to have done equal honor to her head and to her heart ; and though these did less honor to the baby’s head, which they were the occasional means of bringing into contact with cleal-doors, dressers, stair-rails, bedposts, and other foreign substances, still they were the honest results of Tilly Slowboy’s constant aston- ishment at finding herself so kindly treated, and installed in such a comfortable home. For the maternhl and paternal Slowboy were alike un- known to Fame, and Tilly had been bred by public charity, a foundling ; which word, though only differing from fondling by one vowel’s length, is very different in meaning, and ex- presses quite another thing. Cricket on the Hearth , Chap. I. MRS. KITTERBELL. — Mrs. Kitterbell was a tall, thin young lady, with very light hair, and a particularly white face — one of those young women who almost invariably, though one hardly knows why, recall to one’s mind the idea of a cold fillet of veal. — Tales , Chap. n. MISS MARTIN . — Miss Amelia Martin was pale, tallish, thin, and two-ancl-thirty — what ill- natured people would call plain, and police re- ports interesting. She was a milliner and dress- maker, living on her business, and not above it. Sketches ( Characters ), Chap. 8. MRS. MIFF , ; The Pew-Opener— Mrs. Miff, the wheezy little pew-opener — a mighty dry old lady, sparely dressed, with not an inch of fullness anywhere about her — is also here, and has been waiting at the church-gate half-an-hour, as her place is, for the beadle. A vinegary face has Mrs. Miff, and a mortified bonnet, and eke a thirsty soul for sixpences and shillings. Beckoning to stray people to come into pews, has given Mrs. Miff an air of mystery ; and there is reservation in the eye of Mrs. Miff, as always knowing of a softer seat, but having her suspicions of the fee. There is no such fact as Mr. Miff, nor has there been these twenty years, and Mrs. Miff would rather not allude to him. — Dombey cr 5 Son , Chap. 31. “Well, well,” says Mrs. Miff, “you might do worse. For you’re a tidy pair ! ” There is nothing personal in Mrs. Miff’s re- mark. She merely speaks of stock in trade. She is hardly more curious in couples than in coffins. She is such a spare, straight, dry old lady — such a pew of a woman — that you should find as many individual sympathies in a chip. Dombey dr 5 Son , Chap. 57 * MISS MIGGS . — Mrs. Varden’s chief aider and abettor, and at the same time her principal vic- tim and object of wrath, was her single domestic servant, one Miss Miggs ; or, as she was called, in conformity with those prejudices of society which lop and top from poor handmaidens all such genteel excrescences — Miggs. This Miggs was a tall young lady, very much addicted to pattens in private life ; slender and shrewish, of a rather uncomfortable figure, and though not absolutely ill-looking, of a sharp and acid visage. As a general principle and abstract proposition, Miggs held the male sex to be utterly contempti- ble and unworthy of notice ; to be fickle, false, base, sottish, inclined to perjury, and wholly undeserving. When particularly exasperated against them (which, scandal said, was when Sim Tappertit slighted her most) she was accustomed to wish with great emphasis that the whole race of women could but die off, in order that the men might be brought to know the real value of the blessings by which they set so little store ; nay, her feeling for her order ran so high, that she sometimes declared, if she could only have good security for a fair, round number — say ten thousand — of young virgins following her exam- ple, she would, to spite mankind, hang, drown, stab, or poison herself, with a joy past all ex- pression. — Barnaby Rndge, Chap. 7. MRS. MARKLEHAM.— Mrs. Strong’s mam- ma was a lady I took great delight in. Her name was Mrs. Markleham ; but our boys used to call her the Old Soldier, on account of her generalship, and the skill with which she mar- shalled great forces of relations against the Doc- tor. She was a little, sharp-eyed woman, who used to wear, when she was dressed, one un- changeable cap, ornamented with some artificial flowers, and two artificial butterflies supposed to be hovering about the flowers. There was a superstition among us that this cap had come from France, and could only originate in the workmanship of that ingenious nation ; but all I certainly know about it is, that it always made its appearance of an evening, wheresoever Mrs. Markleham made her appearance ; that it was carried about to friendly meetings in a Hindoo basket ; that the butterflies had the gift of trem- bling constantly ; and that they improved the shining hours at Dr. Strong’s expense, like busy bees. — David Copper field, Chap. 16. MA GGIE. — She was about eight-an.d-twen.ty, with large bones, large features, large feet and hands, large eyes, and no hair. Her large eyes were limpid and almost colorless ; they seemed to be very little affected by light, and to stand unnaturally still. There was also that attentive, listening expression in her face, which is seen in the faces of the blind ; but she was not blind, having one tolerably serviceable eye. Her face was not exceedingly ugly, though it was only redeemed from being so by a smile ; a good- humored smile, and pleasant in itself, but ren- dered pitiable by being constantly there. A great white cap, with a quantity of opaque frill- ing that was always flapping about, apologized for Maggy’s baldness, and made ‘it so very diffi- cult for her old black bonnet to retain its place upon her head, that it held on round her neck like a gypsy’s baby. A commission of haber- dashers could alone have reported what the rest of her poor dress w^as made of ; but it had a strong general resemblance to sea-weed, with here and there a gigantic tea-leaf. Her shawl looked particularly like a tea-leaf after long in- fusion. — Little Dorr it. Book /., Chap. 9. MISS MO WCHER. — I looked at the door- way and saw nothing. I was still looking at the doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her appearance, when, to my infinite astonishment there came CHAMBERMAID 87 CHEEK waddling round a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty or forty-live, with a very large head and face, a pair of roguish gray eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable herself to lay a finger archly against her snub nose as she ogled Steerforth, she was obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay her nose against it. Her chin, which was what is called a double-chin, was so fat that it entirely swallowed up the strings of her honnet, bow and all. Throat she had none ; waist she had none ; legs she had none, worth mentioning ; for though she was more than full-sized down to where her waist would have been, if she had had any, and though she terminated, as human beings gener ally do, in a pair of feet, she was so short that she stood at a common-sized chair as at a table, resting a bag she carried on the seat. This lady, dressed in an off-hand, easy style ; bring- ing her nose and her forefinger together, with the difficulty I have described ; standing with her head necessarily on one side, and, with one of her sharp eyes shut up, making an uncommonly knowing face ; after ogling Steerforth for a few moments, broke into a torrent of words. David Copperfield , Chap. 22. CHAMBERMAID. I rang the chambermaid’s bell ; and Mrs. , Pratchett marched in, according to custom, de- murely carrying a lighted flat candle before her, as if she was one of a long public procession, all the other members of which were invisible. Somebody' s Luggage , Chap. 3. CHAN G-E— The Results of. Change begets change. Nothing propagates so fast. If a man habituated to a 1 arrow circle of cares and pleasures, out of which he seldom travels, step beyond it, though for never so brief a space, his departure from the monotonous scene on which he has been an actor of impor- tance, would seem to be the signal for instant confusion. As if, in the gap he had left, the wedge of change were driven to the head, rend- ing what was a solid mass to fragments ; things cemented and held together by the usages of years, burst asunder in as many weeks. The, mine which Time has slowly dug beneath famil- iar objects, is sprung in an instant ; and what was rock before, becomes but sand and dust. Most men, at one time or other, have proved this in some degree. Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 18. CHARITY— of the Poor. The man came running after them, and press- ing her hand left something in it — two old, bat- tered, smoke-encrusted penny pieces. Who knows but they shone as brightly in the eyes of angels, as golden gifts that have been chronicled on tombs ? — Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 45. CHARITY— Held by Main Force. Mr. Wegg smokes and looks at the fire with a most determined expression of Charity ; as if he had caught that cardinal virtue by the skirts as she felt it her painful duty to depart from him, and held her by main force. Our M utual Friend , Book II., Chap. 7. CHARITY— Speculators in. In short, we heard of a great many Missions, of various sorts, among this set of people ; but, 11 nothing respecting them was half so clear to us. as that it was Mr. Quale’s mission to be in ec- stasies with everybody else’s mission, and that, it was the most popular mission of all. Mr. Jarndyce had fallen into this company, in the tenderness of his heart, and his earnest desire to do all the good in his power ; but, that he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where benevolence took spasmodic forms ; where chfirity was assumed, as a regular uniform, by loud professors and speculators in cheap notori- ety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action, servile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory of one another, and intolera ble to those who were anxious quietly to help the weak from falling, rather than with a great deal of bluster and self-laudation to raise tfiem up a little way when they were down ; he plainly fold us. When a testimonial was originated to Mr. Quale, by Mr. Gusher (who had already got one, originated by Mr. Quale), and when Mr. Gusher spoke for an hour and a half on the subject to a meeting, including two charity-schools of small boys and girls, who were specially reminded of the widow’s mite, and requested to come forward with halfpence, and be acceptable sacrifices ; I think the wind was in the east for three whole weeks . — Bleak House, Chap. 15. CHARITY— The Romance of. There are many lives of much pain, hardship, and suffering, which, having no stirring interest for any but those who lead them, are disregarded by persons who do not want thought or feeling, but who pamper their compassion, and need high stimulants to rouse it. There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs ; and hence it is that diseased sympathy and compassion are every day expended on out- of-the-way objects, when only too many demands upon the legitimate exercise of the same virtues in a healthy state, are constantly within the sight and hearing of the most unobservant person alive. In short, charity must have its romance, as the novelist or playwright must have his. A thief in fustian is a vulgar character, scarcely to be thought of by persons of refinement ; but dress him in green velvet, with a high-crowned hat, and change the scene of his operations from a thickly- peopled city to a mountain road, and you shall find in him the very soul of poetry and adven- ture. So it is with the one great cardinal virtue, which, properly nourished and exercised, leads to, if it does not necessarily include, all the others. It must have its romance ; and the less of real, hard, struggling, work-a-day life there is in that romance the better. Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 18. CHEEK— An Unsympathetic. “ My child is welcome, though unlooked for,” said she, at the time presenting her cheek as if it were a cool slate for visitors to enroll them- selves upon. Our Mutual Friend, Book III., Chap. 16. “ This,” said Mrs. Wilfer, presenting a cheek to be kissed, as sympathetic and responsive as the back of the bowl of a spoon, “ is quit** an honor ! ” Our Mutual Friend, Book II., Chap. 8. CHEER 88 CHILD CHEER— An English. No men on earth can cheer like Englishmen, who do so rally one another’s blood and spirit when they cheer in earnest, that the stir is like the rush of their whole history, with all its stand- ards waving at once, from Saxon Alfred’s down- ward. — Little Dorrit, Book II., Chap. 22. CHEERFULNESS- Kit’s Religion. “ I don’t believe, mother, that harmless cheer- fulness and good humor are thought greater sins in Heaven than shirt-collars are, and I do be- lieve that those chaps are just about as right and sensible in putting down the one as in leaving off the other — that’s my belief. Whenever a Lit- tle Bethel parson calls you a precious lamb, or says your brother’s one, you tell him it’s the truest thing he’s said for a twelvemonth, and that if he’d got a little more of the lamb himself, and less of the mint-sauce — not being quite so sharp and sour over it — I should like him all the better.” — Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 41. CHEERFULNESS-Kit’s Philosophy of. “ Can you suppose there’s any harm in looking as cheerful and being as cheerful as our poor cir- cumstances will permit ? Do I see anything in the way I’m made, which calls upon me to be a snivelling, solemn, whispering chap, sneaking about as if I couldn’t help it, and expressing myself in a most unpleasant snuffle ? on the con- trary, don’t I see every reason why I shouldn’t ? Just hear this ! Ha ha ha ! Ain’t that as nat’ral as walking, and as good for the health ? Ha ha ha ! Ain’t that as nat’ral as a sheep’s bleating, or a pig’s grunting, or a horse’s neighing, or a bird’s singing? Ha ha ha! Isn’t it, mother? ” Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 22. CHEMIST-The. Who that had seen him m his inner chamber, part library and part laboratory — for he was, as the world knew, far and wide, a learned man in chemistry, and a teacher on whose lips and hands a crowd of aspiring ears and eyes hung daily — who that had seen him there, upon a winter night, alone, surrounded by his drugs and instru- ments and books ; the shadow of his shaded lamp a monstrous beetle on the wall, motionless among a crowd of spectral shapes raised there by the flickering of the fire upon the quaint objects around him ; some of these phantoms (the re- flections of glass vessels that held liquids) trem- bling at heart like things that knew his power to uncombine them, and to give back their com- ponent parts to fire and vapor ; who that had seen him then, his work done, and he pondering in his chair before the rusted grate and red flame, moving his thin mouth as if in speech, but silent as the dead, would not have said that the man seemed haunted and the chamber too ? Haunted Man, Chap. 1. CHESTERFIELD— as a Man of the World. “ Shakespeare was undoubtedly very fine in his way ; Milton good, though prosy ; Lord Ba con deep, and decidedly knowing ; but the writer who should be his country’s pride, is my Lord Chesterfield.” He became thoughtful again, and the tooth- pick was in requisition. “ I thought I was tolerably accomplished as a man of the world,” lie continued ; “ I flattered myself that I was pretty well versed in all those little arts and graces which distinguish men of the world from boors and peasants, and separate their character from those intensely vulgar sen- timents which are called the national character. Apart from any natural prepossession in my own favor, I believed I was. Still, in every page of this enlightened writer, I find some captivating hypocrisy which has never occurred to me be- fore, or some superlative piece of selfishness to which I was utterly a stranger. I should quite blush for myself before this stupendous creature, if, remembering his precepts, one might blush at nnylhing. An amazing man! a nobleman in deed ! any king or queen may make a lord, but only the Devil himself — and the Graces — can make a Chesterfield.” Many who are thoroughly false and hollow, seldom try to hide those vices from themselves ; and yet, in the very act of avowing them, they lay claim to the virtues they feign most to de- spise. “ For,” say they, “ this is honesty, this is truth. All mankind are like us, but they have not the candor to avow it.” The more they af- fect to deny the existence of any sincerity in the world, the more they would be thought to pos- sess it in its boldest shape ; and this is an un- conscious compliment to Truth on the part of these philosophers, which will turn the laugh against them to the Day of Judgment. Barnaby Rudge , Chap. 23. CHILD— A matured (Mr. Grewgious). “ Young ways were never my ways. I was the only offspring of parents far advanced in life, and I half believe I was born advanced in life myself. No personality is intended towards the name you will so soon change, when I remark that while the general growth of people seem to have come into existence buds, I seem to have come into existence a chip. I was a chip — and a very dry one — when I first became aware of myself.” — Edwin Drood , Chap. 9. CHILD — Sickness of Johnny Harmon — Sloppy’s account. Mr. Sloppy being introduced, remained close to the door ; revealing, in various parts of his form, many surprising, confounding, and incom- prehensible buttons. “ I am glad to see you,” said John Rokesmith, in a cheerful tone of welcome. “ I have been expecting you.” Sloppy explained that he had meant to come before, but that the orphan (of whom he made mention as Our Johnny) had been ailing, and he had waited to report him well. “Then he is well now?” said the Secretary. “ No he ain’t,” said Sloppy. Mr. Sloppy having shaken his head to a con- siderable extent, proceeded to remark that he thought Johnny “ must have took ’em from the Minders.” Being asked what he meant, he an- swered, them that come out upon him and par- ticlder his chest. Being requested to explain himself, he stated that there was some of ’em wot you couldn’t kiver with a sixpence. Pressed to full back upon a nominative case, he opined that they wos about as red as ever red could be. “ But as long as they strikes out’ards, sir,” con- tiniu'd Sloppy, “ they ain’t so much. It’s their striking in’ards that’s to be kep off.” John Rokesmith hoped the child had had CHILD 89 CHILD medical attendance ? Oh, yes, said Sloppy, he had been took to the doctor’s shop once. And what did the doctor call it ? Rokesmith asked him. After some perplexed reflection, Sloppy answered, brightening, “ He called it something as was wery long for spots.” Rokesmith sug- gested measles. “ No,” said Sloppy, with con- tidence, “ ever so much longer than them, sir ! ” (Mr. Sloppy was elevated by this fact, and seem- ed to consider that it reflected credit on the poor little patient.) Sjc ;jt ^4 * SjS “ Last night,” said Sloppy, “ when I was a- turning at the w r heel pretty late, the mangle seemed to go like our Johnny’s breathing. It begun beautiful, then as it went out it shook a little and got unsteady, then as it took the turn to come home it had a rattle-like and lumbered a bit, then it come smooth, and so it went on till I scarce know’d which was mangle and which was Our Johnny. Nor Our Johnny, he scarce know’d either, for sometimes when the mangle lumbers he says, ‘ Me choking, Granny ! ’ and Mrs. Higden holds him up in her lap and says to me, ‘ Bide a bit, Sloppy,’ and we all stops to- gether. And when Our Johnny gets his breath- ing again, I turns again, and we all goes on together.” Sloppy had gradually expanded with this de- scription into a stare and avacant grin. He now contracted, being silent, into a half-repressed gush of tears, and, under pretence of being heated, drew the under part of his sleeve across his eyes with a singularly awkward, laborious, and roundabout smear. * * * * * * “ So bad as that ! ” cried Mrs. Boffin. “ And Betty Higden not to tell me of it sooner ! ” “ I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,” answered Sloppy, hesitating. “ Of what, for Heaven’s sake ?” “ I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,” returned Sloppy, with submission, “ of standing in Our Johnny’s light. There’s so much trouble in illness, and so much expense, and she’s seen such a lot of its being objected to.” “ But she never can have thought,” said Mrs. Boffin, “ that I would grudge the dear child any- thing ? ” “ No, mum, but she might have thought (as a habit-like) of its standing in Johnny’s light, and might have tried to bring him through it unbe- knownst.” Sloppy knew his ground well. To conceal herself in sickness, like a lower animal ; to creep out of sight and coil herself away, and die ; had become this woman’s instinct. To catch up in her arms the sick child who was dear to her, and hide it as if it were a criminal, and keep off all ministration but such as her own ignorant ten- derness and patience could supply, had become this woman’s idea of maternal love, fidelity, and duty. The shameful accounts we read, every week in the Christian year, my Lords and Gen- tlemen and Honorable Boards, the infamous re- cords of small official inhumanity, do not pass by the people as they pass by us. And hence these irrational, blind, and obstinate prejudices, so astonishing to our magnificence, and having no more reason in them — God save the Queen and confound their politics — no, than smoke has in coming from fire ! Our Mutual Friend , Book //., Chap. g. CHILD— Death, of Little Johnny Harmon. At the Children’s Hospital, the gallant steed, the Noah’s ark, the yellow bird, and the officer in the Guards, were made as welcome as their child-owner. But the doctor said aside to Roke- smith, “ This should have been days ago. Ton late ! ” However, they were all carried up into a fresh airy room, and there Johnny came to himself, out of a sleep or a swoon or whatever it was, to find himself lying in a little quiet bed, with a little platform over his breast, on which were al- ready arranged, to give him heart and urge him to cheer up, the Noah’s ark, the noble steed, and the yellow bird ; with the officer in the Guards doing duty over the whole, quite as much to the satisfaction of his country as if he had been upon Parade. And at the bed’s head was a col- ored picture beautiful to see, representing as it were another Johnny seated on the knee of some Angel surely, who loved little children. And, marvellous fact, to lie and stare at: Johnny had become one of a little family, all in little quiet beds (except two playing dominoes in little arm- chairs at a little table on the hearth) ; and on all the little beds were little platforms whereon were to be seen dolls’ houses, woolly dogs with me- chanical barks in them, not very dissimilar from the artificial voice pervading the bowels of the yellow bird, tin armies, Moorish tumblers, wooden tea-things, and the riches of the earth. As Johnny^ murmured something in his placid admiration, the ministering women at his bed’s head asked him what he said. It seemed that he wanted to know whether all these were brothers and sisters of his ? So they told him yes. It seemed then, that he wanted to know whether God had brought them all together there? So they told him yes again. They made out then, that he wanted to know whether they would all get out of pain ? So they answered yes to that question likewise, and made him un- derstand that the reply included himself. Johnny’s powers of sustaining conversation were as yet so very imperfectly developed, even in a state of health, that in sickness they were little more than monosyllabic. But, he had to be washed and tended, and remedies were ap- plied, and though those offices were far, far more skillfully and lightly done than ever any- thing had been done for him in his little life, so rough and short, they would have hurt and tired him but for an amazing circumstance which laid hold of his attention. This was no less than the appearance on his own little platform in pairs, of All Creation, on its way into his own particu- lar ark : the elephant leading, and the fly, with a diffident sense of his size, politely bringing up the rear. A very little brother lying in the next bed with a broken leg, was so enchanted by this spectacle that his delight exalted its enthralling interest ; and so came rest and sleep. “ I see you are not afraid to leave the dear child here, Betty,” whispered Mrs. Boffin. “ No, ma’am. Most willingly, most thankful- ly, with all my heart and soul.” So, they kissed him, and left him there, and old Betty was to come back early in the morn- ing, and nobody but Rokesmith knew for certain how that the doctor had said, “ This should have been days ago. Too late !” But, Rokesmith knowing it, and knowing that his bearing it in mind would be acceptable there- 1 CHILD DO CHILDHOOD after to that good woman who had been the only light in the childhood of desolate John Hannon dead and gone, resolved that late at night he would go back to the bedside of John Hannon’s namesake, and see how it fared with him. The family whom God had brought together were not all asleep, but were all quiet. From bed to bed, a light womanly tread and a pleasant fresh face passed in the silence of the night. A little head would lift itself up into the softened light here and there, to be kissed as the face went by — for these little patients are very loving — and would then submit itself to be composed to rest again. The mite with the broken leg was restless, and moaned ; but after a while turned his face towards Johnny’s bed, to fortify himself with a view of the ark, and fell asleep. Over most of the beds, the toys were yet grouped as the children had left them when they last laid themselves down, and, in their innocent grotesqueness and incongruity, they might have stood for the children’s dreams. The doctor came in too, to see how it fared with Johnny. And he and Rokesmith stood to- gether, looking down with compassion upon him. “What is it, Johnny?” Rokesmith was the questioner, and put an arm round the poor baby as he made a struggle. “ Him !” said the little fellow. “Those !” The doctor was quick to understand children, and, taking the horse, the ark, the yellow bird, and the man in the Guards, from Johnny’s bed, softly placed them on that of his next neighbor, the mite with the broken leg. With a weary and yet a pleased smile, and with an action as if he stretched his little figure out to rest, the child heaved his body on the sustaining arm, and seeking Rokesmith’s face with his lips, said : “ A kiss for the boofer lady.” Having now bequeathed all he had to dispose of, and arranging his affairs in this world, John- ny, thus speaking, left it. Our Mutual Friend , Book II., Chap. 9. CHILD— A Fashionable. There was a Miss Podsnap. And this young rocking-horse was being trained in her mother’s art of prancing in a stately manner without ever getting on. But the high parental action was not yet imparted to her, and in truth she was but an undersized damsel, with high shoulders, low spirits, chilled elbows, and a rasped surface of nose, who seemed to take occasional frosty peeps out of childhood into womanhood, and to shrink back again, overcome by her mother’s head-dress, and her father from head to foot — crushed by the mere dead-weight of Podsnap- pery Our Mutual Friend, Book /., Chap. 11. CHILD— Of a Female Philanthropist. I was sitting at the window with my guardian, on the following morning, and Ada was busy writ- ing- -of course to Richard — when Miss Jellyby was announced, and entered, leading the identical Peepy, whom she had made some endeavors to render presentable, by wiping the dirt into cor- ners of his face and hands, and making his hair very wet, and then violently frizzing it with her fingers. Everything the dear child wore was either too large for him or too small. Among his other contradictory decorations he had the hat of a bishop, and the little gloves of a baby. 1 1 is boots were, on a small scale, the boots of a plough- man; while his legs, so crossed and recrossed with scratches that they looked like maps, were bare, below a very short pair of plaid drawers, finished off with two frills of perfectly diflerent patterns. The deficient buttons on his plaid frock had evi- dently been supplied from one of Mr. Jellyby’s coats, they were so extremely brazen and so much too large. Most extraordinary specimens of nee- dlework appeared on several parts of his dress, where it had been hastily mended ; and I recog- nized the same hand on Miss Jellyby’s. “ Oh, dear me ! ” said my guardian, “ Due East !” — Bleak House, Chap. 14. CHILD AND FATHER-A Contrast. Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room, in the great arm-chair by the bed-side, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bed- stead, carefully disposed on a low settee immedi- ately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new. Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and though a handsome, well-made man, too stern and pompous in appear- ance to be prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of course) an undeniably fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his general effect, as yet. On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother Care had set some marks, as on a tree that was to come down in good time — -remorseless twins they are for striding through their human forests, notching as they go — while the countenance of Son was crossed and recrossed with a thousand little creases, which the same deceitful Time would take delight in smoothing out and wearing away with the flat part of his scythe, as a preparation of the surface for his deeper operations. Dombey, exulting in the long-looked for event, jingled and jingled the heavy gold watch-chain that depended from below his trim blue coat, whereof the buttons sparkled phosphorescently in the feeble rays of the distant fire. Son, with his little fists curled up and clenched, seemed, in his feeble way, to be squaring at existence for having come upon him so unexpectedly. Dombey Son, Chap. 1. CHILDHOOD— The Power of Observation in. I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may, with greater propriety, be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it ; the rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an in- heritance they have preserved from their child- hood. — David Copperjield, Chap. 2. CHILDHOOD— The Fortitude of Little Nell. In the pale moonlight, which lent a wanness of its own to the delicate face, where thoughtful care already mingled with the winning grace and loveliness of youth, the too bright eye, the spirit- ual head, the lips that pressed each other with such high resolves and courage of the heart, the CHILDHOOD 91 CHILDREN slight figure, firm in its bearing, and yet so very weak, told their silent tale ; but told it only to the wind that rustled by, which, t r ^ing up its burden, carried, perhaps to some motncr’s pillow, faint dreams of childhood fading in its bloom, and resting in the sleep that knows no waking. Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 43. CHILDHOOD— The early experience of. “ It always grieves me to contemplate the in- itiation of children into the ways of life, when they are scarcely more than infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity — two of the best qualities that Heaven gives them — and demands that they share our sorrows before they are ca- pable of entering into our enjoyments.” “ It will never check hers,” said the old man, looking steadily at me ; “ the springs are too deep. Besides, the children of the poor know but few pleasures. Even the cheap delights of childhood must be bought and paid fox-.’' Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 1. CHILDHOQD-in a city. I don’t know where she was going, but we saw her run, such a little, little creature, in her wo- manly bonnet and apron, thi-ough a covered way at the bottom of the court ; and melt into the city’s sti’ife and sound, like a dewdi-op in an ocean. — Bleak House , Chap. 15. CHILDHOOD— Sad remembrances of. The di-eams of childhood — its airy fables ; its graceful, beautiful, humane, impossible adoni- ments of the world beyond ; so good to be be- lieved in once, so good to be i-emembered when outgrown, for then the least among them rises to the stature of a great Charity in the heart, suf- fering little children to come into the midst of it, and to keep with their pure hands a garden in the stony ways of this world, wherein it was better for all the children of Adam that they should oftenersun themselves, simple and trust- ful, and not worldly-wise — what had she to do with these? Remembrances of how she had journeyed to the little that she knew, by the en- chanted roads of what she and millions of inno- cent ci*eatures had hoped and imagined ; and how first coming upon Reason through the tender light of Fancy, she had seen it a beneficent god, deferring to gods as great as itself ; not a grim Idol, cruel and cold, with its victims bound hand to foot, and its big dumb shape set up with a sightless stare, never to be moved by anything but so many calculated tons of levei'age — what had she to do with these-? Her i-emembrances of home and childhood were x-emembi-ances of the drying up of evei-y spring and fountain in her young heart as it gushed out. The golden waters were not there. They were flowing for the ferti- lization of the land whei-e grapes are gathered from thorns, and figs fi'om thistles. Hard Times , Book II., Chap. 9. CHILDHOOD-The Dreams of. The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had said my prayers, and the candle had burnt out, I remember how I still sat looking at the moon- light on the water - , as if I could hope to read my fortune in it, as in a bright book ; or to see my mother with her child, coming from Heaven, along that shining path, to look upon me as she had looked when I last saw her sweet face. I remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of that track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams. David Copperjield, Chap. 13. CHILDHOOD— Neglected. The girl belonged to a class — unhappily but too extensive — the very existence of which should make men’s hearts bleed. Bai-ely past her childhood, it required but a glance to dis- cover that she was one of those children, born aird bred in neglect and vice, who have never known what childhood is : who have never been taught to love and court a parent’s smile, or to dread a parent’s frown. The thousand nameless endearments of childhood, its gayety and its in- nocence, are alike unknown to them. They have entered at once upon the stern realities and miseries of life, and to their better natui-e it is almost hopeless to appeal in after-times, by any of the references which will awaken, if it be only for a moment, some good feeling iir ordi- nai-y bosoms, however corrupt they may have become. Talk to them of pai-ental solicitude, the happy days of childhood, and the merry games of infancy ! Tell them of hunger and the sti-eets, beggary and stripes, the gin-shop, the station-house, and the pawnbroker’s, and they will undei-stand you. — Scenes , Chap. 25. CHILDISHNESS— A Misnomer. We call this a state of childishness, but it is the same poor hollow mockery of it, that death is of sleep. Where, in the dull eyes of doting men, ai-e the laughing light and life of child- hood, the gayety that has known no check, the frankness that has felt no chill, the hope that has never withered, the joys that fade in blossom- ing? Where, in the shai-p lineaments of rigid and unsightly death, is the calm beauty of slum- ber, telling of rest for the waking hours that are past, and gentle hopes and loves for those which are to come ? Lay death and sleep down, side by side, and say who shall find the two akin. Send forth the child and childish man togethei*, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image. — Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 12. CHILDREN— The blessing- of. Humanity is indeed a happy lot, when we can repeat ourselves in others, and still be young as they. — Barnaby Budge, Chap. 27. CHILDREN— Injustice to. In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever bi-ings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to ; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking- horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. Within my- self, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a per- petual conflict with injustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my sis- ter, in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me. I had cherished a profound con- viction that her bringing me up by hand gave her no right to bring me up by jerks. Through all my punishments, disgraces, fasts, and vigils CHILDREN 92 CHILDREN and other penitential performances, I had nursed this assurance ; and to my communing so much with it, in a solitary and unprotected way, I in great part refer the fact that I was morally timid and very sensitive. Great Expectations , Chap. 8. CHILDREN— Keeping- and losing. “ You have a son, I believe? ” said Mr. Dom- bey. “ Four on ’em, sir. Four hims and a her. All alive ! ” “ Why, it’s as much as you can afford to keep them ! ” said Mr. Dombey. “ I couldn’t hardly afford but one thing in the world less, sir.” “ What is that ? ” “To lose ’em, sir.” — Doinbey dr 5 Son, Ch. 2. CHILDREN— A lawyer’s view of. Pretty nigh all the children he saw in his daily business life, he had reason to look upon as so much spawn, to develop into the fish that were to come to his net — to be prosecuted, de- fended, forsworn, made orphans, be-devilled somehow. — Great Expectations , Chap. 51. CHILDREN— The sympathy of. No man ever really loved a woman, lost her, and knew her with a blameless though an un- changed mind, when she was a wife and a moth- er, but her children had a strange sympathy with him — an instinctive delicacy of pity for him. Tale of Two Cities , Chap. 21. CHILDREN-at church. Here is our pew in the church. What a high- backed pew ! With a window near it, out of which our houSe can be seen, and is seen many times during the morning’s service, by Peg- gotty, who likes to make herself as sure as she can that it’s not being robbed, or is not in flames. But though Peggotty’s eye wanders, she is much offended if mine does, and frowns to me, as I stand upon the seat, that I am to look at the clergyman. But I can’t always look at him — I know him without that white thing on, and I am afraid of his wondering why I stare so, and per- haps stopping the service to inquire — and what am I to do? It’s a dreadful thing to gape, but I must do something. I look at my mother, but she pretends not to see me. I look at a boy in the aisle, and he makes faces at me. I look at the sunlight coming in at the open door through the porch, and there I see a stray sheep — I don’t mean a sinner, but mutton — half making up his mind to come into the church. I feel that if I looked at him any longer, I might be tempted to say something out loud ; and what would become of me then ? I look up at the monumental tab- lets on the wall, and try to think of Mr. Bodgers, late of this parish, and what the feelings of Mrs. Bodgers must have been, when affliction sore, long time Mr. Bodgers bore, and physicians were in vain. I wonder whether they called in Mr. Chillip, and he was in vain ; and if so, how he likes to be reminded of it once a week. I look from Mr. Chillip, in his Sunday neckcloth, to the pulpit ; and think what a good place it would be to play in, and what a castle it would make, with another boy coming up the stairs to attack it, and having the velvet cushion with the tassels thrown down on his head. In time my eyes gradually shut up ; and, from seeming to hear the clergyman singing a drowsy song in the heat, I hear nothing, until I fall off the seat with a crash, and am taken out, more dead than alive, by I’eggotty. — David Coppcrjield , Chap . 2. CHILDREN of Nature. There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to won- der all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers ; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky ; they wondered at the depth of the bright water ; they wondered at the good- ness and the power of God, who made the lovely world. They used to say to one another, sometimes, Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry ? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hill-sides are the children of the water ; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars ; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more. Child's Dream of a Star. — Reprinted Pieces. CHILDREN, Neglected— Their footprints. I looked at him, and I looked about at the disorderly traces in the mud, and I thought of the drops of rain and the footprints of an ex- tinct creature, hoary ages upon ages old, that geologists have identified on the face of a cliff; and this speculation came over me : If this mud could petrify at this moment, and could lie con- cealed here for ten thousand years, I wonder whether the race of men then to be our succes- sors on the earth could, from these or any marks, by the utmost force of the human intellect, un- assisted by tradition, deduce such an astounding inference as the existence of a polished state of society that bore with the public savagery of neglected children in the streets of its capital city, and was proud of its power by sea and land, and never used its power to seize and save them ! — An Amateur Beat — New Uncommercial Samples. CHILDREN— Who are doted upon. The couple who dote upon their children recognize no dates but those connected with their births, accidents, illnesses, or remarkable deeds. They keep a mental almanac with a vast number of Innocents’ days, all in red let- ters. They recollect the last coronation, because on that day little Tom fell down the kitchen stairs ; the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, because it was on the fifth of November that Ned asked whether wooden legs were made in heaven and cocked hats grew in gardens. Mrs. Whiffler will never cease to recollect the last day of the old year as long as she lives, for it was on that day that the baby had the four red spots on its nose which they took for measles. * * * The children of this couple can know no medium. They are either prodigies of good health or prodigies of bad health ; whatever they are, they must be prodigies. — Sketches of Couples . CHILDREN 93 CHILDREN CHILDREN— Their leg-s calendars of dis- tress. The children tumbled about, and notched memoranda of their accidents in their legs, which were perfect little calendars of distress. Bleak House, Chap. 5. CHILDREN-The love of. I love these little people ; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us. — Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 1. CHILDREN— In the hospitals. In its seven-and-thirty beds I saw but little beauty, for starvation in the second or third gen- eration takes a pinched look ; but I saw the suf- ferings both of infancy and childhood tenderly assuaged ; I heard the little patients answering to pet, playful names ; the light touch of a deli- cate lady laid bare the wasted sticks of arms for me to pity ; and the claw-like little hands, as she did so, twined themselves lovingly around her wedding-ring. One baby mite there was as pretty as any of Raphael’s angels. The tiny head was bandaged for water on the brain, and it was suffering with acute bronchitis too, and made from time to time a plaintive, though not impatient or com- plaining, little sound. The smooth curve of the cheeks and of the chin was faultless in its con- densation of infantine beauty, and the large bright eyes were most lovely. It happened, as I stopped at the foot of the bed, that these eyes rested upon mine with that wistful expression of wondering thoughtfulness which we all know sometimes in very little children. They re- mained fixed on mine, and never turned from me while I stood there. When the utterance of that plaintive sound shook the little form, the gaze still remained unchanged. I felt as though the child implored me to tell the story of the lit- tle hospital in which it was sheltered to any gen- tle heart I could address. Laying my world- worn hand upon the little unmarked clasped hand at the chin, I gave it a silent promise that I would do so. — A Small Star in the East. New Uncommercial Samples. CHILDREN -Captain Cuttle’s advice. “ Hear him !” cried the Captain, “ good moral- ity ! Wal’r, my lad. Train up a fig-tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit un- der the shade on it. Overhaul the — Well,” said the Captain, on second thoughts, “ I ain’t quite certain where that’s to be found, but when found make a note of. Sol Gills, heave ahead again ! ” Dombey & Son, Chap. ly. n CHILDREN— Their martyrdom. At one o’clock there was a dinner, chiefly of the farinaceous and vegetable kind, when Miss Pankey (a mild little blue eyed morsel of a child, who was shampoo’d every morning, and seemed in danger of being rubbed away altogether) was led in from captivity by the ogress herself, and instructed that nobody who sniffed before visit- ors ever went to Heaven. — Dombey Sf Son, Ch. 8. However touching these marks of a tender disposition were to his mother, it was not in the character of that remarkable woman to permit her recognition of them to degenerate into weak- ness. Therefore, after vainly endeavoring to convince his reason by shakes, pokes, bawlings- out, and similar applications to his head, she led him into the air, and tried another method ; which was manifested to the marriage-party by a quick succession of sharp sounds, resembling applause, and, subsequently, by their seeing Alexander in contact with the coolest paving- stone in the court, greatly flushed, and loudly lamenting . — Dombey dr 3 Son, Chap. 60. “ The fine little boy with the blister on Lis nose is the eldest. The blister, I believe,” said Miss Tox, looking round upon the family, “is not constitutional, but accidental.” The apple-faced man was understood to growl. “ Flat-iron.” “ I beg your pardon, sir,” said Miss Tox, “ did you — ” “ Flat-iron,” he repeated. “ Oh yes,” said Miss Tox. “ Yes ! quite true. I forgot. The little creature, in his mother’s absence, smelt a warm flat-iron. You’re quite right, sir .” — Dombey Sf Son, Chap. 2. CHILDREN— The Gauntlet of their diseases. All this vigilance and care could not make little Paul a thriving boy. Naturally delicate, perhaps, he pined and wasted after the dismissal of his nurse, and for a long time seemed but to wait his opportunity of gliding through their hands, and seeking his lost mother. This dan- gerous ground in his steeple-chase towards man- hood passed, he still found it very rough riding, and was grievously beset by all the obstacles in his course. Every tooth was a break-neck fence, and every pimple in the measles a stone-wall to him. He was down in every fit of the whooping- cough, and rolled upon and crushed by a whole field of small diseases, that came trooping on each other’s heels to prevent his getting up again. Some bird of prey got into his throat instead of the thrush ; and the very chickens, turning fero- cious — if they have anything to do with that in- fant malady to which they lend their name — wor- ried him like tiger-cats. — Dombey 6° Son, Ch. 8. CHILDREN— In love. Boots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and equal to a play, to see them babies, with their long, bright, curling hair, their spark- ling eyes, and their beautiful, light tread, a 1 am- bling about the garden, deep in love. Boots was of opinion that the birds believed they was birds, and kept up with ’em, singing to please ’em. Sometimes they would creep under the Tulip-tree, and would sit there with their arms round one another’s necks, and their soft cheeks touching, a reading about the Prince, and the Dragon, and the good and bad enchanters, and the king’s fair daughter. Sometimes he would hear them planning about having a house in a forest, keeping bees and a cow, and living en- tirely on milk and honey. Once he came upon them by the pond, and heard Master Harry say, “ Adorable Norah, kiss me and say you love me to distraction, or I’ll jump in head-foremost.” And Boots made no question he would have done it if she hadn’t complied. On the whole, Boots said it had a tendency to make him feel as if he was in love himself — only he didn’t exactly know who with. — The Holly Tree. CHILDREN-HATER 94 CHRISTIAN CIIILDREN-HATER- Tackleton, the. Tackleton, the Toy merchant, pretty generally known as Gruff & Tackleton — for that was the firm, though Gruff had been bought out long ago ; only leaving his name, and as some said his nature, according to its Dictionary meaning, in the business — Tackleton, the Toy merchant, was a man whose vocation had been quite mis- understood by his Parents and Guardians. If they had made him a Money-Lender, or a sharp Attorney, or a Sheriff’s Officer, or a Broker, he might have sown his. discontented oats in his youth, and, after having had the full-run of him- self in ill-natured transactions, might have turned out amiable, at last, for the sake of a lit- tle freshness and novelty. But, cramped and chafing in the peaceable pursuit of toy-making, he was a domestic Ogre, who had been living on children all his life, and was their implacable enemy. He despised all toys : wouldn’t have bought one for the world ; delighted, in his malice, to insinuate grim expressions into the faces of brown-paper farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen who advertised lost lawyers’ consciences, movable old ladies who darned stockings or carved pies ; and other like samples of his stock in trade. In appalling masks ; hideous, hairy, red-eyed Jacks in Boxes ; Vam- pire Kites ; demoniacal Tumblers who wouldn’t lie down, and were perpetually flying forward, to stare infants out of countenance ; his soul per- fectly revelled. They were his only relief and safety-valve. He was great in such inventions. Anything suggestive of a Pony nightmare was delicious to him. Pie had even lost money (and he took to that toy very kindly) by getting up Goblin slides for magic lanterns, whereon the Powers of Darkness were depicted as a sort of supernatural shell fish, with human faces. In intensifying the portraiture of Giants, he had sunk quite a little capital ; and, though no painter himself, he could indicate, for the in- struction of his artists, with a piece of chalk, a certain furtive leer for the countenances of those monsters, which was safe to destroy the peace of mind of any young gentleman between the ages of six and eleven, for the whole Christmas or Midsummer Vacation. Cricket on the Hearth , Chap. i. CHIN- A double. “ That,” repeated Mrs. Gowan, furling her green fan for the moment and tapping her chin with it (it was on the way to being a double chin ; might be called a chin and a half at pres- ent), “ that’s all ! ” Little Dorrit , Book I., Chap. 33. CHRISTIAN— A conventional (Mrs. Sprodg- kin). She was a member of the Reverend Frank’s congregation, and made a point of distinguish- ing herself in that body, by conspicuously weep- ing at everything, however cheering, said by the Reverend Frank in his public ministration ; also by applying to herself the various lamentations of David, and complaining in a personally in- jured manner (much in arrear of the clerk and the rest of the respondents) that her enemies were digging pit-falls about her, and breaking her with rods of iron. Indeed, this old widow discharged herself of that portion of the Morn- ing and L.ening Service as if she were lodging a complaint on oath and applying for a warrant before a magistrate. But this was not her most inconvenient characteristic, for that took the form of an impression, usually recurring in in- clement weather and at about daybreak, that she had something on her mind, and stood in im- mediate need of the Reverend Frank to come and take it off. Many a time had that kind creature got up, and gone out to Mrs. Sprodgkin (such was the disciple’s name), suppressing a strong sense of her comicality by his strong sense of duty, and perfectly knowing that noth- ing but a cold would come of it. However, be- yond themselves, the Reverend Frank Milvey and Mrs. Milvey seldom hinted that Mrs. Sprodgkin was hardly worth the trouble she gave ; but both made the best of her, as they did of all their troubles. Our Mutual Friend , Book IV., Chap. 11. CHRISTIAN A professing- (Mrs. Varden). “ Let us be sincere, my dear madam — ” “ — and Protestant,” murmured Mrs. Varden. “ — and Protestant above all things. Let us be sincere and Protestant, strictly moral, strictly just (though always with a leaning towards mer- cy), strictly honest, and strictly true, and we gain — it is a slight point, certainly, but still it is something tangible ; we throw up a groundwryk and foundation, so to speak, of goodness, on which we may afterwards erect some worthy superstructure.” Now, to be sure, Mrs. Varden thought, here is a perfect character. Here is a meek, righteous, thoroughgoing Christian, who, having mastered all these qualities, so difficult of attainment ; who, having dropped a pinch of salt on the tails of all the cardinal virtues, and caught them every one ; makes light of their possession, and pants for more morality. For the good woman never doubled (as many good men and women never do) that this slighting kind of profession, this setting so little store by great matters, this seeming to say, “ I am not proud, I am what you hear, but I consider myself no bet- ter than other people ; let us change the subject, pray ” — was perfectly genuine and true. He so contrived it, and said it in that way that it ap- peared to have been forced from him, and its effect was marvellous. Aware of the impression he had made — few men were quicker than he at such discoveries — Mr. Chester followed up the blow by propound- ing certain virtuous maxims, somewhat vague and general in their nature, doubtless, and occa- sionally partaking of the character of truisms, worn a little out at elbow, but delivered in so charming a vdice and with such uncommon serenity and peace of mind, that they answered as well as the best. Nor is this to be wondered at ; for as hollow vessels produce a far more musical sound in falling than those which are substantial, so it will oftentimes be found that sentiments which have nothing in them make the loudest ringing in the world, and are the most relished. — Barnaby Budge, Chap. 27. CHRISTIAN — A rig-id (Esther’s God- mother) . I was brought up, from ,my earliest remem- brance — like some of the princesses in the fairy stories, only I was not charming — by my god- mother. At least I only knew her as such. She CHRISTMAS 95 CHRISTMAS was a good, good woman ! She went to church three times every Sunday, and to morning prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, and to lectures whenever there were lectures ; and never missed. She was handsome ; and if she had ever smiled, would have been (I used to think) like an angel — but she never smiled. She was always grave and strict. She was so very good herself, I thought, that the badness of other people made her frown all her life. I felt so different from her, even making every allowance for the differ- ences between a child and a woman ; I felt so poor, so trifling, and so far off ; that I never could be unrestrained with her — no, could never love her as I wished. — Bleak House , Chap. 3. CHRISTMAS. Christmas time ! That man must be a mis- anthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused — in whose mind some pleasant associations ’are not awakened — by the recurrence of Christmas. There are peo- ple who will tell you that Christmas is not to them what it used to be ; that each succeeding Christmas has found some cherished hope or happy prospect of the year before, dimmed or passed away ; that the present only serves to re- mind them of reduced circumstances and strait- ened incomes — of the feasts they once bestowed on hollow friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now, in adversity and misfortune. Never heed such dismal reminiscences. There are few men who have lived long enough in the world, who cannot call up such thoughts any day in the year. Then do not select the merriest of the three hundred and sixty-five for your doleful recollections, but draw your chair nearer the blazing fire — fill the glass and send round the song — and if your room be smaller than it was a dozen years ago, or if your glass be filled with reeking punch instead of sparkling wine, put a good face on the matter, and empty it off- hand, and fill another, and troll off the old ditty you used to sing, and thank God it’s no worse. Look on the merry faces of your children (if you have any) as they sit round the fire. One little seat may be empty ; one slight form that glad- dened the father’s heart, and roused the mother’s pride to look upon, may not be there. Dwell not upon the past ; think not that one short year ago, the fair child now resolving into dust, sat before you, with the bloom of health upon its cheek, and the gayety of infancy in its joyous eye. Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill your glass again, with a merry face and con- tented heart. Our life on it, but your Christmas shall be merry, and your new-year a happy one. Who can be insensible to the outpourings of good feeling, and the honest interchange of affectionate attachment, which abound at this season of the year ? A Christmas family party ! We know nothing in nature more delightful ! There seems a magic in the very name of Christ- mas. Petty jealousies and discords are forgot- ten ; social feelings are awakened in bosoms to which they have long been strangers ; father and son, or brother and sister, who have met and passed with averted gaze, or a look of cold recognition, for months before, proffer and re- turn the cordial embrace, and bury their past animosities in their present happiness. Kindly hearts that have yearned towards each other, but have been withheld by false notions of pride and self-dignity, are again re-united, and all is kind- ness and benevolence ! Would that Christmas lasted the whole year through (as it ought), and that the prejudices and passions which deform our better nature were never called into action among those to w'hom they should e^ er be strangers ! — Sketches ( Characters ), Chap. 2. CHRISTMAS— Its Associations. But, hark ! The Waits are playing, and they break my childish sleep ! What images do I as- sociate with the Christmas music as I see them set forth on the Christmas tree? Known before all the others, keeping far apart from all the others, they gather round my little bed. An angel, speaking to a group of shepherds in a field ; some travellers, with eyes uplifted, follow- ing a star ; a baby in a manger ; a child in a spacious temple, talking with grave men ; a solemn figure, with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand ; again, near a city-gate, calling back the son of a widow, on his bier, to life ; a crowd of people looking through the opened roof of a chamber where he sits, and letting down a sick person on a bed, with ropes ; the same, in a tempest, walking on the w ater to a ship ; again, on a sea-shore, teaching a great multitude ; again, with a child upon his knee, and other children round ; again, restoring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick, strength to the lame, knowledge to the ignorant ; again, dying upon a Cross, watched by armed soldiers, a thick dark- ness coming on, the earth beginning to shake, and only one voice heard: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do ! ” Still, on the low^er and maturer branches of the Tree, Christmas associations cluster thick. School books are shut up ; Ovid and Virgil si- lenced ; the Rule of Three, with its cool imperti- nent inquiries, long disposed of ; Terence and Plautus acted no more, in an arena of huddled desks and forms, all chipped, and notched, and inked ; cricket-bats, stumps, and balls, left higher up*, wuth the smell of trodden grass and the soft- ened noise of shouts in the evening air ; the tree is still fresh, still gay. If I no more come home at Christmas time, there will be girls and boys (thank Heaven) w'hile the world lasts. ^ iJC * jfc Among the later toys and fancies hanging there — as idle often, and less pure — be the images once associated with thesw^eet old Waits, the softened music in the night, ever unalterable ! Encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas time, still let the benignant figure of my child- hood stand unchanged ! In every cheerful image and suggestion that the season brings, may the bright star that rested above the poor roof, be the star of all the Christian world ! A moment’s pause, oh, vanishing tree, of which the lower boughs are dark to me as yet, and let me look once more ! I know there are blank spaces on thy branches, where eyes that I have loved have shone and smiled ; from which they are de- parted. But, far above, I see the raiser of the dead .girl, and the widow’s son ; and God is good ! If Age be hiding for me in the unseen portion of thy downward growth, oh, may I, with a gray head, turn a child’s heart to that figure yet, and a child’s trustfulness and confidence ! CHRISTMAS 90 CHRISTMAS Now, the tree is decorated with bright merri- | ment, and song, and dance, and cheerfulness. And they are welcome. Innocent and welcome be they ever held, beneath the branches of the Christmas Tree, which cast no gloomy shadow ! But, as it sinks into the ground, I hear a whisper going through the leaves : “ This, in com- memoration of the law of love and kindness, mercy and compassion. This, in remembrance of Me ! ” — Christmas Tree — Reprinted Pieces. CHRISTMAS DAY. They stood in the city-streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not un- pleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms. The house-fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground ; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep fur- rows by the heavy wheels of carts and wagons ; furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branclT- ed off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace, in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chim- neys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts’ content. There was nothing very cheer- ful in the climate or the town, and yet there was an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air, and brightest summer sun, might have endeavored to diffuse in vain. For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee ; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball — bet- ter-natured missile far than many a wordy jest — laughing heartily if it went right, and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers’ shops were still half open, and the fruiterers’ shops were radiant in their glory. There were great round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining, in the fatness of their growth, like Spanish friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids ; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers’ benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed ; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings, ankle deep, through withered leaves ; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently en- treating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on : and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement. The grocers ! oh, the grocers ! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one ; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the rai- sins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from thejr highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress ; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker-baskets wildly; and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them; and committed hundreds of the like mis- takes, in the best humor possible ; while the grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts -with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose. But soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and away they came, flock- ing through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, car- rying their dinners to the bakers’ shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker’s doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled in- cense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice, when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humor was restored difectly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christ- mas Day. And so it was ! God love it, so it was ! In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up ; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker’s oven ; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too. Christmas Carol \ Stave 3. CHRISTMAS— Its lessons. “ I will honor Christmas in my heart. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. O, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone ! ” Christmas Carol, Stave 4. CHRISTMAS 97 CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS— Scrooge’s opinion of. “ Don’t be cross, uncle !” said the nephew. “ What else can I be.” returned the uncle, “when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas ! Out upon merry Christmas ! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for pay- ing bills without money ; a time for finding your- self a year older, and not an hour richer ; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months pre- sented dead against you? If I could work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly, “ every idiot who goes about with ‘ Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly run through his heart. He should ! ” — Christmas Carol , Stave i. CHRISTMAS— Scenes. The noise in this room was perfectly tumul- tuous, for there were more children there than Scrooge, in his agitated state of mind, could count ; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was con- ducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief ; but no one seemed to care ; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much ; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of them ! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no ! I wouldn’t for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down ; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn’t have plucked it off, God bless my soul ! to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn’t have done it ; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips ; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them ; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush ; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price ; in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest license of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value. * Hs * * * But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she, with laughing face and plundered dress, was borne towards it in the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shout- ing and the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter ! The scaling him, with chairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round the neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection. The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was received! The terrible an- nouncement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll’s frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swal- lowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter ! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm ! The joy, and gratitude, and ec- stasy ! They are all indescribable alike. It is enough that, by degrees, the children and the.ir emotions got out of the parlor, and, by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house, where they went to bed, and so subsided. Christmas Carol , Stave 2. CHRISTMAS— A charitable time. “ There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew, “ Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that — as a good time ; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time ; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem bygone con- sent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other jour- neys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good ; and I say, God bless it ! ” Christmas Carol , , Stave i. CHRISTMAS EVE. Christmas Eve in Cloisterham. A few strange faces in the streets ; a few other faces, half strange and half familiar, once the faces of Cloisterham children, now the faces of men and women who come back from the outer world at long intervals to find the city wonderfully shrunken in size, as if it had not washed by any means well in the meanwhile. To these, the striking of the Cathedral clock, and the cawing of the rooks from the Cathedral tower, are like voices of their nursery time. To such as these, it has happened in their dying hours afar off, that they have imagined their chamber floor to be strewn with the autumnal leaves fallen from the elm-trees in the Close ; so haye the rustling sounds and fresh scents of their earliest impres- sions revived, when the circle of their lives was very nearly traced, and the beginning and the end were drawing close together Edwin Drood y Chap. 14. CHRISTMAS- At sea. Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds — born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the water — rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed. But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of bright- ness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog ; and one of them — the elder too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be — struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale in itself. Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and CHRISTMAS 08 CHRISTMAS DINNER heaving sea — on, on — until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch ; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations ; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his com- panion of some by-gone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for one another on that day than on any day in the year ; and had shared to some extent in its festivities ; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remem- ber him. — Christmas Carol , Stave 3. CHRISTMAS— The recollections of. Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty ; it was the season of hos- pitality, merriment, and open-heartedness ; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philoso- pher, to call his friends around him, and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly away. Gay and merry was the time, and gay and merry were at least four of the nu- merous hearts that were gladdened by its com- ing. And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment. How many families, whose mem- bers have been dispersed and scattered far and wide in the restless struggles of life, are then re-united, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual good-will, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight ; and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious be- lief of the most civilized nations, and the rude traditions of the roughest savages, alike number it among the first joys of a future condition of existence, provided for the blest and happy ! How many old recollections, and how many dormant sympathies, does Christmas time awaken ! We write these words now, many miles dis- tant from the spot at which, year after year, we met on that day a merry and joyous circle. Many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily then, have ceased to beat ; many of the looks that shone so brightly then, have ceased to glow ; the hands we grasped have grown cold ; the eyes we sought have hid their lustre in the grave; and yet the old house, the room, the merry voices and smiling faces, the jest, the laugh, the most minute and trivial circumstances connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our mind at each recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had been but yester- day ! Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days ; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth ; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home ! Pickwick , CJi. 2S. CHRISTMAS CAROLr-A. I care not for Spring ; on 1 uh> fickle wing Let the blosHomn him! buds he borne; lie woos them amain with bin treacherous rain, And he scatters them ere the morn. An inconstant elf, he knows not himself, Nor his own changing mind an hour, He’ll smile in your lace, and, with wry grimace, He’ll wither your youngest (lower Let the Summer sun to his bright home run, He shall never lie sought by me ; When he’s dimmed by a cloud I ran laugh aloud, And care not how sulky he lie ! For Ids darling child is ihe madness wild That snorts in fierce fever’s train ; And when love is too strong it don’t laBt long, As many have found to their pain. A mild harvest night, by the tranquil light Of the modest and gentle moon, Has a far sweeter sheen, for me, I ween, Than the broad and unblushing noon. But every leaf awakens my grief. As it licth beneath the tree ; So let Autumn air tie never so fair, • It by no means agrees with me. But my song T troll out, for CumsTMAS stout, The hearty, the true, and the hold; A bumper I drain, and with might and main Give three cheers lor this Christmas old ! We'll usher him in with a merry din That shall gladden his joyous heart. And we’ll keep him up while there ’s bite or sup, And in fellowship good we’ll part. In his fine honest pride, he scorns to hide One jot of his hard- weather scars ; They’re no disgrace, for there ’s much the same On the cheeks of our bravest tars. [trace Then again I’d sing till the roof doth ring, And it. echoes from wall to wall— To the stout old wight, fair welcome to-night, As the King of the Seasons all ! Pickwick, Ch. 28. CHRISTMAS DINNER-Bob Cratchit’s. “Ancl how did little Tim behave ?” asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content. “ As good as gold,” said Bob, “ and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, be- cause he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember, upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk and blind men see.” Bob’s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty. His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire ; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs — as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby — compounded some hot mixture in a jug, with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon re- turned in high procession. Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds ; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course — and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot ; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce ; Martha dusted the hot plates ; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table ; the two young Cratchits set chairs for every- CHRISTMAS 99 CHRISTMAS body, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving- knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast ; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah ! There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness were the themes of universal admi- ration. Eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last ! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows ! But now' the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone — too nervous to bear witnesses — to take the pudding up, and bring it in. Suppose it should not be done enough ! Sup- pose it should break in turning out ! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, wdiile they were merry with the goose — a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid ! All sorts of hor- rors were supposed. Hallo ! A great deal of steam ! The pud- ding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day ! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that ! That was the pudding ! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered — flushed, but smil- ing proudly — with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and be- dight with Christmas holly stuck into the top. Oh, a wonderful pudding. Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the great- est success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to, say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pud- ding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and con- sidered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one ; and at Bob Crat- chit’s elbow stood the family display of glass, two tumblers and a custard-cup without a handle. These held the hot stuff from the jug, how- ever, as well as golden goblets would have done ; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed, “ A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us.” Which all the family re-echoed, “ God bless us every one ! ” said Tiny Tim, the last of all. — Christmas Carol , , Stave 3. CHRISTMAS— Of Scrooge. “ I don’t know what day of the month it is,” said' Scrooge ; “ I don’t know how long I have been among the Spirits. I don’t know any- thing. I’m quite a baby. Never mind. I don’t care. I’d rather be a baby. Hallo ! Whoop ! Hallo here !” He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clash, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding ; hammer, clang, clash ! Oh, glorious, glorious ! Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist ; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold ; cold, piping for the blood to dance to ; golden sunlight ; heav- enly sky ; sweet fresh air ; merry bells. Oh, glorious ! Glorious ! “ What’s to-day ? ” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him. “Eh?” returned the boy, with all his might of wonder. “What’s to-day, my fine fellow?” said Scrooge. “ To-day !” replied the boy. “ Why, Christ- mas Day.” “It’s Christmas Day!” said Scrooge to him- self. “ I haven’t missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow !” “ Hallo !” returned the boy. “ Do you know the Poulterer’s, in the next street but one, at the corner ? ” Scrooge inquired. “ I should hope I did,” replied the lad. “ An intelligent boy ! ” said Scrooge. “ A re- markable boy ! Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there? — Not the little prize Turkey: the big one ? ” “ What, the one as big as me ? ” returned the boy. “ What a delightful boy ! ” said Scrooge. “ It’s a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck !” “ It’s hanging there now,” replied the boy. “ Is it ?” said Scrooge. “ Go and buy it.” “ Walk-ER !” exclaimed the boy. “No, no,” said Scrooge, “I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell ’em to bring it here, that I may give them the directions where to take it. Come back with the man, and I’ll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes, and I’ll give half-a-crown !” The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast. “ I’ll send it to Bob Cratchit’s,” whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. “ He shan’t know who sends it. It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob’s will be ! ” The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one ; but write it he did, somehow, CHRI3TMAS 100 CHRISTMAS and went down stairs to open the street-door, ready for the coming of the poulterer’s man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye. “I shall love it as long as I live!” cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand. “ I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest ex- pression it has in its face! It’s a wonderful knocker! — Here’s the Turkey. Hallo! Whoop! How are you ! Merry Christmas !” It was a Turkey ! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped ’em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealinn- wax. “ Why, it’s impossible to carry that to Camden Town,” said Scrooge. “ You must have a cab.” The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried. Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much ; and shaving re- quires attention, even when you don’t dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-plaster over it, and been quite satisfied. He dressed himself “ all in his best,” and at last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present ; and walk- ing with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humored fellows said, “Good morn- ing, sir ! A merry Christmas to you ! ” And Scrooge said often afteiward, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears. * ❖ * * He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows ; and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk — that anything — could give him so much happiness. In the afternoon, he turned his steps toward his nephew’s house. He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did it. “Is your master at home, my dear?” said Scrooge to the girl. Nice girl ! Very. “ Yes, sir.” “ Where is he, my love?” said Scrooge. “ He’s in the dining-room, sir, along with mis- tress. I’ll show you up stairs, if you please.” “ Thank’ee. He knows me,” said Scrooge, with his hand already on the dining-room lock. “ I’ll go in here, my dear.” He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door. They were looking at the table (which was spread out in great array) ; for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see that everything is right. “ Fred !” said Scrooge. Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started. Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the foot- stool, or he wouldn’t have done it, on any ac- count. “ Why, bless my soul J” cried Fred. “ Who’* that ?” “ It’s I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?” Let him in ! It’s a mercy he didn’t shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he came. So did the plump sister, when she came. So did everyone when came. Wonderful par- ty, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won- derful happiness. But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there. If he could only he there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late. That was the thing he had set his heart upon. And he did it ; yes, he did ! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank. His hat was off before he opened the door; ( his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy, driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o’clock. “ Hallo !” growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice as near as he could feign it. “What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?” | “ I am very sorry, sir,” said Bob. “ I avi behind my time.” “You are!” repeated Scrooge. “Yes. I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you please.” “ It’s only once a year, sir,” pleaded Bob, ap- ! pearing from the Tank. “It shall not be re- peated. I was making rather merry, yesterday, sir.” “ Now, I’ll tell you what, my friend,” said Scrooge, “ I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,” he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again: “and therefore I am about to raise your salary ! ” Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait- waistcoat. “A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “ A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year ! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavor to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob ! Make up the fires and buy an- other coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit ! ” Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more ; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He be- came as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them ; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset ; and CHURCHES 101 CHURCHES i knowing that such as these would be blind any- way, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the mala- dy in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed : and that was quite enough for him. He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle ever afterward ; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us ! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, EveryOne ! Christmas Carol , Stave 5. CHURCHES— A Sunday experience among:. There is a pale heap of books in the corner of my pew, and while the organ, which is hoarse and sleepy, plays in such fashion that I can hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of any music, I look at the books, which are mostly bound in faded baize and stuff. The opening of the service recalls my wander- ing thoughts. I then find, to my astonishment, that I have been, and still am, taking a strong kind of invisible snuff up my nose, into my eyes, and down my throat. I wink, sneeze, and cough. The clerk sneezes, the clergyman winks, the unseen organist sneezes and coughs (and probably winks) ; all our little party wink, sneeze, and cough. The snuff seems to be made of the decay of matting, wood, cloth, stone, iron, earth, and something else. Is the something else the decay of dead citizens in the vaults be- low? As sure as Death it is ! Not only in the cold, damp February day do we cough and sneeze dead citizens, all through the service, but dead citizeias have got into the very bellows of the organ, and half-choked the same. We stamp our feet to warm them, and dead citizens arise in heavy clouds. Dead citizens stick upon the walls, and lie pulverized on the sounding- board over the clergyman’s head, and, when a gust of air comes, tumble down upon him. ***** But we receive the signal to make that unan- imous dive which surely is a little conven- tional — like the strange rustlings and settlings and clearings of throats and noses which are never dispensed with at certain points of the Church service, and are never held to be neces- sary under any other circumstances. In a min- ute more it is all over, and the organ expresses itself to be as glad of it as it can be of anything in its rheumatic state, and in another minute we are all of us out of the church, and Whity- brown has locked it up. Another minute or little more, and, in the neighboring churchyard — not the yard of that church, but of another — a churchyard like a great shabby old mignonette box, with two trees in it, and one tomb — I meet Whity-brown, in his private capacity, fetching a pint of beer for his dinner from the public- house in the corner, where the keys of the rotting fire-ladders are kept and were never asked for, and where there is a ragged, white-seamed, out- at-elbowed bagatelle board on the first floor. ***** In the course of my pilgrimages I came upon one obscure church which had broken out in the melodramatic style, and was got up with various tawdry decorations, much after the man- ner of the extinct London Maypoles. These attractions had induced several young priests or deacons, in black bibs for waistcoats, and several young ladies interested in that holy order (the proportion being, as I estimated, seventeen young ladies to a deacon), to come into the City as a new and odd excitement. It was wonder- ful to see how these young people played out their little play in the heart of the City, all among themselves, without the deserted City’s knowing anything about it. It was as if you should take an empty counting-house on a Sun- day, and act one of the old Mysteries there. They had impressed a small school (from what neigh- borhood I don’t know) to assist in the perform- ances ; and it was pleasant to notice frantic garlands of inscription on the walls, especially addressing those poor innocents, in characters impossible for them to decipher. There was a remarkably agreeable smell of pomatum in this congregation. But in other cases rot and mildew and dead citizens formed the uppermost scent, while in- fused into it, in a dreamy way not at all dis- pleasing, was the staple character of the neigh- borhood. In the churches about Mark Lane; for example, there was a dry whiff' of wheat ; and I accidentally struck an airy sample of bar- ley out of an aged hassock in one of them. From Rood Lane to Tower Street, and thereabouts, there was often a subtle flavor of wine ; some- times of tea. One church near Mincing Lane smelt like a druggist’s drawer. Behind the Monument the service had a flavor of damaged oranges, which a little farther down towards the river tempered into herrings, and gradually toned into a cosmopolitan blast of fish. In one church, the exact counterpart of the church in the Rake’s Progress where the hero is being married to the horrible old lady, there was no specialty of atmosphere, until the organ shook a perfume of hides all over us from some ad- jacent warehouse. Be the scent what it would, however, there was no specialty in the people. There were never enough of them to represent any calling or neighborhood. They had all gone elsewhere overnight, and the few stragglers in the many churches languished there inexpressively. Among the uncommercial travels in which I have engaged, this year of Sunday travel oc- cupies its own place apart from all the rest. Whether I think of the church where the sails of the oyster boats in the river almost flapped against the windows, or of the church where the railroad made the bell 5 hum as the train rushed by above the roof, I recall a curious experience. On summer Sundays, in the gentle rain or the bright sunshine — either deepening the idleness of the idle city — I have sat, in that singular silence which belongs to resting-places usually astir, in scores of buildings, at the heart of the world’s metropolis, unknown to far greater numbers of people speaking the English tongue than the an- cient edifices of the Eternal City, or the Pyramids of Egypt. The dark vestries and registries into which I have peeped, and the little hemmed-in churchyards that have echoed to my feet, have left impressions on my memory as distinct and quaint as any it has in that way received. In all those dusty registers that the worms are eat- ing, there is not a line but made some hearts leap, or some tears flow, in their day. Still and dry now, still and dry ! and the old tree at the CHURCH 102 CHURCH window, with no room for its branches, has seen them all out. So with the tomb of the old Master of the old Company, on which it drips. His son restored it and died, his daughter re- stored it and died, and then he had been re- membered long enough, and the tree took pos- session of him, and his name cracked out. There are few more striking indications of the changes of manners and customs that two or three hundred years have brought about, than these deserted churches. Many of them are handsome and costly structures, several of them were designed by Wren, many of them arose from the ashes of the great fire, others of them outlived the plague and the fire too, to die a slow death in these later days. No one can be sure of the coming time ; but it is not too much to say of it that it has no sign, in its outsetting tides, of the reflux to these churches of their congregations and uses. They remain, like the tombs of the old citizens who lie beneath them and around them, Monuments of another age. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. g. CHURCH. We have a church, by the bye, a hideous tem- ple of flint, like a great, petrified hay-stack. Reprinted Pieces. CHURCH AND PREACHER-A child’s first experiences of. Not that I have any curiosity to hear powerful preachers. Time was, when I was dragged by the hair of my head, as one may say, to hear too many. On summer evenings, when every flower and tree and bird might have better ad- dressed my soft young heart, I have in my day been caught in the palm of a female hand by the crown, have been violently scrubbed from the neck to the roots of the hair as a purifica- tion for the Temple, and have then been carried off, highly charged with saponaceous electricity, to be steamed like a potato in the un ventilated breath of the powerful Boanerges Boiler and his congregation, until what small mind I had was quite steamed out of me. In which pitiable plight I have been haled out of the place of meeting, at the conclusion of the exercises, and catechised respecting Boanerges Boiler, his fifthly, his sixthly, and his seventhly, until I have regarded that reverend person in the light of a most dismal and oppressive Charade. Time was, when I was carried off to platform assemblages at which no human child, whether of wrath or grace, could possibly keep its eyes open, and when I felt the fatal sleep stealing, stealing over me, and when I gradually heard the orator in possession spinning and humming like a great top, until he rolled, col- lapsed, and tumbled over, and I discovered, to my burning shame and fear, that as to that last stage it was not he, but I. I have sat under Boanerges when he has specifically addressed himself to us — us, the infarlts — and at this pres- ent writing I hear his lumbering jocularity (which never amused us, though we basely pre- tended that it did), and I behold his big round face, and I look up the inside of his outstretched coat sleeve, as if it were a telescope, with the stopper on, and I hate him with an unwhole- some hatred for two hours. Through such means did it come to pass that I knew the powerful preacher from beginning to end. all over and all through, while I was very young, and that I left him behind at an early period of life. Peace be with him ! More peace than he brought to me ! Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 9. CHURCH-A hideous. A very hideous church with four lowers at the four corners, generally resembling some petrified monster, frightful and gigantic, on its back, with its legs in the air. Our Mutual Friend , Book //., Chap. I. CHURCH— An apology to Heaven. * * * * Laying violent hands upon a quantity of stone and timber which be- longed to a weaker baron, he built a chapel as an apology, and so took a receipt from Heaven, in full of all demands. Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 6. CHURCHES— In Italy. Sitting in any of the churches toward evening, is like a mild dose of opium. Pictures from Italy. CHURCH— A wedding- in. Her heart beats quicker now, for Walter tells her that their church is very near. They pass a few great stacks of warehouses, with wagons at the doors, and busy carmen stopping up the way — but Florence does not see or hear them — and then the air is quiet, and the day is darkened, and she is trembling in a church which has a strange smell, like a cellar. The shabby little old man, ringer of the dis- appointed bell, is standing in the porch, and has put his hat in the font — for he is quite at home there, being sexton. He ushers them into an old, brown, panelled, dusty vestry, like a corner- cupboard with the shelves taken out ; where the wormy registers diffuse a smell like faded snuff, which has set the tearful Nipper sneezing. Youthful, and how beautiful the young bride looks, in this old dusty place, with no kindred object near her but her husband. There is a dusty old clerk, who keeps a sort of evaporated news-shop underneath an archway opposite, be- hind a perfect fortification of posts. There is a dusty old pew-opener who only keeps herself, and finds that quite enough to do. There is a dusty old beadle (these are Mr. Toots’s beadle and pew-opener of last Sunday), who has some- thing to do with a worshipful Company who have got a Hall in the next yard, with a stained- glass window in it that no mortal ever saw. There are dusty wooden ledges and cornices poked in and out over the altar, and over the screen, and round the gallery, and over the in- scription about what the Master and Wardens of the Worshipful Company did in one thou sand six hundred and ninety-four. There are dusty old sounding-boards over the pulpit and reading-desk, looking like lids to be let down on the officiating ministers, in case of their giv- ing offence. There is every possible provision for the accommodation of dust, except in the churchyard, where the facilities in that respect are very limited. * -x- * * * No gracious ray of light is seen to fall on Flor- ence, kneeling at the altar with her timid head bowed down. The morning luminary is built CHURCHES 103 CHURCHYARD out, and don’t shine there. There is a meagre tree outside, where the sparrows are chirping a little ; and there is a blackbird in an eyelet-hole of sun in a dyer’s garret, over against the win- dow, who whistles loudly whilst the service is performing ; and there is the man with the wooden leg stumping away. The amens of the dusty clerk appear, like Macbeth’s, to stick in his throat a little ; but Captain Cuttle helps him out, and does it with so much good-will that he interpolates three entirely new responses of that word, never introduced into the service before. They are married, and have signed their names in one of the old sneezy registers, and the clergyman’s surplice is restored to the dust, and the clergyman is gone home. Dombey 6° Son, Chap. 57. CHURCHES— Old. The tall shrouded pulpit and reading-desk ; the dreary perspective of empty pews stretching away under the galleries, and empty benches mounting to the roof and lost in the shadow of the great grim organ ; the dusty matting and cold stone slabs ; the grisly free seats in the aisles ; and the damp corner by the bell-rope, where the black tressels used for funerals were stowed away, along with some shovels and baskets, and a coil or two of deadly-looking rope ; the strange, unusual, uncomfortable smell, and the cadaverous light, were all in unison. It was a cold and dismal scene. Dombey Sf Son, Chap. 28. The church was a mouldy old church in a yard, hemmed in by a labyrinth of back streets and courts, with a little burying ground round it, and itself buried in a kind of vault, formed by the neighboring houses, and paved with echoing stones. It was a great, dim, shabby pile, with high old oaken pews, among which about a score of people lost themselves every Sunday ; while the clergyman’s voice drowsily resounded through the emptiness, and the organ rumbled and rolled as if the church had got the colic, for want of a £ongregation to keep the wind and damp out. But so far was this city church from languishing for the company of other churches, that spires were clustered round it, as the masts of shipping cluster on the river. It would have been hard to count them from its steeple-top, they were so many. In almost every yard and blind-place near, there was a church. The confusion of bells when Susan and Mr. Toots betook themselves towards it on the Sunday morning, was deafening. There were twenty churches close together, clamoring for people to come in . — Dombey dr 5 Son, Chap. 56. CHURCH- Windows. So little light lives inside the churches in my churchyards, when the two are coexistent, that it is often only by an accident and after long acquaintance that I discover their having stained glass in some odd window'. The westering sun slants into the churchyard by some unwonted entry, a few prismatic tears drop on an old tombstone, and a window that I thought was only dirty is for the moment all bejewelled. Then the light passes, and the colors die. Though even then, if there be room enough for me to fall back so far as that I can gaze up to the top of the church tower, I see the rusty vane new burnished, and seeming to look out with a joyful flash over the sea of smoke at the distant shore of country. Uncommercial Traveller, Chap. 21. CHURCHYARDS— In London Such strange churchyards hide in the City of London — churchyards sometimes so entirely detached from churches, always so pressed upon by houses ; so small, so rank, so silent, so for- gotten, except by the few people who ever look down into them from their smoky windows. As I stand peeping in through the iron gates and rails, I can peel the rusty metal off like bark from an old tree. The illegible tombstones are all lop-sided, the grave-mounds lost their shape in the rains of a hundred years ago, the Lom- bardy Poplar or Plane-Tree that was once a dry- salter’s daughter and several common council- men, has withered like those worthies, and its departed leaves are dust beneath it. Contagion of slow ruin overhangs the place. The dis- colored tiled roofs of the environing buildings stand so awry that they can hardly be proof against any stress of weather. Old crazy stacks of chimneys seem to look down as they over- hang, dubiously calculating how far they will have to fall. In an angle of the walls, what was once the tool house of the grave-digger rots away, incrusted with toadstools. Pipes and spouts for carrying off the rain from the encom- passing gables, broken or feloniously cut for old lead long ago, now let the rain drip and splash as it list upon the weedy earth. Sometimes there is a rusty pump somewhere near, and, as I look in at the rails and meditate, I hear it working under an unknown hand with a creak- ing protest, as though the departed in the churchyard urged, “ Let us lie here in peace ; don’t suck us up and drink us !” Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 21. CHURCHYARD-A. A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses ; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation’s death, not life ; choked up with too much burying ; fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place ! Christmas Carol, Stave 4. CHURCHY ARD— Little Nell in an old. The sun was setting when they reached the wicket-gate at which the path began, and, as the rain falls upon the just and unjust alike, it shed its warm tint even upon the resting-places of the dead, and bade them be of good hope for its rising on the morrow. The church was old and gray, with ivy clinging to the walls, and round the porch. Shunning the tombs, it crept about the mounds, beneath which slept poor humble men ; twining for them the first wreaths they had ever won, but wreaths less liable to wither and far more lasting in their kind, than some which were graven deep in stone and marble, and told in pompous terms of virtues meekly hidden for many a year, and only revealed at last to executors and mourning legatees. The clergyman’s horse, stumbling with a dull blunt sound among the graves, was cropping the grass ; at once deriving orthodox consolation from the dead parishioners, and enforcing last CIRCUS 104 CITY Sunday’s text that this was what all flesh came to ; a lean ass who had sought to expound it also, without being qualified and ordained, was pricking his ears in an empty pound hard by, and looking with hungry eyes upon his priestly neighbor. — Old Curiosity Shop , Chop. 16. CIRCUS— The philosophy of the. “ People mutht be amuthed, Thquire, thomc- how,” continued Sleary, rendered more pursy than ever, by so much talking ; “ they can’t be alwaylh a working, nor yet they can’t be alwayth a learning. Make the betht of uth ; not the wurtht. I’ve got my living out of the horthe- riding all my life, I know ; but I conthider that I lay down the philothophy of the thubject when I thay to you, Thquire, make the betht of uth ; not the wurtht ! ” The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went down stairs ; and the fixed eye of Philosophy — and its rolling eye, too — soon lost the three figures and the basket in the darkness of the street. — Hard Times , Book /., Chap. 6. CIRCUS-PEOPLE— Mr. Sleary on. “ Thquire, thake handth, firtht and latht ! Don’t be croth with uth poor vagabondth. Peo- ple mutht be amuthed. They can’t be alwayth a learning, nor yet they can’t be alwayth a work- ing, they an’t made for it. You mutht have uth, Thquire. Do the withe thing and the kind thing too, and make the betht of uth ; not the wortht ! “And I never thought before,” said Mr. Sleary, putting his head in at the door again to say it, “ that I wath tho muth of a Cackler !” Hard Times , Book III., Chap. 8. CIRCUS— The performers. We defy any one who has been to Astley’s two or three times, and is consequently capable of appreciating the perseverance with which precisely the same jokes are repeated night after night, and season after season, not to be amused with one part of the performances at least — we mean the scenes in the circle. For ourself, we know that when the hoop, composed of jets of gas, is let down, the curtain drawn up for the convenience of the half-price on their ejectment from the ring, the orange-peel cleared away, and the sawdust shaken, with mathematical preci- sion, into a complete circle, we feel as much enlivened as the youngest child present ; and actually join in the laugh which follows the clown’s shrill shout of “ Here we are !” just for old acquaintance sake. Nor can we quite divest ourself of our old feeling of reverence for the riding-master, who follows the clown with a long whip in his hand, and bows to the audience with graceful dignity. lie is none of your sec- ond rate riding-masters, in nankeen dressing- gowns, with brown frogs, but the regular gen- tleman attendant on the principal riders, who always wears a military uniform with a table- cloth inside the breast of the coat, in which costume he forcibly reminds one of a fowl trussed for roasting. He is — but why should we attempt to describe that of which no de- scription can convey an adequate idea? Every- body knows the man, and everybody remembers his polished boots, his graceful demeanor, stiff, as some misjudging persons have in their jeal- ousy considered it, and the splendid head of black hair, parted high on the forehead, to im- part to the countenance an appearance of deep thought and poetic melancholy. His soft and pleasing voice, too, is in perfect unison with his noble bearing, as he humors the clown by in- dulging in a little badinage; and the striking recollection of his own dignity with which he exclaims, “ Now, sir, if you please, inquire for Miss Woolford, sir,” can never be forgotten. The graceful air, too, with which he introduces Miss Woolford into the arena, and after assist- ing her to the saddle, follows her fairy courser round the circle, can never fail to create a deep impression in the bosom of every female servant present. — Scenes, Chap. n. CITY— An old and drowsy. An ancient city, Cloisterham, and no meet dwelling-place for any one with hankerings after the noisy world. A monotonous, silent city, deriving an earthy flavor throughout from its Cathedral crypt, and so abounding in vestiges of monastic graves, that the Cloisterham chil- dren grow small salad in the dust of abbots and abbesses, and make dirt-pies of nuns and friars ; while every ploughman in its outlying fields renders to once puissant Lord Treasurers, Arch- bishops, Bishops, and such-like, the attention which the Ogre in the story-book desired to .render to his unbidden visitor, and grinds their bones to make his bread. A drowsy city, Cloisterham, whose inhabitants seem to suppose, with an inconsistency more strange than rare, that all its changes lie behind it, and that there are no more to come. A queer moral to derive from antiquity, yet older than any traceable antiquity. So silent are the streets of Cloisterham (though prone to echo on the smallest provocation), that of a summer-day the sunblinds of its shops scarce dare to flap in the south wind ; while the sun-browned tramps who pass along and stare, quicken their limp a little, that they may the sooner get beyond the confines of its oppressive respectability. This is a feat not difficult of achievement, seeing that the streets of Cloisterham city are little more than one narrow street by which you get into it and get out of it : the rest being mostly disap- pointing yards with pumps in them and no thoroughfare — exception made of the Cathedral close, and a paved Quaker settlement, in color and general conformation very like a Quakeress’s bonnet, up in a shady corner. In a word, a city of another and a bygone time is Cloisterham, with its hoarse Cathedral bell, its hoarse rooks hovering about the Cathe- dral tower, its hoarser and less distinct rooks in the. stalls far beneath. Fragments of old wall, saint’s chapel, chapter-house, convent, and mon- astery have got incongruously or obstructively built into many of its houses and gardens, much as kindred jumbled notions have become incor- porated into many of its citizens’ minds. All things in it are of the past. Even its single pawnbroker takes in no pledges, nor has he for a long time, but offers vainly an unredeemed stock for sale, of which the costlier articles are dim and pale old watches apparently in a slow perspiration, tarnished sugar-tongs with ineffec- tual legs, and odd volumes of dismal books. The most abundant and the most agreeable evidences of progressing life in Cloisterham are the evidences of vegetable life in its many gar- CITY 105 CITY dens ; even its drooping and despondent little theatre has its poor strip of garden, receiving the foul fiend, when he ducks from its stage into the infernal regions, among scarlet beans or oyster-shells, according to the season of the year. — Edwin Drood, Chap. 3. CITY— A quiet nook in London. Behind the most ancient part of Holborn, London, where certain gabled houses some cen- turies of age still stand looking on the public way, as if disconsolately looking for the Old Bourne that has long run dry, is a little nook composed of two irregular quadrangles, called Staple Inn. It is one of those nooks, the turn- ing into which out of the clashing street imparts to the relieved pedestrian the sensation of hav- ing put cotton in his ears and velvet soles on his boots. It is one of those nooks where a few smoky sparrows twitter in smoky trees, as though they called to one another, “ Let us play at country,” and where a few feet of garden mould and a few yards of gravel enable them to do that refreshing violence to their tiny under- standings. Moreover, it is one of those nooks which are legal nooks ; and it contains a little Hall, with a little lantern in its roof; to what obstructive purposes devoted, and at whose ex- pense, this history knoweth not. Edwin Drood , Chap. 11. CITY CROWD— Its expressions. The throng of people hurried by, in two op- posite streams, with no symptom of cessation or exhaustion ; intent upon their own affairs ; and undisturbed in their business speculations by the roar of carts and wagons laden with clash- ing wares, the slipping of horses’ feet upon the wet and greasy pavement, the rattling of the rain on windows and umbrella-tops, the jostling of the more impatient passengers, and all the noise and tumult of a crowded street in the high tide of its occupation ; while the two poor strangers, stunned and/ bewildered by the hurry they beheld but had no part in, looked mourn- fully on ; feeling, amidst the crowd, a solitude which has no parallel but in the thirst of the shipwrecked mariner, who, tost to and fro upon the billows of a mighty ocean, his red eyes blinded by looking on the water which hems him in on every side, has not one drop to cool his burning tongue. They withdrew into a low archway for shelter from the rain, and watched the faces of those who passed, to find in one among them a ray of encouragement or hope. Some frowned, some smiled, some muttered to themselves, some made slight gestures, as if anticipating the conversa- tion in which they would shortly be engaged, some wore the cunning look of bargaining and plotting, some were anxious and eager, some slow and dull ; in some countenances were written gain ; in others loss. It was like being in the confidence of all these people to stand quietly there, looking into their faces as they flitted past. In busy places, where each man has an object of his own, and feels assured that every other man has his, his character and pur- pose are written broadly in his face. In the public walks and lounges of the town, people go to see and to be seen, and there the same expression, with little variety, is repeated a hundred times. The working-day faces come nearer to the truth, and let it out more plainly. — Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 44. CITY OF PHILADELPHIA*. It is a handsome city, but distractingly regu- lar. After walking about it for an hour or two, I felt that I would have given the world for a crooked street. The collar of my coat appeared to stiffen, and the brim of my hat to expand, beneath its Quakerly influence. My hair shrunk into a sleek short crop, my hands folded them- selves upon my breast of their own calm accord, and thoughts of taking lodgings in Mark Lane, over against the Market Place, and of making a large fortune by speculations in corn, came over me involuntarily. — American Notes, Chap. 7. CITY— The approach to New York. We were now in a narrow channel, with slo- ping banks on either side, besprinkled with plea- sant villas, and made refreshing to the sight by turf and trees. Soon we shot in quick succes- sion past a light-house, a mad-house (how the lunatics flung up their caps and roared in sympathy with the headlong engine and the driving tide !), a jail, and other buildings, and so emerged into a noble bay, whose waters sparkled in the now cloudless sunshine, like Nature’s eyes turned up to Heaven. Then there lay stretched out before us to the right, confused heaps of buildings, with here and there a spire or steeple, looking down upon the herd below : and here and there again a cloud of lazy smoke ; and in the foreground a forest of ships’ masts, cheery with flapping sails and waving flags. Crossing from among them to the opposite shore were steam ferry-boats laden with people, coaches, horses, wagons, bas- kets, boxes ; crossed and recrossed by other ferry- boats ; all travelling to and fro, and never idle. Stately among these restless Insects were two or three large ships, moving with slow, majestic pace, as creatures of a prouder kind, disdainful of their puny journeys, and making for the broad sea. Beyond were shining heights, and islands in the glancing river, and a distance scarcely less blue and bright than the sky it seemed to meet. The city’s hum and buzz, the clinking of capstans, the ringing of bells, the barking of dogs, the clattering of wheels, tin- gled in the listening ear. All of which life and stir, coming across the stirring water, caught new life and animation from its free companion- ship ; and, sympathizing with its buoyant spirits, glistened, as it seemed, in sport upon its surface, and hemmed the vessel round, and plashed the water high about her sides, and, floating her gallantly into the dock, flew off again to wel- come other comers and speed before them to the busy port. — American Notes, Chap. 5. CITY— Travellers to the. Day after day, such travellers crept past, but always, as she thought, in one direction — always towards the town. Swallowed up in one phase or other of its immensity, towards which they seemed impelled by a desperate fascination, they never returned. Food for the hospitals, the churchyards, the prisons, the river, fever, mad- ness, vice, and death, — they passed on to the monster, roaring in the distance, and were lost. Dombey dr 5 Son, Chap. 33. CITY 100 CITY SQUARE CITY Approach to a. And now he approached the great city, which lay outstretched before him like a dark shadow on the ground, reddening the sluggish air with a deep, dull light, that told of labyrinths of pub- lic ways and shops, and swarms of busy people. Approaching nearer and nearer yet, this halo began to fade, and the causes which produced it slowly to develop themselves. Long lines of poorly lighted streets might be faintly traced, with here and there a lighter spot, where lamps were clustered about a square or market, or round some great buildings ; after a time these grew more distinct, and the lamps themselves were visible ; slight yellow specks, that seemed to be rapidly snuffed out, one by one, as inter- vening obstacles hid them from the sight. Then sounds arose — the striking of church clocks, the distant bark of dogs, the hum of traffic in the streets ; then outlines might be traced — tall steeples looming in the air, and piles of unequal roofs oppressed by chimneys ; then, the noise swelled into a louder sound, and forms grew more distinct and numerous still, and London — visible in the darkness by its own faint light, and not by that of Heaven — was at hand. Barnaby Budge , Chap. 3. CITY— London in old times. A series of pictures representing the streets of London in the night, even at the compara- tively recent date of this tale, would present to the eye something so very different in character from the reality which is witnessed in these times, that it would be difficult for the beholder to recognize his most familiar walks in the al- tered aspect of little more than half a century ago. They w r ere, one and all, from the broadest and best to the narrowest and least frequented, very dark. The oil and cotton lamps, though regu- larly trimmed twice or thrice in the long winter nights, burnt feebly at the best ; and at a late hour, when they were unassisted by the lamps and candles in the shops, cast but a narrow track of doubtful light upon the footway, leaving the projecting doors and house-fronts in the deepest gloom. Many of the courts and lanes were left in total darkness ; those of the meaner sort, where one glimmering light twinkled for a score of houses, being favored in no slight degree. Even in these places, the inhabitants had often good reason for extinguishing their lamp as soon as it was lighted ; and the watch being utterly inefficient, and powerless to prevent them, they did so at their pleasure. Thus, in the lightest thoroughfares, there was at every turn some ob- scure and dangerous spot whither a thief might fly for shelter, and few would care to follow ; and the city being belted round by fields, green lanes, waste grounds, and lonely roads, dividing it at that time from the suburbs that have joined it since, escape, even when the pursuit was hot, was rendered easy. There were many other characteristics — not quite so disagreeable — about the thoroughfares of London then, with which they had been long familiar. Some of the shops, especially those to the eastward of Temple Bar, still adhered to the old practice of hanging out a sign, and the creaking and swinging of these boards in their iron frames on windy nights, formed a strange and mournful concert for the cars of those who lay awake in bed or hurried through the streets. Long stands of hackney-chairs and groups of chairmen, compared with whom the coachmen of our day are gentle and polite, obstructed the way and filled the air with clamor ; night-cel- lars, indicated by a little stream of light cross- ing the pavement, and stretching out half-way into the road, and by the stifled roar of voices from below, yawned for the reception and enter- tainment of the most abandoned of both sexes ; under every shed and bulk small groups of link- boys gamed away the earnings of the day ; or one, more weary than the rest, gave way to sleep, and let the fragment of his torch fall hissing on the puddled ground. Then there was the watch, with staff and lan- thorn, crying the hour, and the kind of weather ; and those who woke up at his voice and turned them round in bed, were glad to hear it rained or snowed, or blew, or froze, for very comfort’s sake. The solitary passenger was startled by the chairmen’s cry of “ By your leave there ! ” as two came trotting past him with their empty vehicle — carried backwards to show its being disengaged — and hurried to the nearest stand. Many a private chair too, inclosing some fine lady, monstrously hooped and furbelowed, and preceded by running footmen bearing flambeaux — for which extinguishers are yet suspended be- fore the doors of a few houses of the better sort — made the way gay and light as it danced along, and darker and more dismal when it had passed. It was not unusual for these running gentry, who carried it with a very high hand, to quarrel in the servants’ hall while waiting for their masters and mistresses ; and, falling to blows either there or in the street without, to strew the place of skirmish with hair-powder, fragments of bag- wigs, and scattered nosegays. Gaming, the vice which ran so high among all classes (the fashion being of course set by the upper), was generally the cause of these disputes ; for cards and dice were as openly used, and worked as much mis- chief, and yielded as much excitement below stairs, as above. While incidents like these, arising out of drums and masquerades and parties at quadrille, were passing at the west end of the town, heavy stage-coaches and scarce heavier wagons were lumbering slowly toward the city, the coachmen, guard, and passengers armed to the teeth, and the coach — a day or so, perhaps, behind its time, but that was nothing — despoiled by highwaymen ; who made no scruple to attack, alone and single-handed, a whole caravan of goods and men, and some- times shot a passenger or two, and were some- times shot themselves, just as the case might be. On the morrow, rumors of this new act of dar- ing on the road yielded matter for a few hours’ conversation through the town, and a Public Progress of some fine gentlemen (half drunk) to Tyburn, dressed in the newest fashion and damning the ordinary with unspeakable gal- lantry and grace, furnished to the populace at once a pleasant excitement and a wholesome and profound example. Barnaby Budge, Chap. 1 6. CITY SQUARE— The office of the Cheery- bles. The square in which the counting house of the brothers Cheeryble was situated, although it might not wholly realize the very sanguine CITY SQUARE 107 CITY NEIGHBORHOOD expectations which a stranger would be disposed to form on hearing the fervent encomiums be- stowed upon it by Tim Linkinwater, was, never- theless, a sufficiently desirable nook in the heart of a busy town like London, and one which oc- cupied a high place in the affectionate remem- brances of several grave persons domiciled in the neighborhood, whose recollections, however, dated from a much more recent period, and whose attachment to the spot was far less ab- sorbing than were the recollections and attach- ment of the enthusiastic Tim. And let not those Londoners whose eyes have been accustomed to the aristocratic gravity of Grosvenor Square and Hanover Square, the dowager barrenness and frigidity of Fitzroy Square, or the gravel-walks and garden-seats of the Squares of Russell and Euston, suppose that the affections of Tim Linkinwater, or the infe- rior lovers of this particular locality, had been awakened and kept alive by any refreshing asso- ciations with leaves, however dingy, or grass, however bare and thin. The City Square has no enclosure, save the lamp-post in the middle ; and has no grass but the weeds which spring up round its base. It is a quiet, little-frequented, retired spot, favorable to melancholy and con- templation, and appointments of long-waiting ; and up and down its every side the Appointed saunters idly by the hour together, wakening the echoes with the monotonous sound of his foot- steps on the smooth, worn stones, and counting, first the windows, and then the very bricks of the tall silent houses that hem him round about. In winter-time, the snow will linger there, long after it has melted from the busy streets and highways. The summer’s sun holds it in some respect, and, while he darts his cheerful rays sparingly into the Square, keeps his fiery heat and glare for noisier and less imposing pre- cincts. It is so quiet, that you can almost hear the ticking of your own watch when you stop to cool in its refreshing at/mosphere. There is a distant hum — of coaches, not of insects — but no other sound disturbs the stillness of the square. The ticket porter leans idly against the post at the corner, comfortably warm, but not hot, al- though the day is broiling. His white apron flaps languidly in the air, his head gradually droops upon his breast, he takes very long winks with both eyes at once ; even he is unable to withstand the soporific influence of the place, and is gradually falling asleep. But now, he starts into full wakefulness, recoils a step or two, and gazes out before him with eager wild- ness in his eye. Is it a job, or a boy at mar- bles? Does he see a ghost, or hear an organ? No ; sight more unwonted still — there is a but- terfly in the square — a real, live butterfly ! astray from flowers and sweets, and fluttering among the iron heads of the dusty area railings. But if there were not many matters immedi- ately without the doors of Cheeryble Brothers, to engage the attention or distract the thoughts of the young clerk, there were not a few within, to interest and amuse him. There was scarcely an object in the place, animate or inanimate, which did not partake in some degree of the scrupulous method and punctuality of Mr. Tim- othy Linkinwater. Punctual as the counting- house dial, which he maintained to be the best time-keeper in London next after the clock of some old, hidden, unknown church hard by (for Tim held the fabled goodness of that at the Horse Guards to be a pleasant fiction, invented by jealous Westenders), the old clerk performed the minutest actions of the day, and arranged the minutest articles in the little room in a precise and regular order, which could not have been exceeded if it had actually been a real glass case, fitted with the choicest curiosities. Paper, pens, ink, ruler, sealing-wax, wafers, pounce-box, string-box, fire-box, Tim’s hat, Tim’s scrupulously folded gloves, Tim’s other coat — looking precisely like a back view of himself as it hung against the wall — all had their accustomed inches of space. Except the clock, there was not such an accurate and un- impeachable instrument in existence as the little thermometer which hung behind the door. There was not a bird of such methodical and business-like habits in all the world, as the blind blackbird, who dreamed and dozed away his days in a large snug cage, and had lost his voice from old age, years before Tim first bought him. There was not such an eventful story in the whole range of anecdote, as Tim could tell concerning the acquisition of that very bird ; how, compassionating his starved and suffering condition, he had purchased him, with the view of humanely terminating his wretched life ; how he determined to wait three days and see whether the bird revived ; how, before half the time was out, the bird did revive ; and how he went on reviving and picking up his appetite and good looks until he gradually became what — “ what you see him now, sir ! ” — Tim would say, glanc- ing proudly at the cage. And with that, Tim would utter a melodious chirrup, and cry “ Dick ; ” and Dick, who, for any sign of life he had previously given, might have been a wooden or stuffed representation of a blackbird, indiffer- ently executed, would come to the side of the cage in three small jumps, and, thrusting his bill between the bars, would turn his sightless head towards his old master — and at that mo- ment it would be very difficult to determine which of the two was the happier, the bird or Tim Linkinwater. Nor was this all. Everything gave back, be- sides, some reflection of the kindly spirit of the brothers. The warehousemen and porters were such sturdy, jolly fellows, that it was a treat to see them. Among the shipping-announcements and steam-packet lists which decorated the counting-house wall, were designs for alms- houses, statements of charities, and plans for new hospitals. A blunderbuss and two swords hung above the chimney-piece, for the terror of evil-doers ; but the blunderbuss was rusty and shattered, and the swords were broken and edgeless. Elsewhere, their open display in such a condition would have raised a smile ; but there, it seemed as though even violent and offensive weapons partook of the reigning influ- ence, and became emblems of mercy and for- bearance. — Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 37. CITY NEIGHBORHOOD— A. In that quarter of London in which Golden Square is situated, there is a by-gone, faded, tumble-down street, with two irregular rows of tall, meagre houses, which seem to have stared each other out of countenance years ago. The very chimneys appear to have grown dismal and melancholy, from having had nothing better to CLEANLINESS 108 CLERK look at than the chimneys over the way. Their tops are battered, and broken, and blackened with smoke ; and, here and there, some taller stack than the rest, inclining heavily to one side, and toppling over the roof, seems to medi- tate taking revenge for half a century’s neglect, by crushing the inhabitants of the garrets be- neath. The fowls who peck about the kennels, jerk- ing their bodies hither and thither with a gait which none but town fowls are ever seen to adopt, and which any country cock or hen would be puzzled to understand, are perfectly in keep- ing with the crazy habitations of their owners. Dingy, ill-plumed, drowsy flutterers, sent, like many of the neighboring children, to get a live- lihood in the streets, they hop from stone to stone, in forlorn search of some hidden eatable in the mud, and can scarcely raise a crow among them. The only one with anything approach- ing to a voice, is an aged bantam at the baker’s ; and even he is hoarse, in consequence of bad living in his last place. Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 14. CLEANLINESS— Uncomfortable. Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by their religion. Great Expectations , Chap. 4. CLERK— A Lawyer’s. “ I’ll take the opportunity, if you please, of entering your name in our Callers’ Book for the day.” Young Blight made another great show of changing the volume, taking up a pen, suck- ing it, dipping it, and running over previous en- tries before he wrote. “As, Mr. Alley, Mr. Bailey, Mr. Calley, Mr. Dailey, Mr. Falley, Mr. Galley, Mr. Halley, Mr. Lalley, Mr. Malley. And Mr. Boffin.” “ Strict system here ; eh, my lad ? ” said Mr. Boffin, as he was booked. “Yes, sir,” returned the boy. “I couldn’t get on without it.” By which he probably meant that his mind would have been shattered to pieces without this fiction of an occupation. Wearing in his soli- tary confinement no fetters that he could polish, and being provided with no drinking-cup that he could carve, he had fallen into the device of ringing alphabetical changes into the two vol- umes in question, or of entering vast numbers of persons out of the Directory as transacting business with Mr. Light wood. It was the more necessary for his spirits, because, being of a sensitive temperament, he was apt to consider it personally disgraceful to himself that his master had no clients. Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap. 8. CLERK— An indig-nant (Newman Nog-gs). As the usurer turned for consolation to his books and papers, a performance was going on outside his office-door, which would have occa sioned him no small surprise, if he could by any means have become acquainted with it. Newman Noggs was the sole actor. He stood at a little distance from the door, with his face towards it ; and with the sleeves of his coat turned back at the wrists, was occupied in bestowing the most vigorous, scientific, and straightforward blows upon the empty aii At first sight, this would have appeared mere- ly a wise precaution in a man of sedentary habits, with the view of opening the chest and strengthening the muscles of the arms. But the intense eagerness and joy depicted in the face of Newman Noggs, which was suffused with perspiration ; the surprising energy with which lie directed a constant succession of blows towards a particular panel about five feet eight from the ground, and still worked away in the most untiring and persevering manner, would have sufficiently explained to the attentive ob- server, that his imagination was threshing, to within an inch of his life, his body’s most active employer, Mr. Ralph Nickleby. Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 29. CLERK- His office. Every morning, with an air ever new, Her- bert went into the City to look about him. I often paid him a visit in the dark back-room in which he consorted with an ink-jar, a hat-peg, a coal-box, a string-box, an almanac, a desk and stool, and a ruler ; and I do not remember that I ever saw him do anything else but look about him. If wc all did what we undertake to do, as faithfully as Herbert did, we might live in a Republic of the Virtues. Great Expectations , Chap. 34. CLERKS— Offices of merchants’. It appeared to me that the eggs from which young Insurers were hatched, were incubated in dust and heat, like the eggs of ostriches, judging from the places to which those incipient giants repaired on a Monday morning. Nor did the counting-house where Herbert assisted, show in my eyes as at all a good Observatory ; being a back second floor up a yard, of a grimy pres- ence in all particulars, and with a look into an- other back second floor, rather than a look-out. Great Expectations , Chap. 22. CLERK-The faithful old. “Damn your obstinacy, Tim Linkinwater,” said brother Charles, looking at him without the faintest spark of anger, and with a countenance radiant with attachment to the old clerk. “ Damn your obstinacy, Tim Linkinwater, what do you mean, sir? ” “ It’s forty-four year,” said Tim, making a calculation in the air with his pen, and drawing an imaginary line before he cast it up, “ forty- four year, next May, since I first kept the books of Cheeryble Brothers. I’ve opened the safe every morning all that time (Sundays excepted) as the clock struck nine, and gone over the house every night at half-past ten (except on Foreign Post nights, and then twenty minutes before twelve) to see the doors fastened, and the fires out. I’ve never slept out of the back attic one single night. There’s the same mignonette box in the middle of the window, and the same four flower pots, two on each side, that I brought with me when I first came. There ain’t — I’ve said it again and again, and I’ll maintain it — there ain’t such a square as this in the world. I know there ain’t,” said Tim, with sudden ener- gv, and looking sternly about him. “ Not one. For business or pleasure, in summer-time or win- ter — I don’t care which — there’s nothing like it. CLERGYMEN 109 CTjERGYMAN There’s not such a spring in England as the pump under the archway. There’s not such a view in England as the view out of my window. I’ve seen it every morning before I shaved, and I ought to know something about it. I have slept in that room,” added Tim, sinking his voice a little, “ for four-and-forty year ; and if it wasn’t inconvenient, and didn’t interfere with business, I should request leave to die there.” “ Damn you, Tim Linkinwater, how dare you talk about dying?” roared the twins by one im- pulse, and blowing their old noses violently. “ That’s what I’ve got to say, Mr. Edwin and Mr. Charles,” said Tim, squaring his shoulders again. “ This isn’t the first time you’ve talked about superannuating me ; but, if you please, we’ll make it the last, and drop the subject for evermore.” With those words, Tim Linkinwater stalked out, and shut himself up in his glass-case, with the air of a man who had had his say, and was thoroughly resolved not to be put down. The brothers interchanged looks, and coughed some half-dozen times without speaking. “ He must be done something with, brother Ned,” said the other, warmly ; “ we must disre- gard his old scruples ; they can’t be tolerated or borne. He must be made a partner, brother Ned ; and if he won’t submit to it peaceably, we must have recourse to violence.” Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 35. CLERGYMEN- Ad vice to. There is a third head, taking precedence of all others, to which my remarks on the discourse I heard have tended. In the New Testament there is the most beautiful and affecting history conceivable by man, and there are the terse models for all prayer, and for all preaching. As to the models, imitate them, Sunday preach- ers — else why are they 'there, consider ? As to the history, tell it. Some people cannot read, some people will not read, many people (this especially holds among the young and ignorant) find it hard to pursue the verse form in which the book is presented to them, and imagine that those breaks imply gaps and wants of continuity. Help them over that first stumbling-block, by setting forth the history in narrative, with no fear of exhausting it. You will never preach so well, you will never move them so profoundly, you will never send them away with half so much to think of. Which is the better inter- est — Christ’s choice of twelve poor men to help in those merciful wonders among the poor and rejected, or the pious bullying of a whole Union- ful of paupers ? What is your changed philoso- pher to wretched me, peeping in at the door out of the mud of the streets and of my life, when you have the widow’s son to tell me about, the ruler’s daughter, the other figure at the door when the brother of the two sisters was dead, and one of the two ran to the mourner, crying, “The Master is come, and calleth for thee?” — Let the preacher who will thoroughly forget himself, and remember no individuality but one, and no eloquence but one, stand up before four thousand men and women at the Britannia Theatre any Sunday night, recounting that nar- rative to them as fellow-creatures, and he shall see a sight ! Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 4. CLERGYMAN-The true. So cheerful of spirit and guiltless of affecta- tion, as true practical Christianity ever is ! I read more of the New Testament in the fresh, frank face going up the village beside me, in five minutes, than I have read in anathematizing discourses (albeit put to press with enormous flourishing of trumpets) in all my life. I heard more of the Sacred Book in the cordial voice that had nothing to say about its owner, than in all the would-be celestial pairs of bellows that, have ever blown conceit at me. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 2. CLERGYMAN-The Rev. Mr. Chadband. Mr. Chadband is a large yellow man, with a fat smile, and a general appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system. Mrs. Chad- band is a stern, severe-looking, silent woman. Mr. Chadband moves softly and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has been taught to walk up- right. He is very much embarrassed about the arms, as if they were inconvenient to him, and he wanted to grovel ; is very much in a per- spiration about the head ; and never speaks without first putting up his great hand, as de- livering a token to his hearers that he is going to edify them . — Bleak House , Chap. iy. CLERGYMAN-The Exhortations of Mr. Chadband. “ Peace, my friends,” says Chadband, rising and wiping the oily exudations from his reverend visage, “ Peace be with us ! My friends, why with us? Because,” with his fat smile, “ it can- not be against us, because it must be for us ; because it is not hardening, because it is soften- ing ; because it does not make war like the hawk, but comes home untoe us like the dove. Therefore, my friends, peace be with us ! My human boy, come forward ! ” Stretching forth his flabby paw, Mr. Chadband lays the same on Jo’s arm, and considers whei'e to station him. Jo, very doubtful of his re- verend friend’s intentions, and not at all clear but that something practical and painful is going to be done to him, mutters, “You let me alone. I never said nothink to you. You let me alone.” “No, my young friend,” says Chadband, smoothly, “ I will not let you alone. And why ? Because I am a harvest-laborer, because I am a toiler and a moiler, because you are delivered over untoe me, and are become as a precious in- strument in my hands. My friends, may I so employ this instrument as to use it toe your ad- vantage, toe your profit, toe your gain, toe your welfare, toe your enrichment ! My young friend, sit upon this stool.” Jo, apparently possessed by an impression that the reverend gentleman wants to cut his hair, shields his head with both arms, and is got into the required position with great difficulty, and every possible manifestation of reluctance. When he is at last adjusted like a lay-figure, Mr. Chadband, retiring behind the table, holds up his bear’s-paw, and says, “My friends !” This is the signal for a general settlement of the audience. The ’prentices giggle internally, and nudge each other. Guster falls into a staging and vacant state, compounded of a stunned ad- miration of Mr. Chadband and pity for the friendless outcast, whose condition touches her CLERGYMAN 110 CLERGYMAN nearly. Mrs. Snagsby silently lays trains of gunpowder. Mrs. Chadband composes herself grimly by the fire, and warms her knees ; find- ing that sensation favorable to the reception of eloquence. It happens that Mr. Chadband has a pulpit habit of fixing some member of his congrega- tion with his eye, and fatly arguing his points with that particular person ; who is understood to be expected to be moved to an occasional grunt, groan, gasp, or other audible expression of inward working, which expression of inward working, being echoed by some elderly lady in the next pew, and so communicated, like a game of forfeits, through a circle of the more ferment- able sinners present, serves the purpose of par- liamentary cheering, and gets Mr. Chadband’s steam up. From mere force of habit, Mr. Chad- band, in saying '* My friends ! ” has rested his eye on Mr. Snagsby ; and proceeds to make that ill-starred stationer, already sufficiently confused, the immediate recipient of his discourse. ****** “ We have here among us, my friends,” says Chadband, “a Gentile and a Heathen, a dweller in the tents of Tom all-Alone’s, and a mover on upon the surface of the earth. We have here among us, my friends,” and Mr. Chadband, un- twisting the point with his dirty thumb-nail, be- stows an ™ly smile on Mr. Snagsby, signifying that he will throw him an argumentative back- fall presently, if lie be not already down, “a brother and a boy.” ****** “ I say this brother, present here among us, is devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold, of silver, and of precious stones, because he is devoid of the light that shines in upon some of us. What is that light? What is it? I ask you what is that light.” Mr. Chadband draws back his head and pauses, but Mr. Snagsby is not to be lured on to his destruction again. Mr. Chadband, leaning forward over the table, pierces what he has got to follow, directly into Mr. Snagsby, with the thumb-nail already mentioned. “ It is,” says Chadband, “ the ray of rays, the sun of suns, the moon of moons, the star of stars. 1 It is the light of Terewth.” Mr. Chadband draws himself up again, and looks triumphantly at Mr. Snagsby, as if he would be glad to know how he feels after that. “ Of Terewth,” says Mr. Chadband, hitting him again. “ Say not to me that it is not the lamp of lamps. I say to you, it is, I say to you, a million times over, it is. It is ! I say to you that I will proclaim it to you, whether you like it or not ; nay, that the less you like it, the more I will proclaim it to you. With a speaking- trumpet ! I say to you that if you rear your- self against it, you shall fall, you shall be bruised, you shall be battered, you shall be flawed, you shall be smashed.” The present effect of this flight of oratory — much admired for its general power by Mr. Chad- band's followers — being not only to make Mr. Chadband unpleasantly warm, but to represent the innocent Mr. Snagsby in the light of a deter- mined enemy to virtue, with a forehead of brass and a heart of adamant, that unfortunate trades- man becomes yet more disconcerted ; and is in a very advanced state of low spirits and false position, when Mr. Chadband accidentally finishes him . — Bleak House, Chap. 25. CLERGYMAN The fashionable. Our curate is a young gentleman of such pre- possessing appearance and fascinating manners, that within one month after his first appearance in the parish, half the young-lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other half, desponding with love. Never were so many young ladies seen in our parish-church on Sunday before ; and never had the little round angels’ faces on Mr. Tomkins’s monument in the side aisle, beheld such devotion on earth as they all exhibited. He was about five-and-twenty when he first came to astonish the parishioners. He parted his hair on the centre of his forehead in the form of a Norman arch, wore a brilliant of the first water on the fourth finger of his left hand (which he always applied to his left cheek when he read prayers), and had a deep sepul- chral voice of unusual solemnity. Innumerable were the calls made by prudent mammas on our new curate, and innumerable the invitations with which he was assailed, and which, to do him justice, he readily accepted. If his manner in the pulpit had created an impression in his favor, thb sensation was increased tenfold, by his appearance in private circles. Pews in the immediate vicinity of the pulpit or reading- desk rose in value ; sittings in the centre aisle were at a premium ; an inch of room in the front row of the gallery could not be procured for love or money, and some people even went so far as to assert, that the three Miss Browns, who had an obscure family pew just behind the churchwardens’, were detected, one Sunday, in the free seats by the communion table, actually lying in wait for the curate as he passed to the vestry ! He began to preach extempore ser- mons, and even grave papas caught the infection. He got out of bed at half-past twelve o’clock one winter’s night, to half-baptize a washer- woman’s child in a slop-basin, and the gratitude of the parishioners knew no bounds — the very churchwardens grew generous, and insisted on the parish defraying the expense of the watch- box on wheels which the new curate had ordered for himself, to perform the funeral service in, in wet weather. He sent three pints of gruel and a quarter of a pound of tea to a poor woman who had been brought to bed of four small children, all at once — the parish was charmed. He got up a subscription for her — the woman’s fortune was made. He spoke for one hour and twenty-five minutes, at an anti-slavery meeting at the Goat and Boots — the enthusiasm was at its height. A proposal was set on foot for pre- senting the curate with a piece of plate, as a mark of esteem for his valuable services rendered to the parish. The list of subscriptions was filled up in no time ; the contest was, not who should escape the contribution, but who should be the foremost to subscribe. A splendid silver inkstand was made, and engraved with an ap- propriate inscription ; the curate was invited to a public breakfast, at the before-mentioned Goat and Boots ; the inkstand was presented in a neat speech by Mr. Gubbins, the ex-church- warden, and acknowledged by the curate in terms which drew tears into the eyes of all pre- sent — the very waiters were melted. One would have supposed that, by this time CLOCK 111 COACH the theme of universal admiration was lifted to the very pinnacle of popularity. No such thing. The curate began to cough ; four fits of cough- ing one morning between the Litany and the Epistle, and five in the afternoon service. Here was a discovery — the curate was consumptive. How interestingly melancholy! If the young ladies were energetic before, the sympathy and solicitude now knew no bounds. Such a man as the curate — such a dear — such a perfect love — to be consumptive ! It was too much. Anony- mous presents of black-currant jam, and lozen- ges, elastic waistcoats, bosom friends, and warm stockings, poured in upon the curate until he was as completely fitted out with winter cloth- ing, as if he were on the verge of an expedition to the North Pole ; verbal bulletins of the state of his health were circulated throughout the parish half-a-dozen times a day ; and the curate was in the very zenith of his popularity. ( Scenes J Sketches , Chap. 2. CLOCK— Its expression. There was the large, hard featured clock on the sideboard, which he used to see bending its figured brows upon him with a savage joy when he was behind-hand with his lessons, and which, when it was wound up once a week with an iron handle, used to sound as if it were growling in ferocious anticipation of the miseries into which it would bring him. Little Dorrit, Book /., Chap. 3. CLOCK-What it said. The Doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at each knee, books all round him, Homer over the door, and Minerva on the mantel shelf. “ And how do you do, Sir?” he said to Mr. Dombey ; “and how is my little friend?” Grave as an organ was the Doctor’s speech ; and wheji he ceased the great clock in the hall seemed (to Paul at least) to take him up, and to go on saying, “ how, is, my, lit, tie, friend? how, is, my, lit, tie, friend?” over and over and over again. Dombey (Sr 9 Son , Chap. II. CLOCKS. We have a faint remembrance of an unearthly collection of clocks, purporting to be the work of Parisian and Genevese artists — chiefly bilious- faced clocks, supported on sickly white crutches, with their pendulums dangling like lame legs — to which a similar course of events occurred for several years, until they seemed to lapse away of mere imbecility. Reprinted Pieces , English Watering Place. CO ACH— Riding- in a. Every shake of the coach in which I sat, half dozing in the dark, appeared to jerk some new recollection out of its place, and to jerk some other new recollection into it ; and in this state I fell asleep. — Pictures from Italy. COACH— Experiences in a Virginia. The coach holds nine inside, having a seat across from door to door, where we in England put our legs : so that there is only one feat more difficult in the performance than getting in, and that is getting out again. There is only one outside passenger, and he sits upon the box. As I am that one, I climb up, and, while they are strapping the luggage on the roof, and heaping it into a kind of tray behind, have a good opportunity of looking at the driver. He is a negro — very black indeed. He is dressed in a coarse pepper-and-salt suit, exces- sively patched and darned (particularly at the knees), gray stockings, enormous unblacked high-low shoes, and very short trousers. He has two odd gloves — one of party-colored worsted, and one of leather. He has a very short whip, broken in the middle and bandaged up with string. And yet he wears a low- crowned, broad brimmed black hat, faintly shadowing forth a kind of insane imitation of an English coachman ! But somebody in au- thority cries, “Go ahead!” as I am making these observations. The mail takes the lead in a four-horse wagon, and all the coaches follow in procession, headed by No. 1. By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry, “All right!” an American cries, “Go ahead ! ” which is somewhat expressive of the national character of the two countries. The first half-mile of the road is over bridges made of loose planks laid across two parallel poles, which tilt up as the wheels roll over them, and IN the river. The river has a clayey bot- tom and is full of holes, so that half a horse is constantly disappearing unexpectedly, and can’t be found again for some time. But we get past even this, and come to the road itself, which is a series of alternate swamps and gravel-pits. A tremendous place is close before us ; the black driver rolls his eyes, screws his mouth up very round, and looks straight between the two leaders, as if he were saying to himself, “We have done this often before, but now I think we shall have a crash.” He takes a rein in each hand, jerks and pulls at both, and dances on the splashboard with both feet (keep- ing his seat, of course) like the late lamented Ducrow on two of his fiery coursers. We come to the spot, sink down in the mire nearly to the coach windows, tilt on one side at an angle of forty-five degrees, and stick there. The insides scream dismally ; the coach stops ; the horses flounder ; all the other six coaches stop ; and their four-and-twenty horses flounder likewise, — but merely for company, and in sympathy with ours. Then the following circumstances occur : Black Driver (to the horses). “ Hi !” Nothing happens. Insides scream again. Black Driver (to the horses). “ Ho !” Horses plunge, and splash the black driver. Gentleman inside (looking out). “Why, what on airth — ” Gentleman receives a variety of splashes and draws his head in again, without finishing his question, or waiting for an answer. Black Driver (still to the horses). “ Jiddy ! Jiddy !” Horses pull violently, drag the coach out of the hole, and draw it up a bank, so steep that the black driver’s legs fly up into the air, and he goes back among the luggage on the roof. But he immediately recovers himself, and cries (still to the horses), — “Pill!” No effect. On the contrary, the coach begins to roll back upon No. 2, which rolls back upon No. 3, which rolls back upon No. 4, and so on, until No. 7 is heard to curse and swear, nearly a quarter of a mile behind. COACJH 112 C3.V0HE3 Black Driver (louder than before). “Pill ! ” Horses make another struggle to get up the bank, and again the coach rolls backward. Black Driver (louder than before). “ Pe-e- e-ill !” Horses make a desperate struggle. Black Driver (recovering spirits). “ Hi, Jiddy, Jiddy, Pill !” Horses make another effort. Black Driver (with great vigor). “ Ally Loo! Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. Pill. Ally Loo!" Horses almost do it. Black Driver (with his eyes starting out of his head). “Lee, den, Lee, clere. Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. Pill. Ally Loo. Lee-e-e-e-e ! ” They run up the bank and go down again on the other side at a fearful pace. It is impossi- ble to stop them, and at the bottom there is a deep hollow, full of water. The coach rolls frightfully. The insides scream. The mud and water fly about us. The black driver dances like a madman. Suddenly we are all right by some extraordinary means, and stop to breathe. A black friend of the black driver is sitting on a fence. The black driver recognizes him by twirling his head round and round like a harle- quin, rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, and grinning from ear to ear. He stops short, turns to me, and says : “ We shall get you through, sa, like a fiddle, and hope a please you when we get you through, sa. Old ’ooman at home, sir,” — chuckling very much, “outside gentleman, sa, he often re- member old ’ooman at home, sa,” grinning again. “ Ay, ay, we’ll take care of the old woman. Don’t be afraid.” The black driver grins again, but there is an- other hole, and beyond that another bank, close before us. So he stops short ; cries (to the horses again), “ Easy. Easy den. Ease. Steady. Hi Jiddy. Pill. Ally. Loo,” but never “ Lee ! ” until we are reduced to the very last extremity, and are in the midst of difficulties, extrication from which appears to be all but impossible. And so we do the ten miles or thereabouts in two hours and a half ; breaking no bones, though bruising a great many ; and, in short, getting through the distance “like a fiddle.” This singular kind of coaching terminates at Fredericksburg, whence there is a railway to Richmond. — American Notes , Chap. 9. COACH— The early morning-. The frosty night wears away, and the dawn breaks, and the post-chaise comes rolling on through the early mist, like the ghost of a chaise departed. It has plenty of spectral company, in ghosts of trees and hedges, slowly vanishing and giving place to the realities of day. Bleak House , Chap. 55. COACH— An old style. We are as great friends to horses, hackney- coach and otherwise, as the renowned Mr. Mar- tin, '.f costermonger notoriety, and yet we never ride. We keep no horse, but a clothes-horse ; enjoy no saddle so much as a saddle of mutton ; and, following our own inclinations, have never followed the hounds. Leaving these fleeter means of getting over the ground, or of de-. positing oneself upon it, to those who like them, by hackney-coach stands we take our stand. There is a hackney coach stand under the very window at which we are writing ; there is only one coach on it now, but it is a fair speci- men of the class of vehicles to which we have alluded — a great, lumbering, square concern, of a dingy yellow color (like a bilious brunette), with very small glasses, but very large frames ; the panels are ornamented with a faded coat of arms, in shape something like a dissected bat ; the axletree is red, and the majority of the wheels are green. The box is partially covered by an old great-coat, with a multiplicity of capes, and some extraordinary-looking clothes; and the straw, with which the canvas cushion is stuffed, is sticking up in several places, as if in rivalry of the hay, which is peeping through the chinks in the boot. The horses, with drooping heads, and each with a mane and tail as scanty and straggling as those of a worn-out rocking- horse, are standing patiently on some damp straw, occasionally wincing, and rattling the harness , and, now and then, one of them lifts his mouth to the ear of his companion, as if he were saying, in a whisper, that he should like to assassinate the coachman. The coachman him- self is in the watering-house ; and the water- man, with his hands forced into his pockets as far as they can possibly go, is dancing the “ dou- ble shuffle” in front of the pump, to keep his feet warm. — Scenes, Chap. 7. COACHES The ghosts of mail. “ I wonder what these ghosts of mail-coaches carry in their bags,” said the landlord, who had listened to the whole story with profound atten- tion. “ The dead letters, of course,” said the Bag- man. “ Oh, ah ! To be sure/’ rejoined the landlord, “ I never thought of that.” Pickwick, Chap. 49. COACHES -decayed— the associations of. “ There might be a dozen of them, or there might be more — my uncle was never quite cer- tain on this point, and being a man of very scrupulous veracity about numbers, didn’t like to say — but there they stood, all huddled toge- ther in the most desolate condition imaginable. The doors had been torn from their hinges and removed ; the linings had been stripped off, only a shred hanging here and there by a rusty nail ; the lamps were gone ; the poles had long since vanished ; the iron-work was rusty ; the paint was worn away ; the wind whistled through the chinks in the bare wood-work ; and the rain, which had collected on the roofs, fell, drop by drop, into the insides, with a hollow and melan- choly sound. They were the decaying skeletons of departed mails, and in that lonely place, at that time of night, they looked chill and dismal. “ My uncle rested his head upon his hands, and thought of the busy bustling people who had rattled about, years before, in the old coaches, and were now as silent and changed ; he thought of the numbers of people to whom one of those crazy, mouldering vehicles had borne, night after night, for many years, and through all weathers, the anxiously-expected intelligence, the eagerly looked-for remittance, the promised assurance .of health and safety, the sudden announcement of sickness and death. The merchant, the lover, the wife, the widow, the mother, the COACHES 113 COACHMAN schoolboy, the very child who tottered to the door at the postman’s knock — how had they all looked forward to the arrival of the old coach ! And where were they all now ? ” Pickwick , Chap. 49. COACHES— Mr. Weller’s opinion of. “ Coaches, Sammy, is like guns — they requires to be loaded with wery great care, afore they go off." — Pickwick , Chap. 23. COACHES— Their autobiography. What an interesting book a hackney-coach might produce, if it could carry as much in its head as it does in its body ! The autobiography of a broken-down hackney-coach would surely be as amusing as the autobiography of a broken- down hackneyed dramatist, and it might tell as much of its travels with the pole, as others have of their expeditions to it. How many stories might be related of the different people it had conveyed on matters of business or profit — pleasure or pain ! And how many melancholy tales of the same people at different periods ! The country-girl — the showy, over-dressed wo- man — the drunken prostitute ! The raw ap- prentice — the dissipated spendthrift — the thief ! Talk of cabs ! Cabs are all very well in cases of expedition, when it’s a matter of neck or nothing, life or death, your temporary home or your long one. But, beside a cab’s lacking that gravity of deportment which so peculiarly dis- tinguishes a hackney-coach, let it never be for- gotten that a cab is a thing of yesterday, and that he never was anything better. A hackney- cab has always been a hackney-cab, from his first entry into public life ; whereas a hackney-coach is a remnant of past gentility, a victim to fashion, a hanger-on of an old English family, wearing their arms, arid, in days of yore, escorted by men wearing their livery, stripped of his finery and thrown upon the world, like a once-smart ^gotman when he is no longer sufficiently juve- Pnle for his office, progressing lower and lower in the scale of four-wheeled degradation, until at last it comes to — a stand ! — Scenes , Chap. 7. CO ACH-TRAVELLING— The miseries of. We have often wondered how many months’ incessant travelling in a post-chaise it would take to kill a man ; and, wondering by anal- ogy, we should very much like to know how many months of constant travelling in a suc- cession of early coaches an unfortunate mortal could endure. Breaking a man alive upon the wheel would be nothing to breaking his rest, his peace, his heart — everything but his fast — upon four ; ' and the punishment of Ixion (the only practical person, by-the-bye, who has dis- covered the secret of the perpetual motion) would sink into utter insignificance before the one we have suggested. If we had been a powerful churchman in those good times when blood was shed as freely as water and men were mowed down like grass, in the sacred cause of religion, we would have lain by very quietly till we got hold of some especially obstinate miscreant, who positively refused to be converted to our faith, and then we would have booked him for an inside place in a small coach which travelled day and night : and securing the re- mainder of the places for stout men with a slight tendency to coughing and spitting, we would have started him forth on his last travels ; leaving him mercilessly to all the tortures which the waiters, landlords, coachmen, guards, boots, chambermaids, and other familiars on his line of road might think proper to inflict. Scenes , Chap. 15. COACHMAN— A representative of pomp. There were some stately footmen ; and there was a perfect picture of an old coachman, who looked as if he were the official representative of all the pomps and vanities that had ever been put into his coach . — Bleak House , Chap. 18. COACHMAN— Tom Pinch’s journey with the. And really it might have confused a less mod- est man than Tom to find himself sitting next that coachman ; for of all the swells that ever flourished a whip, professionally, he might have been elected emperor. He didn’t handle his gloves like another man, but put them on — even when he was standing on the pavement, quite detached from the coach — as if the four grays were, somehow or other, at the end of the fin- gers. It was the same with his hat. He did things with his hat which nothing but an un- limited knowledge of horses, and the wildest freedom of the road, could ever have made him perfect in. Valuable little parcels were brought to him with particular instructions, and he pitched them into his hat, and stuck it on again ; as if the laws of gravity did not admit of such an event as its being knocked off or blown off, and nothing like an accident could befall it. The guard, too ! Seventy breezy miles a day were written in his very whiskers. His man- ners were a canter ; his conversation a round trot. He was a fast coach upon a down-hill turnpike road ; he was all pace. A wagon couldn’t have moved slowly, with that guard and his key-bugle on the top of it. These were all foreshadowings of London, Tom thought, as he sat upon the box, and looked about him. Such a coachman and such a guard never could have existed between Salisbury and any other place. The coach was none of your steady-going, yokel coaches, but a swaggering, rakish, dissipated London coach ; up all night, and lying by all day, and leading a devil of a life. It cared no more for Salisbury than if it had been a hamlet. It rattled noisily through the best streets, defied the Cathedral, took the worst corners sharpest, went cutting in every- where, making everything get out of its way ; and spun along the open country-road, blowing a lively defiance out of its lcey-bugle, as its last glad parting legacy. It was a charming evening, mild and bright. And even with the weight upon his mind which arose out of the immensity and uncertainty of London, Tom could not resist the captivating sense of rapid motion through the pleasant air. The four grays skimmed along, as if they liked it quite as well as Tom did ; the bugle was in as high spirits as the grays ; the coachman chimed in sometimes with his voice ; the wheels hum- med cheerfully in unison ; the brass work on the harness was an orchestra of little bells ; and thus, as they went clinking, jingling, rattling smoothly on, the whole concern, from the buckles of the leaders’ coupling-reins to the handle of the hind boot, was one great instrument of music. COLD 114 COMMON SENSb Yoho ! past hedges, gates, and trees ; past cot- tages, and barns, and people going home from work. Yoho ! past donkey-chaises, drawn aside into the ditch, and empty carts with rampant horses, whipped up at a bound upon the little water-course, and held by struggling carters close to the five-barbed gate, until the coach had passed the narrow turning in the road. Yoho ! by churches dropped down by themselves in quiet nooks, with rustic burial-grounds about them, where the graves are green, and daisies sleep — for it is evening — on the bosoms of the dead. Yoho ! past streams, in which the cattle cool their feet and where the rushes grow ; past paddock-fences, farms, and rick-yards ; past last year’s stacks, cut, 'slice by slice, away, and show- ing, in the waning light, like ruined gables, old and brown. Yoho! down the pebbly dip, and through the merry water-splash, and up at a canter to the level road again. Yoho ! Yoho ! * * * * See the bright moon ! High up before we know it ; making the earth reflect the objects on its breast like water. Hedges, trees, low cotta ges, church steeples, blighted stumps, and flour- ishing young slips, have all grown vain upon the sudden, and mean to contemplate their own fair images until morning. The poplars yonder rus- tle, that their quivering leaves may see them- selves upon the ground. Not so the oak; trem- bling does not become him ; and he watches himself in his stout old burly steadfastness, without the motion of a twig. The moss-grown gate, ill-poised upon its creaking hinges, crip- pled and decayed, swings to and fro before its glass, like some fantastic dowager ; while our own ghostly likeness travels on, Yoho ! Yoho! through ditch and brake, upon the ploughed land and the smooth, along the steep hill-side and steeper wall, as if it were a phantom Hunter. Clouds too ! And a mist upon the Hollow ! Not a dull fog that hides it, but a light, airy, gauze-like mist, which in our eyes of modest admiration gives a new charm to the beauties it is spread before : as real gauze has done ere now, and would again, so please you, though we were the Pope. Yoho ! Why now we travel like the Moon herself. Hiding this minute in a grove of trees ; next minute in a patch of vapor ; emerging now upon our broad, clear course ; withdrawing now, but always dashing on, our journey is a counterpart of hers. Yoho ! A match against the moon. The beauty of the night is hardly felt, when Day comes leaping up. Yoho ! Two stages, and the country roads are almost changed to a continuous street. Yoho ! past market-gardens, rows of houses, villas, crescents, terraces, and squares ; past wagons, coaches, carts ; past early workmen, late stragglers, drunken men, and sober carriers of loads ; past brick and mortar in its every shape ; and in among the rattling pavements, where a jaunty seat upon a coach is not so easy to preserve ! Yoho ! down countless turnings, and through countless mazy ways, until an old Inn-yard is gained, and Tom Pinch, get- ting down, quite stunned and giddy, is in London \— Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 36. COLD -Mrs. Nickleby’s cure for a. “ I had a cold once,” said Mrs. Nickleby, “I think it was in the year eighteen hundred and seventeen ; let me sec, four and five are nine, | and — yes, eighteen hundred and seventeen, that 1 I thought I never should get rid of; actually J and seriously, that I thought I should never get J rid of ; I was only cured at last by a remedy j that I don’t know whether you ever happened * to hear of, Mr. Pluck. You have a gallon of water as hot as you can possibly bear it, with a 1 pound of salt and six pen’orth of the finest bran, i and sit with your head in it for twenty minutes I every night just before going to bed ; at least, I don’t mean your head — your feet. It’s a most j extraordinary cure — a most extraordinary cure, j I used it for the first time, I recollect, the clay after Christmas Day, and by the middle of April j following the cold was gone. It seems quite a miracle, when you come to think of it, for I had it ever since the beginning of September.” Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 26. COLLECTOR Mr. Pancks, the. Throughout the remainder of the day, Bleed- ing Heart Yard was in consternation, as the grim 1 Pancks cruised in it ; haranguing the inhabitants I on their backslidings in respect of payment, de- , manding his bond, breathing notices to quit and executions, running down defaulters, sending a swell of terror on before him, and leaving it in his wake. Knots of people, impelled by a fatal attraction, lurked outside any house in which he was known to be, listening for fragments of his discourses to the inmates ; and, when he was rumored to be coming down the stairs, often could not disperse so quickly but that he would be prematurely in among them, demanding their own arrears, and rooting them to the spot. Throughout the remainder of the day, Mr. Pancks’s What were they up to? and What did they mean by it? sounded all over the Yard. Mr. Pancks wouldn’t hear of excuses, wouldn’t hear of complaints, wouldn’t hear of repairs, wouldn’t hear of anything but unconditional money down. Perspiring and puffing and dart- ing about in eccentric directions, and becomin^^ hotter and dingier every moment, he lashed the tide of the Yard into a most agitated and turbid state. It had not settled down into calm water again, full two hours after he had been seen fuming away on the horizon at the top of the steps. — Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 23. COMMON SENSE— Skimpole’s idea of. “ It was very unfortunate for Richard,” I said. “Do you think so?” returned Mr. Skimpole. “ Don’t say that, don’t say that. Let us suppose him keeping company with Common .Sense — an excellent man — a good deal wrinkled — dread- fully practical — change for a ten-pound note in every pocket — ruled account-book in his hand — say, upon the whole, resembling a tax-gatherer. Our dear Richard, sanguine, ardent, overleap- ing obstacles, bursting with poetry like a young bud, says to this highly respectable companion, ‘ I see a golden prospect before me ; it’s very bright, it’s very beautiful, it’s very joyous ; here I go, bounding over the landscape to come at it!’ The respectable companion instantly knocks him down with the ruled account-book ; tells him, in a literal, prosaic way, that he sees no such thing ; shows him it’s nothing but fees, fraud, horsehair wigs, and black gowns. Now you know that’s a painful change ; — sensible in the last degree, I have no doubt, but disagreea- COMPHOMISE 115 CONCEIT ble. / can’t do it. I haven’t got the ruled account-book, I have none of the tax-gathering elements in my composition, I am not at all respectable, and I don’t want to be. Odd, per- haps, but so it is !” — Bleak House , Chap. 37. COMPROMISE-With cleanliness- An in- comprehensible. Durdles then gives the Dean a good evening, and adding, as he puts his hat on, “You’ll find me at home, Mister Jarsper, as agreed, when you want me ; I’m a going home to clean myself,” soon slouches out of sight. This going home to clean himself is one of the man’s incomprehen- sible compromises with inexorable facts ; he, and his hat, and his boots, and his clothes, never showing any trace of cleaning, but being uniformly in one condition of dust and grit. Edwin Drood, Chap. 12. COMPLIMENTS— Of a lawyer. It was a maxim with Mr. Brass that the habit of paying compliments kept a man’s tongue oiled without any expense ; and, as that useful member ought never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges in the case of a practitioner of the law, in whom it should be always glib and easy, he lost few opportunities of improving himself by the utterance of handsome speeches and eulogistic expressions. And this had passed into such a habit with him, that, if he could not be correctly said to have his tongue at his fin- gers’ ends, he might certainly be said to have it anywhere but in his face : which being, as we have already seen, of a harsh and repulsive character, was not oiled so easily, blit frowned above all the smooth speeches — one of nature’s beacons, warning off those who navigated the shoals and breakers of the World, or of that dangerous strait the Law, and admonishing them to seek less treacherous harbors and try their fortune elsewhere. Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 35. CONCEIT— Mr. Podsnap a type of. Mr. Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr. Podsnap’s opinion. Beginning with a good inheritance, he had married a good in- heritance, and had thriven exceedingly in the Marine Insurance way, and was quite satisfied. He never could make out why everybody was not quite satisfied, and he felt conscious that he set a brilliant social example in being particu- larly well satisfied with most things, and, above all other things, with himself. Thus happily acquainted with his own merit and importance, Mr. Podsnap settled that what- ever he put behind him he put out of existence. There was a dignified conclusiveness — not to add a grand convenience — in this way of get- ting rid of disagreeables, which had done much towards establishing Mr. Podsnap in his lofty place in Mr. Podsnap’s satisfaction. “ I don’t want to know about it ; I don’t choose to dis- cuss it; I don’t admit it!” Mr. Podsnap had even acquired a peculiar flourish of his right arm in often clearing the world of its most difficult problems, by sweeping them behind him (and consequently sheer away) with those words and a flushed face. For they affronted him. Mr. Podsnap’s world was not a very large world, morally ; no, nor even geographically ; seeing that although his business was sustained upon commerce with other countries, he con- sidered other countries, with that important re- servation, a mistake, and of their manners and customs would conclusively observe, “ Not Eng- lish!” when, Presto! with a flourish of the arm, and a flush of the face, they were swept away. Elsewise, the world got up at eight, shaved close at a quarter-past, breakfasted at nine, went to the City at ten, came home at half-past five, and dined at seven. Mr. Pod- snap’s notions of the Arts in their integrity might have been stated thus. Literature ; large print, respectfully descriptive of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfast- ing at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five, and dining at seven. Painting and sculpture ; models and portraits representing professors of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter-past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five, and dining at seven. Music ; a respectable performance (without variations) on stringed and wind instruments, sedately expres- sive of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter-past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five, and dining at seven. Nothing else to be permitted to those same vagrants the Arts, on pain of excom- munication. Nothing else To Be — anywhere ! As a so eminently respectable man, Mr. Pod- snap was sensible of its being required of him to take Providence under his protection. Conse- quently he always knew exactly what Providence meant. Inferior and less respectable men might fall short of that mark, but Mr. Podsnap was always up to it. And it was very remarkable (and must have been very comfortable) that what Providence meant was invariably what Mr. Podsnap meant. These may be said to have been the articles of faith of a school which the present chapter takes the liberty of calling after its representa- tive man, Podsnappery. They were confined within close bounds, as Mr. Podsnap’s own head was confined by his shirt-collar ; and they were enunciated with a sounding pomp that smacked of the creaking of Mr. Podsnap’s own boots. Our Mutual Friend, Book /., Chap. II. CONCEIT— The grandeur of Podsnappery. That they, when unable to lay hold of him, should respectfully grasp at the hem of his man- tle ; that they, when they could not bask in the glory of him, the sun, should take up with the pale reflected light of the watery young moon, his daughter, appeared quite natural, becom- ing, and proper. It gave him a better opinion of the discretion of the Lammles than he had heretofore held, as showing that they appreciated the value of the connection. So, Georgiana re- pairing to her friend, Mr. Podsnap went out to dinner, and to dinner, and yet to dinner, arm in arm with Mrs. Podsnap ; settling his obstinate head in his cravat and shirt-collar, much as if he were performing on the Pandean pipes, in his own horwr, the triumphal march, See the con- quering Podsnap comes, Sound the trumpets, beat the drums ! Our Mutual Friend , Book II. , Chap. 4. CONCEIT- SPIRITTJ AL-The Experience of Charles Dickens. I had experiences of spiritual conceit, for CONCEIT 110 CONSUMPTION which, as giving me a new warning against that curse of mankind, I shall always feel grateful to the supposition that I was too far gone to pro- test against playing sick lion to any stray don- key with an itching hoof. All sorts of people seemed to become vicariously religious at my expense. I received the most uncompromising warning that I was a Heathen ; on the conclu- sive authority of a field preacher, who, like the most of his ignorant and vain and daring class, could not construct a tolerable sentence in his native tongue or pen a fair letter. This in- spired individual called me to order roundly, and knew in the freest and easiest way where I was going to, and what would become of me if I failed to fashion myself on his bright exam- ple, and was on terms of blasphemous confi- dence with the Heavenly Host. He was in the secrets of my heart, and in the lowest soundings of my soul — he ! — and could read the depths of my nature better than his ABC, and could turn me inside out, like his own clammy glove. But what is far more extraordi- nary than this — for such dirty water as this could alone be drawn from such a shallow and muddy source — I found, from the information of a beneficed clergyman, of whom I never heard, and whom I never saw, that I had not, as I rather supposed I had, lived a life of some reading, contemplation, and inquiry ; that I had not studied, as I rather supposed I had, to inculcate some Christian lessons in books ; that I had never tried, as I rather supposed I had, to turn a child or two tenderly towards the knowledge and love of our Saviour ; that I had never had, as I rather supposed I had had, de- parted friends, or stood beside open graves ; but that I had lived a life of “ uninterrupted prosperity,” and that I needed this “ check, overmuch,” and that the way to turn it to ac- count was to read these sermons and these poems, enclosed, and written and issued by my correspondent ! I beg it may be understood that I relate facts of my own uncommercial ex- perience, and no vain imaginings. The docu- ments in proof lie near my hand. A Fly-leaf in a life — New Uncom. Samples. CON CEIT— Self (Theodosius Butler). Mr. Theodosius Butler was one of those im- mortal geniuses who are to be met with in almost every circle. They have, usually, very deep, monotonous voices. They always persuade themselves that they are wonderful persons, and that they ought to be very miserable, though they don’t precisely know why. They are very conceited, and usually possess half an idea ; but. with enthusiastic young ladies, and silly young gentlemen, they are very wonderful persons. The individual in question, Mr. Theo- dosius, had written a pamphlet containing some very weighty considerations on the expe- diency of doing something or other ; and as every sentence contained a good many words of four syllables, his admirers took it for grant- ed that he meant a good deal. * Tales , Chap. 3. CONFUSION- Sometimes agreeable. Confusion is not always necessarily awk- ward, but may sometimes present a very plea- sant appearance.- -lulwin Drood , Chap. 22. CONGRESS of the United States. Did I recognize in this assembly a body of men, who, applying themselves in a new world to correct some of the falsehoods and vices of the old, purified the avenues to Public Life, paved the dirty ways to Place and Power, de- bated and made laws for the Common Good, and had no party but their Country ? I saw in them the wheels that move the meanest perversion of virtuous Political Ma- chinery that the worst tools ever wrought. Despicable trickery at elections ; underhanded tamperings with public officers ; cowardly at- tacks upon opponents, with scurrilous newspa- pers for shields, and hired pens for daggers; shameful trucklings to mercenary knaves, whose claim to be considered is, that every day and week they sow new crops of ruin with their venal types, which are the dragon’s teeth of yore, in everything but sharpness ; aidings and abettings of every bad inclination in the popu- lar mind, and artful suppressions of all its good influences: such things as these, and, in a word, Dishonest Faction in its most depraved and most unblushing form, stared out from every corner of the crowded hall. Did I see among them the intelligence and refinement, the true, honest, patriotic heart of America? Here and there were drops of its blood and life, but they scarcely colored the stream of desperate adventurers which sets that way for profit and for pay. It is the game of these men, and of their profligate organs, to make the strife of politics so fierce and brutal, and so destructive of all self-respect in worthy men, that sensitive and delicate-minded persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as they, be left to battle out their selfish views unchecked. And thus this lowest of all scrambling fights goes on, and they who in other countries would, from their intelligence and station, most aspire to make the laws, do here recoil the furthest from that degradation. That there are, among the representatives of the people in both Houses, and among all par- ties, some men of high character and great abil- ities, I need not say. The foremost among these politicians who are known in Europe have been already described, and I see no reason to depart from the rule I have laid down for my guidance, of abstaining from all mention of in- dividuals. It will be sufficient to add, that to the most favorable accounts that have been written of them I more than fully and most heartily subscribe ; and that personal inter- course and free communication have bred with- in me, not the result predicted in the very doubtful proverb, but increased admiration and respect. They are striking men to look at, hard to deceive, prompt to act, lions in energy, Crichtons in varied accomplishments, Indians in fire of eye and gesture, Americans in strong and generous impulse ; and they as well repre- sent the honor and wisdom of their country at home as the distinguished gentleman who is now its minister at the British Court sustains its highest character abroad. American Notes , Chap. 8. CONSUMPTION. There is a dread disease which so prepare? its victim, as it were, for death ; which so refines it of its grosser aspect, and throws around fami- CONSCIENCE 117 CONVICT liar looks unearthly indications of the coming change ; a dread disease, in which the struggle between soul and body is so gradual, quiet, and solemn, and the result so sure, that day by day, and grain by grain, the mortal part wastes and withers away, so that the spirit grows light and •sanguine with its lightening load, and, feeling immortality at hand, deems it but a new term of mortal life ; a disease in which death and life are so strangely blended, that death takes the glow and hue of life, and life the gaunt and grisly form of death ; a disease which medicine never cured, wealth never warded off, or poverty could boast exemption from ; which sometimes moves in giant strides, and sometimes at a tardy, sluggish pace, but, slow or quick, is ever sure and certain. — Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 49. CONSCIENCE— Mr. Pecksniff’s bank. “ For myself, my conscience is my bank. I have a trifle invested there, a mere trifle, Mr. Jonas ; but I prize it as a store of value, I assure you.” The good man’s enemies would have divided upon this question into two parties. One would have asserted without scruple that if Mr. Peck- sniff’s conscience were his bank, and he kept a running account there, he must have overdrawn it beyond all mortal means of computation. The other would have contended that it was a mere fictitious form ; a perfectly blank book ; or one in which entries were only made with a peculiar kind of invisible ink to become legible at some indefinite time ; and that He never troubled it at all. — Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 20. CONSCIENCE— A troubled. He stirred the fire., and sat down on one side of it. It struck eleven, and he made believe to compose himself patiently. But gradually he took the fidgets in one leg, and then in the other leg, and then in one arm, and then in the other arm, and then in his chin, and then in his back, and then in his forehead, and then in his hair, and then in his nose ; and then he stretched himself recumbent on two chairs, and groaned ; and then he started up. “ Invisible insects of diabolical activity swarm in this place. I am tickled and twitched all over. Mentally, I have now committed a burglary under the meanest circumstances, and the myr- midons of justice are at my heels.” Our Mutual Friend, Book /, Chap. 13. CONSCIENCE— A convenient garment . In the majority of cases, conscience is an elastic and very flexible article, which will bear a deal of stretching, and adapt itself to a great variety of circumstances. Some people, by pru- dent management, and leaving it off piece by piece, like a flannel waistcoat in warm weather, even contrive, in time, to dispense with it alto- gether ; but there be others who can assume the garment and throw it off at pleasure ; and this, being the greatest and most convenient improve- ment, is the one most in vogue. Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. 6. CONTENTMENT— The vision of Gabriel Grub. He saw that men who worked hard, and earned their scanty bread with lives of labor, were cheerful and happy ; and that to the most ignorant, the sweet face of nature was a never- failing source of cheerfulness and joy. He saw those who had been delicately nurtured and tenderly brought up, cheerful under privations, and superior to suffering, that would have crushed many of a rougher grain, because they bore within their own bosoms the materials of hap- piness, contentment, and peace. He saw that women, the tenderest and most fragile of all God’s creatures, were the oftenest superior to sorrow, adversity, and distress ; and he saw that it was because they bore, in their own hearts, an inexhaustible well-spring of affection and de- votion. Above all, he saw that men like him- self, who snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair surface of the earth ; and, setting all the good of the world against the evil, he came to the conclusion that it was a very decent and res- pectable sort of world after all. Gabriel Grub, in Pickwick, Chap. 29. CONTENTMENT. “ Ha ! ” said Brass, “ no matter. If there’s little business to-day, there’ll be more to-mor- row. A contented spirit, Mr. Richard, is the sweetness of existence.” Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. 56. CONTENT— The tranquillity of. Blessed Sunday Bells, ringing so tranquilly in their entranced and happy ears ! Blessed Sun- day pe.ace and quiet, harmonizing with the calm- ness in their souls, and making holy air around them ! Blessed twilight stealing on, and shad- ing her so soothingly and gravely, as she falls asleep, like a hushed child, upon the bosom she has clung to ! — Dombey &= Son, Chap. 51. Complacent and affable as man could be, Mr. Carker picked his way along the streets and hummed a soft tune as he went. He seemed to purr, he was so glad. — Dombey & Son, Chap. 22. CONTENT— The generosity of. Mr. Dombey’s cup of satisfaction was so full at this moment, however, that he felt he could afford a drop or two of its contents, even to sprinkle on the dust in the by-path of his little daughter. — Dombey 6° Son. CONTRASTS— In life. In my solitude, the ticket-porters being all gone with the rest, I venture to breathe to the quiet bricks and stones my confidential wonder- ment why a ticket-porter, who never does any work with his hands, is bound to wear a white apron ; and why a great Ecclesiastical Dignitary, who never does any work with his hands either, is equally bound to wear a black one. Uncommercial Traveller, Chap. 21. CONTRITION— Of Mr. Toots. “ If I could by any means wash out the remem- brance of that day at Brighton, when I con- ducted myself — much more like a Parricide than a person of independent property,” said Mr. Toots, with severe self-accusation, “ I should sink into the silent tomb with a gleam of joy.” Dombey dr 5 Son, Chap. 50. CONVICT— His early experiences. “ Dear boy and Pip’s comrade. I am not a- CONVENTIONAL PHRASES 118 COUGH going fur to tell you my life, like a song, or a story-book. But to give it you short and handy, I’ll put it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, you’ve got it. That’s my life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off, arter Pip stood my friend. “ I’ve been done’ everything to, pretty well — except hanged. I’ve been locked up, as much as a silver tea-kettle. I’ve been carted here and carted there, and put out of this town, and put out of that town, and stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. I’ve no more notion where I was born than you have — if so much. I first become aware of myself, down in Essex, a-thieving turnips for my liv- ing. Summun had run away from me — a man — a tinker — and he’d took the fire with him, and left me wery cold. “ I know’d my name to be Magwitch, chris- en’d Abel. How did I know it ? Much as I know’d the birds’ names in the hedges to be chaffinch, sparrer, thrush. I might have thought it was all lies together, only as the birds’ names come out true, I supposed mine did. “ So fur as I could find, there warn’t a soul that see young Abel Magwitch, with as little on him as in him, but wot caught fright at him, and either drove him off, or took him up. I was took up, took up, took up, to that extent that I reg’larly grow’d up took up. “ This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged little creetur, as much to be pitied as ever I see (not. that I looked in the glass, for there warn’t many insides of furnished houses known to me), I got the name of being har- dened. ‘This is a- terrible hardened one,’ they says to prison wisitors, picking out me. ‘ May be said to live in jails, this boy.’ Then they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my head, some on ’em — they had better a-measured my stomach — and others on ’em giv me tracts what I couldn’t read, and made me speeches what 1 couldn’t understand. They always went on agen me about the Devil. But what the devil was I to do ? I must put something into my stomach, mustn’t I? — IIow- somever, I’m a-getting low, and I know what’s due. Dear boy and Pip’s comrade, don’t you be afeered of me being low. “ Tramping, begging, thieving, working some- times when I could — though that warn’t as of- ten as you may think, till you put the question whether you would ha’ been over ready to give me work yourselves — a bit of a poacher, a bit of a laborer, a bit of a wagoner, a bit of a hay- maker, a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don’t pay and lead to trouble, I got to be a man. A deserting soldier in a Traveller’s Rest,, what lay hid up to the chin under a lot of taturs, learned me to read ; and a travelling Giant what signed his name at a penny a time learned me to write. I warn’t locked up as of- ten now as formerly, but I wore out my good share of key-metal still.” Great Expectations , Chap. 42. CONVENTIONAL PHRASES. Conventional phrases are a sort of fireworks, easily let off, and liable to take a great variety of shapes and colors not at all suggested by their original form. David Coppcrjield , Chap. 41. COOKING— The melodious sounds of. Mrs. Wilfer then solemnly divested herself of her handkerchief and gloves, as a prelimi- nary sacrifice to preparing the frying-pan, and R. W. himself went out to purchase the viand, lie soon returned, bearing the same in a fresh cabbage-leaf, where it coyly embraced a rasher of ham. Melodious sounds were not long in rising from the frying-pan on the fire, or in seeming, as the firelight danced in the mellow halls of a couple of full bottles on the table, to play appropriate dance-music. Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap. 4. COOKING. The slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled . — Christmas Stories. CORPORATIONS, PUBLIC-BOARDS, &c. - Boythorn’s opinion of. “As to Corporations, Parishes, Vestry-Boards, and similar gatherings of jolter-headed clods, who assemble to exchange such speeches that, by Heaven ! they ought to be worked in quick- silver mines for the short remainder of their miserable existence, if it were only to prevent their detestable English from contaminating a language spoken in the presence of the sun — as to those fellows, who meanly take advantage of the ardor of gentlemen in the pursuit of knowledge, to recompense the inestimable ser- vices of the best years of their lives, their long study, and their expensive education, with pit- tances too small for the acceptance of clerks, I would have the necks of every one of them wrung, and their skulls arranged in Surgeon’s Hall for the contemplation of the whole profes- sion — in order that its younger members might understand from actual measurement, in early life, how thick skulls may become ! ” He wound up his vehement declaration by looking round upon us with a most agreeable smile, and suddenly thundering, Ha, ha, ha ! over and over again, until anybody else might have been expected to be quite subdued by the exertion. — Bleak House , Chap. 13. CORNS— Treading- on people’s. He was an antipathetical being, with a pecu- liar power and gift of treading on everybody’s tenderest place. They talk in America of a man’s “ Platform.” I should describe the Plat- form of the Long-lost as a Platform composed of other people’s corns, on which he had stumped his way, with all his might and main, to his present position. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 19. COUGH— A choking-. The company were seized with unspeakable consternation, owing to his springing to his feet, turning round several times in an appalling spasmodic whooping-cough dance, and rushing out at the door ; he then became visible through the window, violently plunging and expectora- ting, making the most, hideous faces, and ap- parently out of his mind. Great Expectations , Chap. 4. COUGH— An expressive. “Yes, sir.” Mr. Snagsby turns up the gas, and coughs behind his hand, modestly antici- COUGH 119 COUNTRY GENTLEMAN pating profit. Mr. Snagsby, as a timid man, is accustomed to cough with a variety of expres- sion, and so to save words. Bleak House , Chap. io. COUGH— The monosyllabic. Mrs. Chick was laboring under a peculiar lit- tle monosyllabic cough ; a sort of primer, or easy introduction to the art of coughing. Dombey Son , Chap. 29. COUNTRY-The. Mr. Carker cantered behind the carriage, at the distance of a hundred yards or so, and watched it, during all the ride, as if he were a cat, indeed, and its four occupants, mice. Whether he looked to one side of the road or to the other — over distant landscape, with its smooth undulations, wind-mills, corn, grass, bean- fields, wild-flowers, farm-yards, hayricks, and the spire among the wood — or upward in the sunny air, where butterflies were sporting round his head, and birds were pouring out their songs — or downward, where the shadows of the branches interlaced, and made a trembling carpet on the road — or onward, where the overhanging trees formed aisles and arches, dim with the softened light that steeped thi-ough leaves — one corner of his eye was ever on the formal head of Mr. Dombey. — Dombey & Son , Chap. 27. COUNTRY— Mrs. Skewton’s Arcadia., “ But seclusion and contemplation are my what’s-his-name — ” “ If you mean Paradise, Mamma, you had better say so, to render yourself intelligible,” said the younger lady. “ My dearest Edith,” returned Mrs. Skewton, “ you know that I am wholly dependent upon you for those odious names. I assure you, Mr. Dombey, Nature intended me for an Arcadian. I am thrown away in society. Cows are my passion. What I have ever sighed for, has been to retreat to a Swiss farm, and live entirely sur- rounded by cows — and china.” This curious association of objects, suggest- ing a remembrance of the celebrated bull who got by mistake into a crockery shop, was re- ceived with perfect gravity by Mr. Dombey, who intimated his opinion that Nature was, no doubt, a very respectable institution. Dombey 6° Son, Chap. 21. COUNTRY SCENERY-Journey of little Nell. They were now in the open country ; the houses wefe very few and scattered at long in- tervals, often miles apart. Occasionally they came upon a cluster of poor cottages, some with a chair or low board put across the open door, to keep the scrambling children from the road, others shut up close, while all the family were working in the fields. These were often the commencement of a little village: and after an interval came a wheelwright’s shed or perhaps a blacksmith’s forge ; then a thriving farm, with sleepy cows lying about the yard, and horses peering over the low wall and scampering away when harnessed horses passed upon the road, as though in triumph at their freedom. There were dull pigs too, turning up the ground in search of dainty food, and grunting their mo- notonous grumblings as they prowled about, or crossed each other in their quest ; plump pigeons skimming round the roof or strutting on the eaves : and ducks and geese, far more graceful in their own conceit, waddling awkwardly about the edges of the pond or sailing glibly on its surface. The farm-yard passed, then came the little inn, the humbler beer-shop, and the vil- lage tradesman’s ; then the lawyer’s and the parson’s, at whose dread names the beer-shop trembled ; the church then peeped out modestly from a-clump of trees ; then there were a few more cottages ; then the cage, and pound, and not unfrequently, on a bank by the way-side, a deep, old, dusty well. Then came the trim-hedged fields on either hand, and the open road again. Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 15. COUNTRY-Scenery. The rich, sweet smell of the hayricks rose to his chamber window ; the hundred perfumes of the little flower-garden beneath scented the air around ; the deep-green meadows shone in the morning dew that glistened on every leaf as it trembled in the gentle air ; and the birds sang as if every sparkling drop were, a fountain of inspiration to them. — Pickwick , Chap. 7. COUNTRY EXCURSIONS - Of Barnaby Budge. Their pleasures on these excursions were sim- ple enough. A crust of bread and scrap of meat, with water from the brook or spring, sufficed for their repast. Barnaby’s enjoyments were, to walk, and run, and leap, till he was tired ; then to lie down on the long grass, or by the growing corn, or in the shade of some tall tree, looking upward at the light clouds as they floated over the blue surface of the sky, and listening to the lark as she poured out her brilliant song. There were wild-flowers to pluck — the bright-red pop- py, the gentle harebell, the cowslip, and the rose. There were birds to watch ; fish ; ants ; worms ; hares or rabbits, as they darted across the distant pathway in the wood and so were gone ; millions of living things to have an in- terest in, and lie in wait for, and clap hands and shout in memory of, when they had disappeared. In default of these, or when they wearied, there was the merry sunlight to hunt out, as it crept in aslant through leaves and boughs of trees, and hid far down — deep, deep, in hollow places — like a silver pool, where nodding branches seemed to bathe and sport ; sweet scents of sum- mer air breathing over fields of beans or clover ; the perfume of wet leaves or moss ; the life of waving trees, and shadows always changing. When these or any of them tired, or in excess of pleasing tempted him to shut his eyes, there was slumber in the midst of all these soft de- lights, with the gentle wind murmuring like music in his ears, and everything around melt- ing into one delicious dream. Barnaby Rudge , Chap. 45. COUNTRY GENTLEMAN- An English. Now this gentleman had various endearing appellations among his intimate friends. By some he was called “ a country gentleman of the true school,” by some “ a fine old country gen- tleman,” by some “ a sporting gentleman,” by some “ a thorough-bred Englishman,” by some “a genuine John Bull but they all agreed in one respect, and that was, that it was a pity COURT 120 COURT there were not more like him, and that because there were not, the country was going to rack and ruin every day. lie was in the commission of the peace, and could write his name almost legibly ; but his greatest qualifications were, tliat he was more severe with poachers, was a better shot, a harder rider, had better horses, kept better dogs, could eat more solid food, drink more strong wine, go to bed every night more drunk and get up every morning more sober, than any man in the county. In know- ledge of horse-flesh he was almost equal to a farrier, in stable-learning he surpassed his own head groom, and in gluttony not a pig on his estate was a match for him. He had no seat in Parliament himself, but he was extremely patriotic, and usually drove his voters up to the poll with his own hands. He was warmly at- tached to church and state, and never appointed to the living in his gift any but a three-bottle man and a first-rate fox-hunter. He mistrusted the honesty of all poor people who could read and write, and had a secret jealousy of his own wife (a young lady whom he had married for what his friends called “ the good old English reason,” that her father’s property adjoined his own) for possessing those accomplishments in a greater degree than himself. Barnaby Budge , Chap. 47. COURT— Trial in (Old Bailey). Curiosity has occasionally led us into both Courts at the Old Bailey. Nothing is so likely to strike the person who enters them for the first time, as the calm indifference with which the proceedings are conducted ; every trial seems a mere matter of business. There is a great deal of form, but no compassion ; considerable in- terest, but no sympathy. Take the Old Court, for example. There sit the Judges, with whose great dignity everybody is acquainted, and of whom, therefore, we need say no more. Then, there is the Lord Mayor in the centre, looking as cool as a Lord Mayor can look, with an im- mense bouquet before him, and habited in all the splendor of his office. Then, there are the Sheriffs, who are almost as dignified as the Lord Mayor himself ; and the Barristers, who are quite dignified enough in their own opinion ; and the spectators, who, having paid for their admission, look upon the whole scene as if it were got up especially for their amusement. Look upon the whole group in the body of the Court — some wholly engrossed in the morning papers, others carelessly conversing in low whis- pers, and others, again, quietly dozing away an hour — and you can scarcely believe that the re- sult of the trial is a matter of life or death to one wretched being present. But turn your eyes to the dock ; watch the prisoner attentively for a few moments ; and the fact is before you, in all its painful reality. Mark how restlessly he has been engaged for the last ten minutes, in forming all sorts of fantastic figures with the herbs which are strewed upon the ledge be- fore him ; observe the ashy paleness of his face when a particular witness appears, and how he changes his position and wipes his clammy forehead and feverish hands when the case for the prosecution is closed, as if it were a relief to him to feel that the jury knew the worst. The defense is concluded ; the judge pro- ceeds to sum up the evidence ; and the prison- er watches the countenances of the jury, as a dying man, clinging to life to the very last, vainly looks in the face of his physician for a slight ray of hope. They turn round to consult ; you can almost hear the man’s heart beat, as he bites the stalk of rosemary with a desperate effort to appear composed. They resume their places — a dead silence prevails as the foreman deliv- ers in the verdict — “Guilty!” A shriek bursts from a female in the galleiy ; the prisoner casts one look at the quarter from whence the noise proceeded ; and is immediately hurried from the dock by the gaoler. The clerk directs one of the officers of the court to “ take the woman out,” and fresh business is proceeded with, as if nothing had occurred. — Scenes, Chap. 24. COURT Description of a Doctor of Civil Law. The red-faced gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles had got all the talk to himself just then, and very well he was doing it, too, only he spoke very fast, but that was habit ; and rather thick, but that was good living. So we had plenty of time to look about us. There was one individual who amused us mightily. This was one of the bewigged gentlemen in the red robes, who was straddling before the fire in the centre of the Court, in the attitude of the brazen Colossus, to the complete exclusion of everybody else. He had gathered up his robe behind, in much the same manner as a slovenly woman would her petticoats on a very dirty day, in order that he might feel the full warmth of the fire. His wig was put on all awry, with the tail straggling about his neck, his scanty gray trousers and short black gaiters, made in the worst possible style, imparted an additional inelegant appearance to his uncouth person ; and his limp, badly-starched shirt-collar almost obscured his eyes. We shall never be able to claim any credit as a physiognomist again, for, after a careful scrutiny of this gentleman’s coun- tenance, we had come to the conclusion that it bespoke nothing but conceit and silliness, when our friend with the silver staff whispered in our ear that he was no other than a doctor of civil law, and heaven knows what besides. So of course we were mistaken, and he must be a very talented man. He conceals it so well though — perhaps with the merciful view of not astonishing ordinary people too much’ — that you would suppose him to be one of the stupid- est dogs alive. — Scenes , Chap. 8. COURT— Description of Doctors’ Commons. Now, Doctors’ Commons being familiar by name to everybody, as the place where they grant marriage-licenses to love-sick couples, and di- vorces to unfaithful ones ; register the wills of people who have any property to leave, and punish hasty gentlemen who call ladies by un- pleasant names, we no sooner discovered that we were really within its precincts, than we felt a laudable desire to become better acquainted therewith. -* * * * * At a more elevated desk in the centre sat a very fat and red-faced gentleman, in tortoise- shell spectacles, whose dignified appearance an- nounced the judge ; and round a long green baized table below, something like a billiard-table without the cushions and pockets, were a nura- COURT 121 COURT ber of very self-important looking personages, in stiff neckcloths, and black gowns with white fur collars, whom we at once set down as proc- tors. At the lower end of the billiard-table was an individual in an arm chair, and a wig, whom we afterwards discovered to be the registrar ; and seated behind a little desk, near the door, were a respectable looking man in black, of about twenty stone weight or thereabouts, and a fat-faced, smirking, civil-looking body, in a black gown, black kid gloves, knee shorts, and silks, with a shirt-frill in his bosom, curls on his head, and a silver staff in his hand, whom we had no difficulty in recognizing as the officer of the Court. — Scenes , Chap. 8. COURT— Doctors’ Commons. Mr. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave brick houses, which I inferred, from the Doctors’ names upon the doors, to be the official abiding-places of the learned advocates of whom Steerforth had told me ; and into a large, dull room, not unlike a chapel to my thinking, on the left hand. The upper part of this room was fenced off from the rest ; and there, on the two sides of a raised platform of the horse-shoe form, sitting on easy old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were sundry gentlemen in red gowns and gray wigs, whom I found to be the Doctors aforesaid. Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-desk, in the curve of the horseshoe, was an old gentleman, whom, if I had seen him in an aviary, I should certainly have taken for an owl, but who, I learned, was the presiding judge. In the space within the horse-shoe, lower than these, that is to say on about the level of the floor, were sundry other gentlemen of Mr. Spenlow’s rank, and dressed like him in black gowns with white fur upon them, sitting at a long green table. Their cra- vats were in general stiff, I thought, and their looks haughty ; but in this last respect, I pres- ently conceived I had done them an injustice, for when two or three of them had to rise and answer a question of the presiding dignitary, I never saw anything more sheepish. The public — repre- sented by a boy with a comforter, and a shabby- genteel man secretly eating crumbs out of his coat pockets, was warming itself at a stove in the centre of the Court. The languid stillness of the place was only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the voice of one of the Doctors, who was wandering slowly through a perfect library of evidence, and stopping to put up, from time to time, at little road-side inns of ar- gument on the journey. Altogether, I have never, on any occasion, made one at such a cozy, dozy, old-fashioned, time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little family-party in all my life ; and I felt it would be quite a soothing opiate to belong to it in any character — except perhaps as a suitor. — David Copperfield , Chap. 23. COURTS— And lawyers. “ What is a proctor, Steerforth ? ” said I. “ Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney,” re- plied Steerforth. “ He is, to some faded courts held in Doctors’ Commons — a lazy old nook near St. Paul’s Churchyard — what solicitors aie to the courts of law and equity. He is a func- tionary whose existence, in the natural course of things, would have terminated about two hundred years ago. I can tell you best what he is, by telling you what Doctors’ Commons is. It’s a little out-of-the-way place, where they ad- minister what is called ecclesiastical law, and play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old mon- sters of Acts of Parliament, which three-fourths of the world know nothing about, and the other fourth supposes to have been dug up, in a fossil state, in the days of the Edwards. It’s a place that has an ancient monopoly in suits about people’s wills and people’s marriages, and dis- putes among ships and boats.” “ Nonsense, Steerforth ! ” I exclaimed. “ You don’t mean to say that there is any affinity be- tween nautical matters and ecclesiastical mat- ters ? ” “ I don’t, indeed, my dear boy,” he returned ; “ but I mean to say that they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down in that same Doctors’ Commons. You shall go there one day, and find them blundering through half the nautical terms in Young’s Dictionary, apropos of the ‘ Nancy ’ having run down the ‘Sarah Jane,’ or Mr. Peggotty and the Yar- mouth boatmen having put off in a gale of wind with an anchor and cable to the ‘ Nelson ’ India- man in distress ; and you shall go there another day, and find them deep in the evidence, pro and con, respecting a clergyman who has mis- behaved himself ; and you shall find the judge in the nautical case the advocate in the clergy- man’s case, or contrariwise. They are like ac- tors ; now a man’s a judge, and now he’s not a judge ; now he’s one thing, now he’s another ; now he’s something else, change and change about ; but it’s always a very pleasant, pro- fitable little affair of private theatricals, pre- sented to an uncommonly select audience.” David Copperfield, Chap. 23. COURT— The Insolvent. In a lofty room, ill lighted and worse venti- lated, situated in Portugal Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, there sit nearly the whole year round, one, two, three, or four gentlemen in wigs, as the case may be, with little writing-desks before them, constructed after the fashion of those used by the judges of the land, barring the French polish. There is a box of barristers on their right hand ; there is an inclosure of insolvent debtors on their left ; and there is an inclined plane of most especially dirty faces in their front. These gentlemen are the Commissioners of the Insolvent Court, and the place in which they sit is the Insolvent Court itself. It is, and has been, time out of mind, the re- markable fate of this Court to be, somehow or other, held and understood, by the general con- sent of all the destitute shabby-genteel people in London, as their common resort, and place of daily refuge. It is always full. The steams of beer and spirits perpetually ascend to the ceiling, and, being condensed by the heat, roll down the walls like rain ; there are more old suits of clothes in it at one time than will be offered for sale in all Houndsditch in a twelvemonth ; more unwashed skins and grizzly beards than all the pumps and shaving-shops between Tyburn and Whitechapel could render decent between sun- rise and sunset. It must not be supposed that any of these people have the least shadow of business in, or the remotest connection with, the place they so indefaligably attend. If they had, it would be COURT 122 COURT no matter of surprise, and the singularity of the thing would cease. Some of them sleep during the greater part of the sitting ; others carry small portable dinners wrapped in pocket-hand- kerchiefs or sticking out of their worn-out pock- ets, and mijnch and listen with ecpial relish ; but no one among them was ever known to have the slightest personal interest in any case that was ever brought forward. Whatever they do, there they sit from the first moment to the last. When it is heavy, rainy weather, they all come in wet through ; and at such times the vapors of the Court are like those of a fungus-pit. A casual visitor might suppose this place to be a Temple dedicated to the Genius of Seedi- ness. There is not a messenger or process- server attached to it who wears a coat that was made for him ; not a tolerably fresh, or whole- some-looking man in the whole establishment, except a little white-headed, apple-faced tipstaff, and even he, like an ill-conditioned cherry pre- served in brandy, seems to have artificially dried and withered up into a state of preservation to which he can lay no natural claim. The very barristers’ wigs are ill-powdered, and their curls lack crispness. But the attorneys, who sit at a large bare table below the Commissioners, are, after all, the greatest curiosities. The professional establish- ment of the more opulent of these gentlemen, consists of a blue bag and a boy — generally a youth of the Jewish persuasion. They have no fixed offices, their legal business being transacted in the parlors of public-houses, or the yards of prisons — whither they repair in crowds, and canvass for customers after the manner of omni- bus cads. They are of a greasy and mildewed appearance ; and if they can be said to have any vices at all, perhaps drinking and cheating are the most conspicuous among them. Their resi- dences are usually on the outskirts of “ the Rules,” chiefly lying within a circle of one mile from the obelisk in St. George’s Fields. Their looks are not prepossessing, and their manners are peculiar. Mr. Solomon Pell, one of this learned body, was a fat, flabby, pale man, in a surtout which looked green one minute and brown the next, with a velvet collar of the same chameleon tints. His forehead was narrow, his face wide, his head large, and his nose all on one side, as if Nature, indignant with the propensities she observed in him in his birth, had given it an angry tweak which it had never recovered. Being short- necked and asthmatic, however, he respired prin- cipally through this feature ; so, perhaps, what it wanted in ornament, it made up in usefulness. Pickwick , Chap. 43. COURT— Examination of Sam Weller. Serjeant Buzfuz now rose with more impor- tance than he had yet exhibited, if that were possible, and vociferated : “ Call Samuel Weller.” It was quite unnecessary to call Samuel Wel- ler ; for Samuel Weller stepped briskly into the box the instant his name was pronounced ; and placing his hat on the floor, and his arms on the rail, took a bird’s-eye view of the bar, and a comprehensive survey of the bench, with a re- markably cheerful and lively aspect. “ What’s your name, sir ? ” inquired the judge. “Sam Weller, my lord,” replied the gentle- man. “ Do you spell it with a ‘ V ' or a * W ? ’ ” in- quired the judge. “ That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my lord," replied Sam. “ I never had occasion to spell it more than once or twice in my life, but I spells it with a ‘ V.’ " Here a voice in the gallery exclaimed aloud, “Quite right too, Samivel, quite right. Put it down a we, my lord, put it down a we.” “ Who is that, who dares to address the court?” said the little judge, looking up. “ Usher.” “ Yes, my lord.” “ Bring that person here instantly.” “ Yes, my lord.” But as the usher didn’t find the person, he didn’t bring him ; and, aftera great commotion, all the people who had got up to look for the culprit, sat down again. The little judge turned to the witness as soon as his indignation would allow him to speak, and said, “ Do you know who that was, sir?” “ I rayther suspect it was my father, my lord,” replied Sam. “ Do you see him here now ?” said the judge. “ No, I don’t, my lord,” replied Sam, staring right up into the lantern in the roof of the court. “ If you could have pointed him out, I would have committed him instantly,” said the judge. Sam bowed his acknowledgments, and turned with unimpaired cheerfulness of countenance towards Serjeant Buzfuz. “ Now r , Mr. Weller,” said Serjeant Buzfuz. “ Now, sir,” replied Sam. “ I believe you are in the service of Mr. Pick- wick, the defendant in this case. Speak up, if you please, Mr. Weller.” “ I mean to speak up, sir,” replied Sam ; “ I am in the service o’ that 'ere gen’l’man, and a wery good service it is.” “ Little to do, and plenty to get, I suppose,” said Serjeant Buzfuz, with jocularity. “ Oh, quite enough to get, sir, as the soldier said ven they ordered him three hundred and fifty lashes,” replied Sam. “You must not tell us wdiat the soldier, or any other man, said, sir,” interposed the judge ; “ it’s not evidence.” “ Wery good, my lord,” replied Sam. “ Do you recollect anything particular hap- pening on the morning when you were first engaged by the defendant; eh, Mr. Weller?” said Serjeant Buzfuz. “Yes, I do, sir,” replied Sam. “ Have the goodness to tell the jury what it w r as.” “ I had a reg’lar new fit out o’ clothes that mornin’, gen’l’men of the jury,” said Sam, “ and that w 7 as a wery partickler and uncommon cir- cumstance vith me in those days.” Hereupon there w'as a general laugh ; and the little judge, looking with an angry countenance over his desk, said, “ You had better be careful, sir.” “ So Mr. Pickwick said at the time, my lord,” replied Sam ; “and I w^as wery careful o’ that ’ere suit o’ clothes ; wery careful indeed, my lord.” The judge looked sternly at Sam for full two minutes, but Sam’s features were so perfectly calm and serene that the judge said nothing, and motioned Serjeant Buzfuz to proceed. COURT 123 COURT “ Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Weller,” said Serjeant Buzfuz, folding his arms emphatically, and turning half round to the jury, as if in mute assurance that he would bother the witness yet ; “ Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Weller, that you saw nothing of this fainting on the part of the plaintiff in the arms of the defend- ant, which you have heard described by the witnesses ? ” “ Certainly not,” replied Sam, “ I was in the passage till they called me up, and then the old lady was not there.” “Now, attend, Mr. Weller,” said Serjeant Buzfuz, dipping a large pen into the inkstand before him, for the purpose of frightening Sam with a show of taking down his answer. “ You were in the passage, and yet saw nothing of what was going forward. Have you a pair of eyes, Mr. Weller?” “Yes, I have a pair of eyes,” replied Sam, “ and that’s just it. If they wos a pair o’ patent double million magnifyin’ gas microscopes of hextra power, p’raps I might be able to see through a flight o’ stairs and a deal door ; but bein’ only eyes, you see, my wision’s limited.” At this answer, which was delivered without the slightest appearance of irritation, and with the most complete simplicity and equanimity of manner, the spectators tittered, the little judge smiled, and Serjeant Buzfuz looked particularly foolish. After a short consultation with Dod- son and Fogg, the learned Serjeant again turned towards Sam, and said, with a painful effort to conceal his vexation, “Now, Mr. Weller, I’ll ask you a question on another point, if you please.” “ If you please, sir,” rejoined Sam, with the utmost good-humor. “ Do you remember going up to Mrs. Bardell’s house, one night in November last ?” “ Oh yes, wery well.” “ Oh, you do remember that, Mr. Weller,” said Serjeant Buzfuz, recovering his spirits ; “ I thought we should get at something at last.” “ I rayther thought that, too, sir,” replied Sam, and at this the spectators tittered again. “Well ; I suppose you went up to have a little talk about this trial — eh, Mr. Weller ? ” said Serjeant Buzfuz, looking knowingly at the jury. “ I went up to pay the rent ; but we did get a talkin’ about the trial,” replied Sam. “ Oh, you did get a talking about the trial,” said Serjeant Buzfuz, brightening up with the anticipation of some important discovery. “ Now what passed about the trial ; will you have the goodness to tell us, Mr. Weller?” “ Vith all the pleasure in life, sir,” replied Sam. “Arter a few unimportant obserwations from the two wirtuous females as has been ex- amined here to-day, the ladies gets into a very great state o’ admiration at the honorable con- duct of Mr. Dodson and Fogg — them two gent’l’men as is settin’ near you now.” This, of course, drew general attention to Dodson and Fogg, who looked as virtuous as possible. “ The attorneys for the plaintiff,” said Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz. “Well! They spoke in high praise of the honorable conduct of Messrs. Dod- son and Fogg, the attorneys for the plaintiff, did they ? ” “Yes,” said Sam, “they said what a wery gen’rous thing it was o’ them to have taken up the case on spec, and to charge nothing at all for costs, unless they got ’em out of Mr. Pick- wick.” At this very unexpected reply, the spectators tittered again, and Dodson and Fogg, turning very red, leant over to Serjeant Buzfuz, and in a hurried manner whispered something in his ear. “ You are quite right,” said Serjeant Buzfuz aloud, with affected composure. “ It’s perfectly useless, my lord, attempting to get at any evi- dence through the impenetrable stupidity of this witness. I will not trouble the court by asking him any more questions. Stand down, sir.” “ Would any other genTman like to ask me anythin’ ? ” inquired Sam, taking up his hat, and looking round most deliberately. “ Not I, Mr. Weller, thank you,” said Serjeant Snubbin, laughing. “You may go down, sir,” said Serjeant Buz- fuz, waving his hand impatiently. Pickwick , Chap. 34. COURT— Trial of the convict. The trial was very short and very clear. Such things as could be said for him, were said — how he had taken to industrious habits, and had thriven lawfully and reputably. But nothing could unsay the fact that he had returned, and was there in the presence of the Judge and Jury. It was impossible to try him for that, and do otherwise than find him Guilty. At that time it was the custom (as I learned from my terrible experience of that Sessions) to devote a concluding day to the passing of Sen- tences, and to make a finishing effect with the Sentence of Death. But for the indelible pic- ture that my remembrance now holds before me, I could scarcely believe, even as I write these words, that I saw two-and-thirty men and wo- men put before the Judge to receive that sentence together. Foremost among the two-and-thirty, was he ; seated, that he might get breath enough to keep life in him. The whole scene starts out again in the vivid colors of the moment, down to the drops of April rain on the windows of the court, glitter- ing in the rays of April sun. Penned in the dock, as I again stood outside it at the corner, with his hand in mine, were the two-and-thirty men and women ; some defiant, some stricken with terror, some sobbing and weeping, some covering their faces, some staring gloomily about. There had been shrieks from among the women convicts, but they had been stilled, and a hush had succeeded. The sheriffs, with their great chains and nosegays, other civic gew- gaws and monsters, criers, ushers, a great gal- lery full of people — a large theatrical audience — looked on, as the two-and-thirty and the Judge were solemnly confronted. Then, the Judge addressed them. Among the wretched creatures before him whom he must single out for special address, was one who almost from his infancy had been an offender against the laws ; who, after repeated imprisonments and punishments, had been at length sentenced to exile fora term of years ; and who, under circumstances of great violence and daring, had made his escape and been re-sentenced to exile for life. That miser- able man would seem for a time to have be- come convinced of his errors, when far removed COURT 124 COURT from the scenes of his old offences, and to have lived a peaceable and honest life. But in a fatal moment, yielding to those propensities and pas- sions, the indulgence of which had so long ren- dered him a scourge to society, he had quitted his haven of rest and repentance, and had come back to the country where he was proscribed. Being here presently denounced, he had for a time succeeded in evading the officers of Jus- tice, but being at length seized while in the act of flight, he had resisted them, and had — he best knew whether by express design, or in the blind- ness of his hardihood — caused the death of his denouncer, to whom his whole career was known. The appointed punishment for his return to the land that had cast him out, being Death, and his case being this aggravated case, he must prepare himself to Die. The sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the glittering drops of rain upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of light between the two and thirty and the Judge, linking both together, and perhaps reminding some among the audience, how both were pass- ing on, with absolute equality, to the greater Judgment that knoweth all things and cannot err. Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face in this way of light, the prisoner said, “ My Lord, I have received my sentence of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours,” and sat down again. There was some hushing, and the Judge went on with what he had to say to the rest. Then, they were all formally doomed, and some of them were supported out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard look of bra- very, and a few nodded to the gallery, and two or three shook hands, and others went out chew- ing the fragments of herb they had taken from the sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because of having to be helped from his chair and to go very slowly ; and he held my hand while all the others were removed, and while the audience got up (putting their dresses right, as they might at church or elsewhere), and pointed down at this criminal or at that, and most of all at him and me. Great Expectations , Chap. 56. COURT— Pickwick in. Mr. Pickwick stood up in a state of great agi- tation, and took a glance at the court. There were already a pretty large sprinkling of specta- tors in the gallery, and a numerous muster of gentlemen in wigs, in the barristers’ seats : who presented, as a body, all that pleasing and ex- tensive variety of nose and whisker for which the bar of England is so justly celebrated. Such of the gentlemen as had a brief to carry, carried it in as conspicuous a manner as possible, and occasionally scratched their noses therewith, to impress the fact more strongly on the observa- tion of the spectators. Other gentlemen who had no briefs to show, carried under their arms goodly octavos, with a red label behind, and that underdone-pie-crust-colored cover which is technically known as “ law calf.” Others, who had neither briefs nor books, thrust their hands into their pockets, and looked as wise as they conveniently could ; others, again, moved here and there with great restlessness and earnest- ness of manner, content to awaken thereby the admiration and astonishment of the uninitiated strangers. — Pickwick , Chap. 34. COURT The Judge and witness. “Now, sir,” said Mr. Skimpin, “have the goodness to let his Lordship and the jury know what your name is, will you?*’ and Mr. Skimpin inclined his head on one side to listen with great sharpness to the answer, and glanced at the jury meanwhile, as if to imply that he rather expected Mr. Winkle’s natural taste for perjury would induce him to give some name which did not belong to him. “Winkle,” replied the witness. “What’s your Christian name, sir?” angrily inquired the little judge. “ Nathaniel, sir.” “ Daniel — any other name?” “Nathaniel, sir — my Lord, I mean.” “Nathaniel Daniel, or Daniel Nathaniel?” “No, my Lord, only Nathaniel; not Daniel at all.” “ What did you tell me it was Daniel for, then, sir?” inquired the judge. “ I didn’t, my Lord,” replied Mr. Winkle. “You did, sir,” replied the judge, with a se- vere frown. “ How could I have got Daniel on my notes, unless you told me so, sir?” This argument, was, of course, unanswerable. Pickwick , Chap. 34. COURT— The juryman. “ Here,” said the green-grocer. “ Thomas Groffin. ” “ Here,” said the chemist. “Take the book, gentlemen. You shall well and truly try—” “ I beg this court’s pardon,” said the chem- ist, who was a tall, thin, yellow-visaged man, “ but I hope this court will excuse my attend- ance.” “On what grounds, sir?” said Mr. Justice Stareleigh. “ I have no assistant, my Lord,” said the chemist. “ Swear the gentleman,” said the judge, per- emptorily. The officer had got no further than the “You shall well and truly try,” when he was again in- terrupted by the chemist. “I am to be sworn, my Lord, am I?” said the chemist. “ Certainly, sir,” replied the testy little judge. “ Very well, my Lord,” replied the chemist, in a resigned manner. “ Then there’ll be mur- der before this trial’s over ; that’s all. Swear me if you please, sir ; ” and sworn the chemist was, before the judge could find words to utter. “ I merely wanted to observe, my Lord,” said the chemist, taking his seat with great de- liberation, “ that I’ve left nobody but an errand- boy in my shop. He is a veiy nice boy, my Lord, but he is not acquainted with drugs ; and I know that the prevailing impression on his mind is, that Epsom salts means oxalic acid ; and syrup of senna, laudanum. That’s all, my Lord.” With this, the tall chemist composed himself into a comfortable attitude, and, assum- ing a pleasant expression of countenance, ap- peared to have prepared himself for the worst. Pickwick , Chap. 34. COURT-The Judge. Serjeant Buzfuz, who had proceeded with such volubility that his face was perfectly crim- son, here paused for breath. The silence COURT 125 COURT awoke Mr. Justice Stareleigh, who immediately wrote down something with a pen without any ink in it and looked unusually profound, to im- press the jury with the belief that he always thought most deeply with his eyes shut. Pickwick , Chap. 34. COURT— Serjeant Buzfuz’s appeal for dam- ages. “ And now, gentlemen, but one word more. Two letters have passed between these parties, letters which are admitted to be in the hand- writing of the defendant, and which speak vol- umes indeed. These letters, too, bespeak the character of the man. They are not open, fer- vent, eloquent epistles, breathing nothing but the language of affectionate attachment. They are covert, sly, underhanded communications, but, fortunately, far more conclusive than if couched in the most glowing language and the most poetic imagery — letters that must be viewed with a cautious and suspicious eye — letters that were evidently intended at the time, by Pickwick, to mislead and delude any third parties into whose hands they might fall. Let me read the first : — ‘ Garraway’s, twelve o’clock. Dear Mrs. B. — Chops and Tomata sauce. Yours, Pickwick.’ Gentlemen, what does this mean? Chops and Tomata sauce. Yours, Pickwick 1 Chops! Gracious heavens! and Tomata sauce! Gentlemen, is the happi- ness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away by such shallow artifices as these ? The next has no date whatever, which is in it- self suspicious. ‘ * Dear Mrs. B., I shall not be at home till to-morrow. Slow coach.’ And then follows, this very remarkable expression, ‘Don’t trouble yourself about the warming- pan.’ The warming-pan ! Why, gentlemen, who does trouble himself about a warming-pan ! When was the peace of mind of man or woman broken or disturbed by a warming-pan, which is in itself a harmless, a useful, and I will add, gentlemen, a comforting article of domestic furniture? Why is Mrs. Bardell so earnestly entreated not to agitate herself about this warming-pan, unless (as is no doubt the case) it is a mere cover for hidden fire — a mere substi- tute for some endearing word or promise, agree- ably to a preconcerted system of correspond- ence, artfully contrived by Pickwick with a view to his contemplated desertion, and which I am not in a condition to explain? And what does this allusion to the slow coach mean ? For aught 1 know, it may be a reference to Pickwick himself, who has most unquestionably been a criminally slow coach during the whole of this transaction, but whose speed will now be very unexpectedly accelerated, and whose wheels, gentlemen, as he will find to his cost, will very soon be greased by you ! ” * * * * * “ But enough of this, gentlemen,” said Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, “it is difficult to smile with an aching heart ; it is ill jesting when our deep- est sympathies are awakened. My client’s hopes and prospects are ruined, and it is no fig- ure of speech to say that her occupation is gone indeed. The bill is down — but there is no ten- ant. Eligible single gentlemen pass and re- pass — but there is no invitation for them to in- quire within or without. All is gloom and silence in the house ; even the voice of' the child is hushed ; his infant sports are disre- garded when his mother weeps ; his ‘ alley tors ’ and his ‘ commoneys ’ are alike neglected ; he forgets the long familiar cry of ‘ knuckle down,’ and at tip-cheese, or odd and even, his hand is out. But Pickwick, gentlemen, Pickwick, the ruthless destroyer of this domestic oasis in the desert of Goswell street — Pickwick, who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the sward — Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless Tomata sauce and warming- pans — Pickwick still rears his head with un- blushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. Damages, gentlemen — heavy damages — is the only punishment with which you can visit him ; the only recompense you can award to my client. And for those damages she now appeals to an enlighfened, a high-minded, a right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathizing, a contemplative jury of her civilized countrymen.” With this beautiful peroration, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz sat down, and Mr. Justice Stareleigh woke up. Pickwick , Chap. 34. COURT -A trial in. Everybody present, except the one wigged gentleman who looked at the ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in the place rolled at him, like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces strained round pillars and corners, to get a sight of him ; spectators in back rows stood up, not to miss a hair of him ; people on the floor of the court laid their hands on the shoulders of the people before them, to help themselves, at anybody’s cost, to a view of him — stood a-tiptoe, got upon ledges, stood upon next to nothing, to see every inch of him. Conspicuous among these latter, like an animated bit of the spiked wall of Newgate, Jerry stood ; aiming at the prisoner the beery breath of a whet he had taken as he came along, and discharging it to mingle with the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and coffee, and what not, that flowed at him, and already broke upon the great windows behind him in an impure mist and rain. The object of all this staring and blaring was a young man of about five-and-twenty, well- grown, and well-looking, with a sunburnt cheek and a dark eye. His condition was that of a young gentleman. He was plainly dressed in black, or very dark gray, and his hair, which was long and dark, was gathered in a ribbon at the back of his neck : more to be out of his way than for ornament. As an emotion of the mind will express itself through any covering of the body, so the paleness which his situation engendered came through the brown upon his cheek, show- ing the soul to be stronger than the sun. Lie was otherwise quite self-possessed, bowed to the Judge, and stood quiet. The sort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed at, was not a sort that ele- vated humanity. Had he stood in peril of a less horrible sentence — had there been a chance of any one of its savage’ details being spared — by just so much would he have lost in his fasci- nation. The form that was to be doomed to be so shamefully mangled, was the sight ; the im- mortal creature that was to be so butchered and torn asunder, yielded the sensation. Whatever gloss the various spectators put upon the in- terest, according to their several arts and powers COURT 120 COURT OP CHANCERY of self-deceit, the interest was, at the root of it, Ogreish. — Tale of Two Cities , Book II. , Chap. 2. COURT The Lord Chancellor in. When we came to the court, there was the Lord Chancellor — the same whom I had seen in his private room in Lincoln’s Inn — sitting in great state and gravity, on the bench ; with the mace and seals on a red table below him, and an immense flat nosegay, like a little garden, which scented the whole court. Below the table, again, was a long row of solicitors, with bundles of papers on the matting at their feet ; and then there were the gentlemen of the bar in wigs and gowns — some awake and some asleep, and one talking, and nobody paying much at- tention to what he said. The Lord Chancellor leaned back in his very easy chair, with his elbow on the cushioned arm, and his forehead resting on his hand : some of those who were present, dozed : some read the newspapers ; some walked about, or whispered in groups ; all seemed perfectly at their ease, by no means in a hurry, very unconcerned, and extremely com- fortable. To see everything going on so smoothly, and to think of the roughness of the suitors’ lives and deaths ; to see all that full dress and cere- mony, and to think of the waste, and want, and beggared misery it represented ; to consider that while the sickness of hope deferred was raging in so many hearts, this polite show went calmly on from clay to day, and year to year, in such good order and composure ; to behold the Lord Chancellor, and the wdiole array of practitioners under him, looking at one another and at the spectators, as if nobody had ever heard that all over England the name in which they were as- sembled was a bitter jest ; was held in universal horror, contempt, and indignation ; was known for something so flagrant and bad, that little short of a miracle could bring any good out of it to any one. ❖ ^ ^ Hs When we had been there half an hour or so, the case in progress — if I may use a phrase so ridiculous in such a connection — seemed to die out of its own vapidity, without coming, or being by anybody expected to come, to any result. The Lord Chancellor then threw down a bundle of papers from his desk to the gentlemen below him, and somebody said, “ Jarndyce and Jarndyce.” Upon this there was a buzz, and a laugh, and a general withdrawal of the by- standers, and a bringing in of great heaps, and piles, and bags and bagsfull of papers. Bleak House, Chap. 24. COURT OE CHANCER Y-Jamdyce v. Jarn- dyce. Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has in course of time become so complicated, that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least ; but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes with- out coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause ; innumerable young people, have married into it ; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, without knowing how or why ; whole families have inherited legend- ary hatreds with the suit. The little plaintiff or defendant, who was promised a new rocking- horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled, has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers ; a long procession of Chan- cellors has come in and gone out ; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality ; there are not three Jarndyce# left upon the earth perhaps, since old Tom Jarn- dyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee- house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only good that has ever come of it. It has been death to many, but it is a joke in the profession. Every master in Chancery has had a reference out of it. Every Chancellor was “ in it,” for somebody or other, when he was counsel at the bar. Good things have been said about it by blue-nosed, bulbous-shoed old bench- ers, in select port-wine committee after din- ner in hall. Articled clerks have been in the habit of flashing their legal wit upon it. The last Lord Chancellor handled it neatly, when, correcting Mr. Blowers, the eminent silk gown who said that such a thing might happen when the sky rained potatoes, he observed, “or when, we get through Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mr. Blowers ; ” — a pleasantry that particularly tickled the maces, bags, and purses. How many people out of the suit Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched forth its unwhole- some hand to spoil and corrupt, would be a very wide question. From the master, upon whose impaling files reams of dusty warrants in Jarn- dyce and Jarndyce have grimly writhed into many shapes, down to the copying-clerk in the Six Clerks’ Office, who has copied his tens of thousands of Chancery-folio-pages under that eternal heading; no man’s nature has been made better by it. In trickery, evasion, pro- crastination, spoliation, botheration, under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good. The very solicitors’ boys who have kept the wretched suitors at bay, by protesting time out of mind that Mr. Chizzle, Mizzle, or otherwise, was particularly engaged, and had appointments until dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and shuffle into them- selves out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The re- ceiver in the cause has acquired a goodly sum of money by it, but has acquired too a distrust for his own mother, and a contempt for his own kind. Chizzle, Mizzle, and otherwise, have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising them- selves that they will look into that outstanding little matter, and see what can be done for Driz- zle — who was not well used — when Jarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of the office. Shirking and sharking, in all their many varieties, have been sown broadcast by the ill-fated cause ; and even those who have contemplated its his- tory from the outermost circle of such evil, have been insensibly tempted into a loose way of let- ting bad things alone to take their own bad course, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong, it was, in some off-hand manner, never meant to go right. Thus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart COURT OP CHANCERY 127 COURT OF CHANCERY of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery. Bleak House , Chap. I. COURT OF CHANCERY — Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. “ Mlud,” says Mr. Tangle. Mr. Tangle knows more of Jarndyce and Jarndyce than anybody. He is famous for it — supposed never to have read anything else since he left school. “ Have you nearly concluded your argu- ment ? ” “ Mlud, no — variety of points — feel it my duty tsubmit — ludship,” is the reply that slides out of Mr. Tangle. “ Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe?” says the Chancellor, with a slight smile. Eighteen of Mr. Tangle’s learned friends, each armed with a little summary of eighteen hun- dred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in a piano-forte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places of obscurity. “ We will proceed with the hearing on Wednes- day fortnight,” says the Chancellor. For, the question at issue is only a question of costs, a mere bud on the forest-tree of the parent suit, and really will come to a settlement one of these days. Hi * * ❖ # % The Chancellor has dexterously vanished. Everybody else quickly vanishes too. A bat- tery of blue bags is loaded with heavy charges of papers, and carried off by clerks ; the little mad old woman marches off with her docu- ments ; the empty court is locked up. If all the injustice it has committed, and all the misery it has caused, could only be locked up with it, and the whole burnt away in a great funeral pyre — why, so much the better for other parties than the parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce ! Bleak House , Chap. I. COURT OF CHANCERY- The. Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to as- sort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pesti- lent of hoary sinners, holds, this day, in the sight of heaven and earth. On such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be sitting here — as here he is — with a foggy glory round his head, softly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, ad- dressed by a large advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an interminable brief, and outwardly directing his contemplation to the lantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. On such an afternoon, some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar ought to be — as here they are — mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery pre- cedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horse-hair warded heads against walls of words, and making a pre- tence of equity with serious faces, as players might. , On such an afternoon, the various soli- citors of the cause, some two or three of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who made a fortune by it, ought to be — as are they not ? — ranged in a line, in a long matted well (but you might look in vain for Truth at the bottom of it), between the register’s red table and the silk gowns, with bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits, issues, references to mas- ters, masters’ reports, mountains of costly non- sense, piled before them. Well may the court be dim, with wasting candles here and there ; well may the fog hang heavy in it, as if it would never get out ; well may the stained glass win- dows lose their color, and admit no light of day into the place ; well may the uninitiated from the streets, M ho peep in through the glass panes in the door, be deterred from entrance by its owlish aspect, and by the drawl languidly echo- ing to the roof from the padded dais where the Lord High Chancellor looks into the lantern that has no light in it, and where the attendant M’igs are all stuck in a fog-bank ! This is the Court of Chancery ; which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire ; M'hich has its worn-out lunatic in every mad- house. and its dead in every churchyard ; which has its ruined suitor, with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress, borrowing and begging through the round of every man’s acquaintance ; which gives to moneyed might the means, abund- antly, of wearying out the right ; M'hich so ex- hausts finances, patience, courage, hope ; so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart ; that there is not an honorable man among its prac- titioners who would not give — who does not often give — the M'arning, “ Suffer any M rong that can be done you, rather than come here !” Who happen to be in the Lord Chancellor’s court this murky afternoon besides the Lord Chancellor, the counsel in the cause, two or three counsel who are never in any cause, and the well of solicitors before mentioned? There is the registrar, below the judge in M'ig and gown ; and there are tM'O or three maces, or petty bags, or privy purses, or whatever they may be, in legal court suits. These are all yawning ; for no crumb of amusement ever falls from Jarn- dyce and Jarndyce (the cause in hand), which was squeezed dry years upon years ago. The short-hand writers, the reporters of the court, and the reporters of the neu'spapers, invariably decamp M'ith the rest of the regulars M'hen Jarn- dyce and Jarndyce comes on. Their places are a blank. Standing on a seat at the side of the hall, the better Lo peer into the curtained sanc- tuary, is a little mad old woman in a squeezed bonnet, M’ho is always in court, from its sitting to its rising, and alM'ays expecting some incom- prehensible judgment to be given in her favor. Some say she really is, or M'as, a party to a suit ; but no one knows for certain, because no one cares.^ She carries some small litter in a reticule, M'hich she calls her documents ; principally con- sisting of paper matches and dry lavender. Bleak House , Chap. i. COURT OF CHANCERY — Its bedevil- ments. “ Of course, Esther,” he said, “ you don’t un- derstand this Chancery business?” And of course I shook my head. “ I don’t know M'ho does,” he returned. “ The laM'yers have tM'isted it into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case have long disappeared from the face of the earth. It’s about a Will, and the trusts under a Will — or it M'as, once. It’s about nothing but Costs, now. We are ahvays appearing, and dis- COURT OF CHANCERY 128 COURT OF CHANCERY appearing, and swearing, and interrogating, and filing, and cross filing, and arguing, and sealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting, and revolving , about the Lord Chancellor and all his satellites, and equitably waltzing our- selves off to dusty death, about Costs. That’s the great question. All the rest, by some ex- traordinary means, has melted away.” “ But it was, sir.” said I, to bring him back, for he began to rub his head, “about a Will?” “ Why, yes, it was about a Will when it was about anything,” he returned. “A certain Jarn- dyce, in an evil hour, made a great fortune, and made a great Will. In the question how the trusts under that Will are to be administered, the fortune left by the Will is squandered away ; the legatees under the Will are reduced to such a miserable condition that they would be suf- ficiently punished, if they had committed an enormous crime in having money left them ; and the Will itself is made a dead letter. All through the deplorable cause, everything that everybody in it, except one man, knows already, is referred to that only one man who don’t know it, to find out — all through the deplora- ble cause, everybody must have copies, over and over again, of everything that has accumulated about it in the way of cart-loads of papers (or must pay for them without having them, which is the usual course, for nobody wants them) ; and. must go down the middle and up again, through such an infernal country-dance of costs and fees and nonsense and corruption, as was never dreamed of in the wildest visions of a Witch’s Sabbath. Equity sends questions to I. aw, Law sends questions back to Equity ; Law finds it can’t do this, Equity finds it can’t do that ; neither can so much as say it can’t do anything, without this solicitor instructing and this counsel appearing for A, and that solicitor instructing and that counsel appearing for B ; and so on through the whole alphabet, like the history of the Apple Pie. And thus, through years and years, and lives and lives, everything goes on, constantly beginning over and over again, and nothing ever ends. And we can’t get out of the suit on any terms, for we are made parties to it, and must be parties to it, whether we like it or not. But it won’t do to think of it ! When my great-uncle, poor Tom Jarn- dyce, began to think of it, it was the beginning of the end ! ” — Bleak House , Chap. 8. COURT OF CHANCERY- Its Wigrlomera- tion. “ However,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “ to return to our gossip. Here’s Rick, a fine young fellow full of promise. What’s to be done with him ? ” O my goodness, the idea of asking my advice on such a point ! “ Here he is, Esther,” said Mr. Jarndyce, comfortably putting his hands into his pockets and stretching out his legs. “ He must have a piofession ; he must make some choice for him- self. There will be a world more Wiglomera- tion about it, I suppose, but it must be done.” “ Moie what, Guardian !” said I. “ More Wiglomeration,” said he. “It's the only name I know for the thing, lie is a ward in Chancery, my dear. Kenge and Carboy will have something to say about it ; Master Some- body — a sort of ridiculous Sexton, digging graves for the merits of causes in a back room at the end of Quality Court, Chancery Lane — will have something to say about it ; Counsel will have something to say about it ; the Chancellor will have something to say about it ; the Satel- lites will have something to say about it ; they will all have to be handsomely fee’d, all round, about it ; the whole thing will be vastly cere- monious, wordy, unsatisfactory, and expensive, and I call it in general Wiglomeration. How mankind ever came to be afflicted with Wiglom- eration. or for whose sins these young people ever fell into a pit of it, I don’t know ; so it 'is.' He began to rub his head again, and to hint he felt the wind. But it was a delightful in- stance of his kindness towards me, that whether he rubbed his head, or walked about, or did both, his face was sure to recover its benignant expression as it looked at mine ; and he was sure to turn comfortable again, and put his hands in his pockets and stretch out his legs. Bleak House , Chap. 8. COURT— The end of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce. “ Is this Will considered a genuine docu- ment, sir ? ” said Allan ; “ will you tell us that ? ” “ Most certainly, if I could,” said Mr. Kenge ; “ but we have not gone into that, we have not gone into that.” “ We have not gone into that,” repeated Mr. Vholes, as if his low inward voice were an echo. “You are to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt,” ob- served Mr. Kenge, using his silver trowel, per- suasively and smoothingly, “ that this has been a great cause, that this has been a protracted cause, that this has been a complex cause. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been termed, not inaptly, a Monument of Chancery practice.” “And Patience has sat upon it a long time,” said Allan. “ Very well indeed, sir,” returned Mr. Kenge, with a certain condescending laugh he had. “Very well! You are further to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt,” becoming dignified almost to se- verity, “ that on the numerous difficulties, con- tingencies, masterly fictions, and forms of pro- cedure in this great cause, there has been ex- pended study, ability, eloquence, knowledge, in- tellect, Mr. Woodcourt, high intellect. P’or many years, the — a — I would say the flower of the Bar, and the — a — I would presume to add, the matured autumnal fruits of the Woolsack — have been lavished upon Jarndyce and Jarn- dyce. If the public have the benefit, and if the country have the adornment, of this great Grasp, it must be paid for in money or money’s worth, sir.” “ Mr. Kenge,” said Allan, appearing enlight- ened all in a moment. “ Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand that the whole es- tate is found to have been absorbed in costs?” “ Hem ! I believe so,” returned Mr. Kenge. “ Mr. Vholes, what do you say ? ” “ I believe so,” said Mr. Vholes. “ And that thus the suit lapses and melts away ? ” “ Probably,” returned Mr. Kenge. “ Mr. Vholes ? ” “Probably,” said Mr. Vholes. Bleak House , Chap. 65. COURT OF CHANCERY — Boythorn’s opinion of the. “ There never was such an infernal caldron COURTS 129 CRIME as that Chancery, on the face of the earth ! ” said Mr. Boythorn. “Nothing but a mine be- low it on a busy day in term time, with all its records, rules, and precedents collected in it, and every functionary belonging to it also, high and low, upward and downward, from its son the Accountant-General to its father the Devil, and the whole blown to atoms with ten thou- sand hundred-weight of gunpowder, would re- form it in the least ! ” It was impossible not to laugh at the ener- getic gravity with which he recommended this strong measure of reform. When we laughed, he threw up his head, and shook his broad chest, and again the whole country seemed to echo to his Ha, ha, ha, ha ! It had not the least effect in disturbing the bird, whose sense of security was complete ; and who hopped about the table with its quick head now on this sideband now on that, turning its bright sud- den eye on its master, as if he w r ere no more than another bird. — Bleak House , Chap. 9. COURTS— Like powder-mills (Betsey Trot- wood.) My aunt regarded all Courts of Law as a sort of powder-mills that might blow up at any time. David Copper fields Chap. 23. CRIME AND FILTH I11 London. Wheresoever Mr. Rogers turns the flaming eye, there is a spectral figure rising, unshrouded, from a grave of rags. Who is the landlord here? — I am, Mr. Field ! says a bundle of ribs and parchment against the wall, scratching itself. — Will you spend this money fairly, in the morn- ing, to buy coffee for ’em all? — Yes Sir, I will ! — O he’ll do it, Sir, he’ll do it fair. He’s honest ! cry the spectres. And with thanks and Good Night sink into their graves again. Thus, we make our New Oxford Streets, and our other new streets, never heeding, never ask- ing, where the wretches whom we clear out, crowd. With such scenes at our doors, with all the plagues of Egypt tied up with bits of cob- web in kennels so near our homes, we timo- rously make our Nuisance Bills and Boards of Health nonentities, and think to keep away the Wolves of Crime and Filth by our electioneer- ing ducking to little vestrymen and our gentle- manly handling of Red Tape ! * * ■ * * ❖ Wherever the turning lane of light becomes stationary for a moment, some sleeper appears at the end of it, submits himself to be scru tinized, and fades away into the darkness. There should be strange dreams here, Deputy. They sleep sound enough, says Deputy, taking the candle out of the blacking bottle, snuffing it with his fingers, throwing the snuff into the bottle, and corking it up with the candle, that’s all. / know. What is the inscription, Deputy, on all the discolored sheets? A precaution against loss of linen. Deputy turns down the rug of an unoccupied bed and discloses it. Stop Thief ! To lie at night, wrapped in the legend of my slinking life ; to take the cry that pursues me, waking, to my breast in sleep ; to have it star- ing at me, and clamoring for me, as soon as con- sciousness returns ; to have it for my first-foot on New Year’s day, my Valentine, my Birthday salute, my Christmas greeting, my parting with the old year. Stop Thief ! And to know that I must be stopped, come what will. To know that I am no match for this individual energy and keenness, or this organized and steady system ! Come across the street, here, and, entering by a little shop, and yard, examine these intricate passages and do.ors, con- trived for escape, flapping and counter-flapping, like the lids of the conjuror’s boxes. But what avail they ? Who gets in by a nod, and shows their secret working to us ? Inspector Field. — On Duty with Inspector Field. Reprinted Pieces. CRIME— A kind of disorder. The man was not unnaturally cruel or hard- hearted. He had come to look upon felony as a kind of disorder, like the scarlet fever or ery- sipelas ; some people had it — some hadn’t — just as it might be. Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 61. CRIMINALS— Their strug-gles with crime. If great criminals told the truth — which, be- ing great criminals, they do not — they would very rarely tell of their struggles against the crime. Their struggles are towards it. They buffet with opposing waves, to gain the bloody shore, n6t to recede from it. Our Mutual Friend , Book III., Chap. n. CRIME— The fascination of. “You have a strong fancy,” said the blind man, with a smile. “ Strengthen yours with blood, and see what it will come to.” He groaned, and rocked himself, and look- ing up for the first time, said, in a low, hollow voice : “ Eight-and-twenty years ! Eight-and-twenty years ! He has never changed in all that time, never grown older, nor altered in the least de- gree. He has been before me in the dark night, and the broad sunny day ; in the twilight, the moonlight, the sunlight, the light of fire, and lamp, and candle, and in the deepest gloom. Always the same ! In company, in solitude, on land, on shipboard ; sometimes leaving me alone for months, and sometimes always with me. I have seen him at sea, come gliding in the dead of night along the bright reflection of the moon in the calm water ; and I have seen him, on quays and market-places, with his hand uplifted, towering, the centre of a busy crowd, uncon- scious of the terrible form that had its silent stand among them. Fancy ! Are you real ? Am I ? Are these iron fetters, riveted on me by the smith’s hammer, or are they fancies I can shatter at a blow ? ” * * * * * “ Why did you return ? ” said the blind man. “ Why is blood red ? I could no more help it than I could live without breath. I struggled against the impulse, but I was drawn back, through every difficult and adverse circumstance, as by a mighty engine. Nothing could stop me. The day and hour were none of my choice. Sleeping and waking, I had been among the old haunts for years — had visited my own grave. Why did I come back? Because this jail was gaping for me, and he stood beckoning at the door.” “ You w r ere not known? ” said the blind man. CROWD 130 CUPBOARD “ I was a man who hacl been twenty-two years dead. No. I was not known.” “You should have kept your secret better.” “ My secret? Mine? It was a secret any breath of air could whisper at its will. The stars had it in their twinkling, the water in its flowing, the leaves in their rustling, the seasons in their return. It lurked in strangers’ faces, and their voices. Everything had lips on which it always trembled — My secret.” “ It was revealed by you own act, at any rate,” said the blind man. “The act was not mine. I did it, but it was not mine. I was forced at times to wander round, and round, and round that spot. If you had chained me up when the fit was on me, I should have broken away, and gone there. As truly as the loadstone draws iron towards it, so he, lying at the bottom of his grave, could draw me near him when he- would. Was that fancy? Did I like to go there, or did I strive and wres- tle with the power that forced me ? ” Barnaby Budge, Chap . 62. CROWD- A. From the dimly-lighted passages of the court, the last sediment of the human stew that had been boiling there all day, was straining off. Tale of Two Cities , Chap. 4. CROWD— Passing 1 . Who could sit upon anything in Fleet Street during the busy hours of the day, and not be dazed and deafened by two immense proces- sions, one ever tending westward with the sun, the other ever tending eastward from the sun, both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of red and purple where the sun goes down ! With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two streams, like the heathen rustic who has for several centuries been on duty watching one stream — saving that Jerry had no expectation of their ever running dry. Tale of Two Cities , Chap. 14. CRUPP— Mrs.— Her “ spazzums.” At about this time, too, I made three dis- coveries : first, that Mrs. Crupp was a martyr to a curious disorder called “ the spazzums,” which was generally accompanied with inflammation of the nose, and required to be constantly treated with peppermint ; secondly, that something pe- culiar in the temperature of my pantry, made the brandy-bottles burst ; thirdly, that I was alone in the world, and much given to record that circumstance in fragments of English versi- fication. — David Copperfield, Chap. 26. CRUPP— Mrs.— Her advice 01a love. She came up to me one evening, when I was very low, to ask (she being then afflicted with the disorder I have mentioned) if I could oblige her with a little tincture of cardamoms mixed with rhubarb, and flavored with seven drops of the essence of cloves, which was the best remedy for her complaint ; — or, if I had not such a thing by me, with a little brandy, which was the next bi I not, he remarked, as palatable to her, but it was the next best. As I had never even heard of the fii 1 remedy, and always had the second in the closet, I gave Mrs. Crupp a glass of the second, which (that I might have no suspicion of its being devoted to any impro- per use) she began to take in my presence. “Cheer up, sir,” said Mrs. Crupp. “I can’t abcar to see you so, sir : I’m a mother myself.” I did not quite perceive the application of this fact to myself, but I smiled on Mrs. Crupp as benignly as was in my power. “Come, sir,” said Mrs. Crupp. " Excuse me, I know what it is, sir. There’s a lady in the case.” “Mrs. Crupp !” I returned, reddening. “Oh, bless you! Keep a good heart, sir!” said Mrs. Crupp, nodding encouragement. “ Never say die, sir! If she don’t smile upon you, there’s a many as will. You are a young gentleman to be smiled on, Mr. Copperl'ull, and you must learn your walue, sir.” Mrs. Crupp always called me Mr. Copperfull , firstly, no doubt, because it was not my name ; and secondly, I am inclined to think in some indistinct association with a washing-day. “ What makes you suppose there is any young lady in the case, Mrs. Crupp? ” said I. “Mr. Copperfull,” said Mrs. Crupp, with a great deal of feeling, “ I’m a mother myself.” For some time Mrs. Crupp could only lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom, and fortify her- self against returning pain with sips of her medicine. At length she spoke again. “ When the present set were took for you by your dear aunt, Mr. Copperfull,” said Mrs. Crupp, “ my remark were, I had now found summun I could care for. ‘ Thank Ev’in ! ’ were the expres- sion, ‘ I have now found summun I can care for ! ’ — You don’t eat enough, sir, nor yet drink.” “ Is that what you found your supposition on, | Mrs. Crupp?” said I. “Sir,” said Mrs. Crupp, in a tone approaching j to severity, “ I’ve laundressed other young gentlemen besides yourself. A young gentleman may be over-careful of himself, or he may be under-careful of himself. He may brush his hair too regular, or too unregular. He may wear his boots much too large for him, or much too small. That is according as the young gen- tleman has his original character formed. But let him go to which extreme he may, sir, there’s a young lady in both of ’em.” * * % * * “ It was but the gentleman which died here before yourself,” said Mrs. Crupp, “ that fell in love — with a barmaid — and had his waistcoats took in directly, though much swelled by drink- ing.” “ Mrs. Crupp,” said I, “ I must beg you not to connect the young lady in my case with a barmaid, or anything of that sort, if you please.” I “Mr. Copperfull,” returned Mrs. Crupp, “I’m a mother myself, and not likely. I ask your pardon, sir, if I intrude. I should never wish to intrude where I were not welcome. But you are a young gentleman, Mr. Copperfull, and my ; advice to you is, to cheer up, sir, to keep a good I heart, and to know your own walue. If you was to take to something, sir,” said Mrs. Crupp, i “ if you was to take to skittles, now, which is j healthy, you might find it divert your mind, and , do you good.” — David Copperfeld , Chap. 26. CUPBOARD Mrs. Crisparkle’s. As, whenever the Reverend Septimus fell ! a-musing, his good mother took it to be an in- ; fallible sign that he “ wanted support,” the CUPBOARD 131 DANCE blooming old lady made all haste to the dining- room closet, to produce from it the support em- bodied in a glass of Constantia and a home- made biscuit. It was a most wonderful closet, worthy of Cloisterham and of Minon Canon Cor- ner. Above it, a portrait of Handel, in a flow- ing wig, beamed down at the spectator, with a knowing air of being up to the contents of the closet, and a musical air of intending to com- bine all its harmonies in one delicious fugue. No common closet with a vulgar door on hinges, open able all at once, and leaving nothing to be disclosed by degrees, this rare closet had a lock in mid-air, where two perpendicular slides met ; the one falling down, and the other pushing up. The upper slide, on being pulled down (leaving the lower a double mystery), revealed deep shelves of pickle-jars, jam-pots, tin-canisters, spice-boxes, and agreeably outlandish vessels of blue and white, the luscious lodgings of pre- served tamarinds and ginger. Every benevo- lent inhabitant of this retreat had his name in- scribed upon his stomach. The pickles, in a uniform . of rich brown double-breasted but- toned coat, and yellow or sombre drab continua- tions, announced their portly forms, in printed capitals, as Walnut, Gherkin, Onion, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Mixed, and other members of that noble family. The jams, as being of a less masculine temperament, and as wearing curl- papers, announced themselves in feminine calig- raphy, like a soft whisper, to be Raspberry, Gooseberry, Apricot, Plum, Damson, Apple, and Peach. The scene closing on these charm- ers, and the lower slide ascending, oranges were revealed, attended by a mighty japanned sugar-box, to temper their acerbity if unripe. Home-made biscuits waited at the Court of these Powers, accompanied by a goodly frag- ment of plum-cake, and various slender ladies’ fingers, to be dipped into sweet wine and kissed. Lowest of all, a compact leaden vault enshrined the sweet wine and a stock of cordials : whence issued whispers of Seville, Orange, Lemon, Al- mond, and Caraway-seed. There was a crown- ing air upon this closet of closets, of having been for ages hummed through by the Cathe- dral bell and organ, until those venerable bees had made sublimated honey of everything in store ; and it was always observed that every dipper among the shelves (deep, as has been noticed, and swallowing up head, shoulders, and elbows) came forth again mellow-faced, and seeming to have undergone a saccharine transfiguration. The Reverend Septimus yielded himself up quite as willing a victim to a nauseous medici- nal herb closet, also presided over by the china shepherdess, as to this glorious cupboard. To what amazing infusions of gentian, peppermint, gilliflower, sage, parsley, thyme, rue, rosemary, and dandelion, did his courageous stomach submit itself ! In what wonderful wrappers, en- closing layers of dried leaves, would he swathe his rosy and contented face, if his mother sus- pected him of a toothache ! What botanical blotches would he cheerfully stick upon his cheek, or forehead, if the dear old lady con- victed him of an imperceptible pimple there ! Into this herbaceous penitentiary, situated on an upper staircase-landing, — a low and narrow whitewashed cell, where bunches of dried leaves hung from rusty hooks in the ceiling, and were spread out upon shelves, in company with por- tentous bottles, — would the Reverend Septimus submissively be led, like the highly popular lamb who has so long and unresistingly been led to the slaughter, and there would he, unlike that lamb, bore nobody but himself. Not even doing that much, so that the old lady were busy and pleased, he would quietly swallow what was given him, merely taking a corrective dip of hands and face into the great bowl of dried rose-leaves and into the other great bowl of dried lavender, and then would go out, as con- fident in the sweetening powers of Cloisterham Weir and a wholesome mind, as Lady Macbeth was hopeless of those of all the seas that roll. Edwin Drood, Chap. io. CURSES. “ The curse may pass your lips,” said Ed- ward, “ but it will be but empty breath. I do not believe that any man on earth has greater power to call one down upon his fellow — least of all, upon his own child — than he has to make one drop of rain or flake of snow fall from the clouds above us at his impious bidding.” Barnaby Rudge } Chap. 32. CYNICS. - He knew himself well, and choosing to ima- gine that all mankind were cast in the same mould, hated them ; for, though no man hat* 1 " himself — the coldest among us having too much self-love for that — yet most men unconsciously judge the world from themselves, and it will be very generally found that those who sneer habit- ually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples. Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 44. D. DANCE— A negro. The corpulent black fiddler, and his friend who plays the tambourine, stamp upon the board- ing of the small raised orchestra in which they sit, and play a lively measure. Five or six couple come upon the floor, marshalled by a lively young negro, who is the wit of the as- sembly, and the greatest dancer known. He never leaves off making queer faces, and is the delight of all the rest, who grin from ear to ear incessantly. Among the dancers are two young mulatto girls, with large, black, drooping eyes, and head-gear after the fashion of the hostess, who are as shy, or feign to be, as though they never danced before, and so look down before the visitors, that their partners can see nothing but the long, fringed lashes. But the dance commences. Every gentleman sets as long as he likes to the opposite lady, and the opposite lady to him, and all are so long about it that the sport begins to languish, when suddenly the lively hero dashes in to the res- cue. Instantly the fiddler grins, and goes at it tooth and nail ; there is new energy in the tam- bourine ; new laughter in the dancers ; new smiles in the landlady ; new confidence in the landlord ; DANCE 132 DANDYISM new brightness in. the very candles. Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut ; snap- ping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels like noth- ing but the man’s fingers on the tambourine ; dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two wire legs, two spring legs, — all sorts of legs and no legs, — what is this to him? And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping gloriously on the bar-counter, and calling for something to drink, with the chuckle of a million of counterfeit Jim Crows in one inimitable sound ! — American Notes, Chap. 6. DANCE— A country. Not like opera-dancers. Not at all. And not like Madame Anybody’s finished pupils. Not the least. It was not quadrille dancing, nor minuet dancing, nor even country-dance danc- ing. It was neither in the old style, nor the new style, nor the French style, nor the English style ; though it may have been, by accident, a trifle in the Spanish style, which is a free and joyous one, I am told, deriving a delightful air of off-hand inspiration from the chirping little castanets. As they danced among the orchard trees, and down the groves of stems and back again, and twirled each other lightly round and round, the influence of their airy motion seemed to spread and spread, in the sun-lighted scene, like an expanding circle in the water. Their streaming hair and fluttering skirts, the elastic grass beneath their feet, the boughs that rustled in the morning air, the flashing leaves, the speckled shadows on the soft green ground, the balmy wind that swept along the landscape, glad to turn the distant windmill cheerily — everything between the two girls and the man and team at plough upon the ridge of land, where they showed against the sky as if they were the last things in the world — seemed-danc- ing too. — Battle of Life , Chap. i. DANCE— A Christmas. In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and loveable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother’s particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master ; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling ; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once ; hands half round and back again the other way ; down the mid- dle and up again ; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping ; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place ; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there ; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them ! When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, “ Well done !” and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. Hut scorning rest upon his reappearance, he in- stantly began again, though there were no dan- cers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish. — Christmas Carol , Stave 2. DANCE A solemn. We danced for an hour with great gravity; the melancholy child doing wonders with his lower extremities, in which there appeared to be some sense of enjoyment, though it never rose above his waist. — Bleak House , Chap. 38. DANCING— A trial to the feelings. Could he believe his eyes ! Mrs. Budger was dancing with Mr. Tracy Tupman, there was no mistaking the fact. There was the widow be- fore him, bouncing bodily here and there, with unwonted vigor; and Mr. Tracy Tupman hop- ping about, with a face expressive of the most intense solemnity, dancing (as a good many peo- ple do) as if a quadrille were not a thing to be laughed at, but a severe trial to the feelings, which it requires inflexible resolution to en- counter. — Pickwick , Chap. 2. DANDYISM— In religion and politics. On Sunday, the chill little church is almost warmed by so much gallant company, and the general flavor of the Dedlock dust is quenched in delicate perfumes. The brilliant and distinguished circle compre- hends within it no contracted amount of educa- tion, sense, courage, honor, beauty, and virtue. Yet there is something a little wrong about it, in despite of its immense advantages. What can it be? Dandyism? There is no King George the Fourth now (more’s the pity !) to set the dandy fashion ; there are no clear-starched jack-towel neckcloths, no short-waisted coats, no false calves, no stays. There are no caricatures now, of effeminate Exquisites so arrayed, swooning in opera-boxes with excess of delight, and being revived by other dainty creatures, poking long- neckecl scent-bottles at their noses. There is no beau whom it takes four men at once to shake into his buckskins, or who goes to see all the executions, or who is troubled with the self- reproach of having once consumed a pea. But is there Dandyism in the brilliant and distin- guished circle notwithstanding, Dandyism of a more mischievous sort, that has got below the surface, and is doing less harmless things than jack-towelling itself and stopping its own di- gestion, to which no rational person need par- ticularly object ? Why, yes. It cannot be disguised. There are, at Chesney Wold this January week, some ladies and gentlemen of the newest fashion, who have set up a Dandyism — in religion, for instance. Who, in mere lackadaisical want of an emotion, have agreed upon a little dandy talk about the Vulgar wanting faith in things in general ; meaning, in the things that have been tried and found wanting, as though a low fellow should DANTE 133 DEAF AND DUMB j unaccountably lose faith in a bad shilling, after finding it out! Who would make the Vulgar very picturesque and faithful, by putting back the hands upon the Clock of Time, and cancel- I ling a few hundred years of history. There are also ladies and gentlemen of an- other fashion, not so new, but very elegant, w.ho I have agreed to put a smooth glaze on the world, and to keep down all its realities. For whom 1 everything must be languid and pretty. Who have found out the perpetual stoppage. Who are to rejoice at nothing, and be sorry for i nothing. Who are not to be disturbed by ideas. On whom even the Fine Arts, attending in pow- der, and walking backward like the Lord Chamberlain, must array themselves in the mil- liners’ and tailors’ patterns of past generations, and be particularly careful not to be in earnest, or to receive any impress from the moving age. Then there is my Lord Boodle, of consider- able reputation with his party, who has known what office is, and who tells Sir Leicester Ded- lock with much gravity, after dinner, that he really does not see" to what the present age is tending. A debate is not what a debate used to be ; the House is not what the House used to be ; even a Cabinet is not what it formerly was. He’ perceives with astonishment, that, supposing the present Government to be overthrown, the limited choice of the Crown, in the formation of a new Ministry, would lie between Lord Coodle and Sir Thomas Doodle-supposing it to be impossible for the Duke of hoodie to act with Goodie, which may be assumed to be the case in consequence of the breach arising out of that affair with Hoodie. Then, giving the Home Department and the Leadership of the House of Commons to Joodle, the Exche- quer to ICoodle, the Colonies to Loodle, and the Foreign Office to Moodle, what are you to do with Noodle ? You can’t offer him the Presi- dency of the Council ; that is reserved for Poodle. You can’t put him in the Woods and Forests ; that is hardly good enough for Quoodle. What follows? That the country is shipwrecked, lost, and gone to pieces (as is made manifest to the patriotism of Sir Leicester Dedlock), because vou can’t provide for Noodle ! 3 * 1 * * * * In this, too, there is perhaps more Dandyism at Chesney Wold than the brilliant and distin- guished circle will find good for itself in the long run. For it is, even with the stillest and politest circles, as with the circle the necroman- cer draws around him — very strange appearances may be seen in active motion outside. With this difference ; that, being realities and not phantoms, there is the greater danger of their breaking in. — Bleak House , Chap. 12. D ANT E-Mr. Sparkler’s idea of. Miss Fanny showed to great advantage on a sofa, completing Mr. Sparkler’s conquest with some remarks upon Dante — known to that gentle- man as an eccentric man in the nature of an Old File, who used to put leaves round his head, and sit upon a stool for some unaccountable purpose, outside the cathedral at Florence. Little Dorr it. Book II., Chap. 6. DARING— Death. “ As to what I dare, I’m a old bird now, as has dared all manner of traps since first he was fledged, and I’m not afeerd to perch upon a scarecrow. If there’s Death hid inside of it, there is, and lei him come out, and I’ll face him, and then I’ll believe in him and not afore.” Great Expectations , Chap. 40. DAVID COPPERFIELD— Dickens’ love of. Of all my books, I like this the best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as clearly as I love them. But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favorite child. And his name is David Copperfield. — Preface. DAWN— Description of. • Dawn, with its passionless blank face, steals shivering to the church beneath which lies the dust of little Paul and his mother, and looks in at the windows. It is cold and dark. Night crouches yet upon the pavement, and broods, sombre and heavy, in nooks and corners of the building. The steeple-clock, perched up above the houses, emerging from beneath another of the countless ripples in the tide of time that re- gularly roll and break on the eternal shore, is grayly visible — like a stone beacon, recording how the sea flows on ; but within doors, dawn, at first, can only peep at night, and see that it is there. Hovering feebly round the church, and look- ing in, dawn moans and weeps for its short reign, and its tears trickle on the window-glass, and the trees against the church-wall bow their heads, and wring their many hands in sympathy. Night, growing pale before it, gradually fades out of the church, but lingers in the vaults be- . low, and sits upon the coffins. And now comes bright day, burnishing the steeple-clock, and reddening the spire, and drying up the tears of dawn, and stifling its complaining ; and the scared dawn, following the night, and chasing it from its last refuge, shrinks into the vaults itself and hides, with a frightened face, among the dead; until night returns, refreshed, to drive it out . — Dombey Cf Son. DEAF AND DUMB— Their responsibility. « Here, woman,” he said, “ here’s your deaf and dumb son. You may thank me for restor- ing him to you. He was brought before me, this morning, charged with theft ; and with any other boy it would have gone hard, I assure you. But, as I had compassion on his infirmities, and thought he might have learnt no better, I have managed to bring him back to you. Lake more care of him for the future.” “ And won’t you give me back my son ? ” said the other woman, hastily rising and confronting him. “ Won’t you give me back my son, sir, who was transported for the same offence ? ” “ Was he deaf and dumb, woman ? ” asked the gentleman, sternly. “ Was he not, sir ? ” “ You know he was not.” “ He was,” cried the woman. “ Fie was deaf, dumb, and blind, to all that was good and right, from his cradle. Her boy may have learnt no better ! where did mine learn better ? where could he ? who was there to teach him better, or where was it to be learnt ? ” “Peace, woman,” said the gentleman, “your boy was in possession of all his senses.’ DEAD 134 DEAD-HOUSE “ He was," cried the mother; “and he was the more easy to be led astray because he had them. If you save this boy because he may not know right from wrong, why did you not save mine who was never taught the difference? You gentlemen have as good a right to punish her boy, that God has kept in ignorance of sound and speech, as you have to punish mine, that you kept in ignorance yourselves. How many of the girls and boys — ah, men and women too — that are brought before you and you don’t pity, are deaf and dumb in their minds, and go wrong in that state, and are punished in that state, body and soul, while you gentlemen are quarrelling among yourselves whether they ought to leafti this or that ! — Be a just man, sir, and give me back my son.” Old Cm iosity Shop, Chap. 45. DEAD -The memory of. It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that when the heart is touched and soft- ened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully and irresistibly. It would al- most seem as though our better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold some vague and mysteri- ous intercourse with the spirits of those whom we dearly loved in life. Alas ! how often and how long may those patient angels hover above us, watching for the spell which is so seldom uttered, and so soon forgotten. Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 43. DEAD— The influence of the. “ And do you think,” said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she had thrown around, “ that an unvisited grave, a withered tree, a faded flower or two, are tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect ? Do you think there are no deeds, far away from here, in which, thesp dead may be best remembered? Nell, Nell, there may be people busy in the world at this instant, in whose good actions and good thoughts these very graves — neglected as they look to us — are the chief instruments.” “ Tell me no more,” said the child quickly. “Tell me no more. I feel, I know it. How could / be unmindful of it, when I thought of you ?” “ There is nothing,” cried her friend, “ no, nothing innocent or good, that dies, and is for- gotten. Let us hold to that faith, or none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in its cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those who loved it, and will play its part, through them, in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes or drowned in the deepest sea. There is not an angel added to the Host of Heaven but does its blessed work on earth in those that loved it here. Forgotten ! oh, if the good deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear ; for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection, would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves ! ” Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 54. DEAD Memory of the. Passion seemed not only to do wrong and violence lo the memory of the dead, but to be infected by death, and to droop and decline be- side it. All the living knaves and liars in the world were nothing to the honesty and truth of one dead friend. — Dombey dr* Son, Chap, 33. “ Wal’r, my dear lad,” said the Captain, “ fare- well ! Wal’r, my child, my boy, and man, I loved you ! lie warn’t my flesh and blood,” said the Captain, looking at the fire — “ I an’t got none — but something of what a father feels when he loses a son, I feel in losing Wal’r. For why?” said the Captain, “because it an’t one loss, but a round dozen. Where's that there young schoolboy with the rosy face and curly hair, that used to be as merry in this here parlor, come round every week, as a piece of music? Gone down with Wal’r. Where’s that there fresh lad, that nothing couldn’t tire nor put out, and that sparkled up and blushed so, when we joked him about Heart’s Delight, that he was beautiful to look at? Gone down with Wal’r. Where’s that there man’s spirit, all afire, that wouldn’t see the old man hove down for a min- ute, and cared nothing for itself? Gone down with Wal’r. It an’t one Wal'r. There was a dozen Wal’rs that I know’d and loved, all hold- ing round his neck when he went down, and they’re a holding round mine now !” Dombey dr 5 Son, Chap. 15. DEAD— The memory of Lady Dedlock. It is known for certain that the handsome Lady Dedlock lies in the mausoleum in the park, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl is heard at night making the woods ring ; but whence she was brought home, to be laid among the echoes of that solitary place, or how she died, is all mystery. Some of her old friends, principally to be found among th^ peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats, did once occasionally say, as they toyed in a ghastly manner with large fans — like charm- ers reduced to flirting with grim Death, after losing all their other beaux — did once occasion- ally say, when the World assembled together, that they wondered the ashes of the Dedlocks, entombed in the mausoleum, never rose against the profanation of her company. But the dead- and-gone Dedlocks take it very calmly, and have never been known to object. Bleak House, Chap. 66. DEAD-HOUSE— In Paris. Those who have never seen the Morgue may see it perfectly by presenting to themselves an in- differently paved coach-house, accessible from the street by a pair of folding-gates ; on the left of the coach-house, occupying its width, any large London tailor’s or linen-draper’s plate-glass window, reaching to the ground ; within the win- dow, on two rows of inclined planes, what the coach-house has to show ; hanging above, like irregular stalactites from the roof of a cave, a quantity of clothes — the clothes of the dead and buried shows of the coach-house. Uncommercial Traveller, Chap. 18. DEAD-HOUSE— The g-hosts of the Morgue. Whenever I am at Paris, I am dragged by in- visible force into the Morgue. I never want to go there, but am always pulled there. One Christmas day, when I would rather have been anywhere else, I was attracted in to see an old gray man lying all alone on his cold bed, with DEATH 135 DEAD ; a tap of water turned on over his gray hair, and ; running, drip, drip, drip, down his wretched face until it got to the corner of his mouth, where it took a turn, and made him look sly. One iSlew Year’s morning (by the same token, the sun was shining outside, and there was a mountebank, balancing a feather on his nose, within a yard of the gate), I was pulled in again to look at a flaxen-haired boy of eighteen with a heart hang- ing on his breast, — “ From his mother,” was en- graven on it, — who had come into the net across the river, with a bullet-wound in his fair fore- head, and his hands cut with a knife, but whence or how was a blank mystery. This time I was forced into the same dread place to see a large, dark man, whose disfigurement by water was in a frightful manner comic, and whose expression was that of a prize-fighter who had cLosed his eyelids under a heavy blow, but was going im- mediately to open them, shake his head, and “ come up smiling.” Oh, what this large dark man cost me in that bright city ! * 4: sfc * Of course I knew perfectly well that the large dark creature was stone dead, and that I should no more come upon him out of the place where I had seen him dead than I should come upon the Cathedral of Notre Dame in an entirely new situation. What troubled me was the picture of the creature ; and that had so curiously and strongly painted itself upon my brain, that I could not get rid of it until it was worn out. I noticed the peculiarities of this possession, while it was a real discomfort to me. That very day, at dinner, some morsel on my plate looked like a piece of him, and I was glad to get up and go out. ^ There was rather a sickly smell (not at all an unusual fragrance in Paris) in the little ante- room of my apartment at the hotel. The large dark creature in the Morgue was by no direct experience associated with my sense of smell, because, when I came to the knowledge of him, he lay behind a wall of thick plate-glass, as good as a wall of steel or marble, for that matter. Yet the whiff of the room never failed to repro- duce him. What was more curious was the capriciousnesS with which his portrait seemed to light itself up in my mind elsewhere. I might be walking in the Palais Royal, lazily enjoying the shop windows, and might be regaling myself with one of the ready-made clothes shops that are set out there. My eyes, wandering over im- possible-waisted dressing-gowns, and luminous waistcoats, would fall upon the master, or the shopman, or even the very dummy at the door, and would suggest to me, “ something like him i ” — and instantly I was sickened again. This would happen at the theatre in the same manner. Often it would happen in the street, when I certainly was not looking for the like- ness, and when probably there was no likeness there. It was not because the creature was dead that I was so haunted, because I know that I might have been (and I know it because I have been) equally attended by the image of a living aversion. This lasted about a week. The pic- ture did not fade by degrees, in the sense 'that it became a whit less forcible and distinct, but in the sense that it obtruded itself less and less frequently. The experience may be worth considering by some who have the care of children. It would be difficult to overstate the intensity and accuracy of an intelligent child's observation. At that impressible time of life, it must sometimes produce a fixed impression. If the fixed impression be of an object terrible to the child, it will be (for want of reasoning upon) inseparable from great fear. Force the child at such a time, be Spartan with it, send it into the dark against its will, leave it in a lonely bedroom against its will, and you had better murder it. — Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 7. DEAD— Flowers above the (Little Nell). “You were telling me,” she said, “about your gardening. Do you ever plant things here ? ” “In the churchyard?” returned the sexton. “Not I.” “ I have seen some flowers and little shrubs about,” the child rejoined; “there are some over there, you see. I thought they were of your rearing, though indeed they grow but. poorly.” “ They grow as Heaven wills,” said the old man ; “ and it kindly ordains that they shall never flourish here.” “ I do not understand you.” “ Why, this it is,” said the sexton. “ They mark the graves of those who had very tender, loving friends.” “ I was sure they did !” the child exclaimed. “ I am very glad to know they do ! ” “Aye,” returned the old man, “but stay. Look at them. See how they hang their heads, and droop, and wither. Do you guess the rea- son ? ” “ No,” the child replied. “ Because the memory of those who lie be- low passes away so soon. At first they tend them, morning, noon, and night ; they soon be- gin to come less frequently ; from once a day, to once a week ; from once a week, to once a month ; then, at long and uncertain intervals then, not at all. Such tokens seldom flourish long. I have known the briefest summer flow- ers outlive them.” “ I grieve to hear it,” said the child. “ Ah ! so say the gentlefolks who come down here to look about them,” returned the old man, shaking his head, “ but I say otherwise. ‘ It’s a pretty custom you have in this part of the country,’ they say to me sometimes, ‘ to plant the graves, but it’s melancholy to see these things all withering or dead.’ I crave their pardon and tell them that, as I take it, ’tis a good sign for the happiness of the living. And so it is. It’s nature.” “ Perhaps the mourners learn to look to the blue sky by day, and to the stars by night, and to think that the dead are there, and not in graves,” said the child in an earnest voice. “ Perhaps so,” replied the old man doubt- fully. “ It may be.” Old Curiosity Shop , Chap . 54. DEAD— Of a city. Westminster Abbey was fine gloomy society for another quarter of an hour ; suggesting a wonderful procession of its dead among the dark arches and pillars, each century more amazed by the century following it than by all the centuries going before. And indeed it was a solemn consideration what enormous hosts of DEATH 138 DEATH dead belong to one old great city, and how, if they were raised while the living slept, there would not be the space of a pin's point in all the streets and ways for the living to come out into. Not only that, but the vast armies of dead would overflow the hills and valleys beyond the city, and would stretch away all round it, God knows how far. Unco7nmercial Traveller , Chap. 13. DEATH -Thoug-hts of. The golden water she remembered on the wall, appeared to Florence only as a current flowing on to rest, and to a region where the dear ones, gone before, were waiting, hand in hand ; and often, when she looked upon the darker river rippling at her feet, she thought with awful wonder, but not terror, of that river which her brother had so often said was bear- ing him away. — Dombey & Son. DEATH— Scenes before the funeral. There is a hush through Mr. Dombey’s house. Servants gliding up and down-stairs rustle but make no sound of footsteps. They talk togeth- er constantly, and sit long at meals, making much of their meat and drink, and enjoying themselves after a grim, unholy fashion. Mrs. Wickam, with her eyes suffused with tears, re- lates melancholy anecdotes ; and tells them how she always said at Mrs. Pipchin’s that it would be so ; and takes more table-ale than usual ; and is very sorry but sociable. Cook’s state of mind is similar. She promises a little fry for supper, and struggles about equally against her feelings and the onions. Towlin- son begins to think there’s a fate in it, and wants to know if anybody can tell him of any good that ever came of living in a corner house. It seems to all of them as having happened a long time ago ; though yet the child lies, calm and beautiful, upon his little bed. After dark there come some visitors — noise- less visitors, with shoes of felt — who have been there before ; and with them comes that bed of rest which is so strange a one for infant sleep- ers. All this time, the bereaved father has not been seen even by his attendant ; for he sits in an inner corner of his own dark room when any one is there, and never seems to move at other times, except to pace it to and fro. But in the morning it is whispered among the house- hold that he was heard to go up stairs in the dead night, and that he stayed there — in the room — until the sun was shining. Dombey & Son , Chap. 18. DEATH— Scenes after funeral. The funeral of the deceased lady having been “ performed ” to the entire satisfaction of the undertaker, as well as of the neighborhood at large, which is generally disposed to be cap- tious on such a point, and is prone to take of- fence at any omissions or shortcomings in the ceremonies, the various members of Mr. Dom- bey’s household subsided into their several places in the domestic system. That small world, like the great o*ie out of doors, had the capacity of easily forgetting its dead ; and when the cook had said she was a quiet-tem- pered lady, and the housekeeper had said it was t lit* common lot, and the butler had said who’d have thought it, and the housemaid had said she couldn’t hardly believe it, and the footnjan had . said it seemed exactly like a dream, they had quite worn the subject out, and began to think their mourning was wearing rusty too. Dombey dr* Son, Chap. 3. DEATH A levelling- upstart. The Honorable Mrs. Skewton, like many genteel persons who have existed at various times, set her face against death altogether, and objected to the mention of any such low and levelling upstart. — Dombey dr» Son, Ch. 30. DEATH -Of a remorseful woman. Night after night, the light burns in the win- dow, and the figure lies upon the bed, and Edith sits beside it, and the restless waves are calling to them both the whole night long. Night after night, the waves are hoarse with repetition of their mystery ; the dust lies piled upon the shore ; the sea-birds soar and hover ; the winds and clouds are on their trackless flight ; the white arms beckon, in the moon- light, to the invisible country far away. And still the sick old woman looks into the corner, where the stone arm — part of a figure of some tomb, she says — is raised to strike her. At last it falls ; and then a dumb old woman lies upon the bed, and she is crooked and shrunk up, and half of her is dead. Such is the figure, painted and patched for the sun to mock, that is drawn slowly through the crowd from day to day ; looking, as it goes, for the good old creature who was such a mother, and making mouths as it peers among the crowd in vain. Such is the figure that is often wheeled down .to the margin of the sea, and stationed there : but on which no wind can blow fresh- ness, and for which the murmur of the ocean has no soothing word. She lies and listens to it by the hour ; but its speech is dark and gloomy to her, and a dread is on her face, and when her eyes wander over the expanse, they see but a broad stretch of desolation between earth and heaven. * # ^ * * A shadow even on that shadowed face, a sharpening even of the sharpened features, and a thickening of the veil before the eyes into a pall that shuts out the dim world, is come. Her wandering hands upon the cover-? let join feebly palm to palm, and move towards her daughter ; and a voice not like hers — not like any voice that speaks our mortal language — says, “ For I nursed you !” ' % :j: sjc # Edith touches the white lips, and for a mo- ment all is still. A moment afterwards, her mother, with her girlish laugh, and the skeleton of the Cleopatra manner, rises in her bed. Draw the rose-colored curtains. There is something else upon its flight besides the wind and clouds. Draw the rose colored curtains close ! — Do?7ibey dr 5 Son, Chap. 41. DEATH -And stamina. “ Damme, Sir, she never wrapped up enough. If a man don’t wrap up,” said the Major, taking in another button of his buff waistcoat, “ he has nothing to fall back upon. But some peo- ple will die. They will do it. Damme, they will. They’re obstinate. I tell you what, Dombey, it may not be ornamental ; it may not DEATH 137 DEATH | be refined ; it may be rough and tough ; but a ' little of the genuine old English Bagstock sta- mina, Sir, would do all the good in the world to j the human breed.” After imparting this precious piece of in- formation, the Major, who was certainly true- blue, whatever other endowments he may have possessed or wanted, coming within “ genuine old English ” classification, which has never been -exactly ascertained, took his lobster-eyes and his apoplexy to the club, and choked there all day. — Dombey dr 3 Son , Chap. 40. DEATH-Of the good. Oh ! cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command ; for this is thy dominion ! But of the loved, revered, and hon- ored head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released ; it is not that the heart and pulse are still ; but that the hand was open, generous, and true ; the heart, brave, warm, and tender ; and the pulse a man’s. Strike, Shadow strike ! And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal ! — Christmas Carol, Stave 4. DEATH— The approach of. It is a dreadful thing to wait and watch for the approach of death ; to know that hope is gone, and recovery impossible ; and to sit and count the dreary hours through long, long nights — such nights as only watchers by the bed of sickness know. It chills the blood to hear the dearest secrets of the heart — the pent- up, hidden secrets of many years — poured forth by the unconscious, helpless being before you ; and to think how little the reserve and cunning of a whole life will avail, when fever and deli- rium tear off the mask at last. Strange tales have been told in the wanderings of dying men ; tales so full of guilt and crime, that those who stood by the sick person’s couch have fled in horror and affright, lest they should be scared to madness by what they heard and saw ; and many a wretch has died alone, raving of deeds, the very name of which has driven the boldest man away. — Tales, Chap. 12. DEATH— Thoughts on the approach of. There were many things he had neglected. Little matters while he was at home and sur- rounded by them, but things of mighty moment when he was at an immeasurable distance. There were many, many blessings that he had inadequately felt, there were many trivial inju- ries that he had not forgiven, there was love that he had but poorly returned, there was friendship that he had too lightly prized ; there were a million kind words that he might have spoken, a million kind looks that he might have given, uncountable slight easy deeds in which he might have been most truly great and good. O for a day (he would exclaim), for but one day to make amends ! But the sun never shone upon that happy day, and out of his re- mote captivity he never came. Why does this traveller’s fate obscure, on New Year’s Eve, the other histories of travel- lers with which my mind was filled but now, and cast a solemn shadow over me ! Must I one day make his journ'ey? Even so. Who shall say, that I may not then be tortured by such late regrets : that I may not then look from my exile on my empty place and undone work ? I stand upon a seashore, where the waves are years. They break and fall, and I may little heed them : but, with every wave the sea is rising, and I know that it will float me on this traveller’s voyage at last. The Long Voyage — Reprinted Pieces. DEATH— The discovery of its approach. When I took her up, and felt that she was lighter in my arms, a dead, blank feeling came upon me, as if I were approaching to some frozen region yet unseen, that numbed my life. David Copperfield, Chap. 48. DEATH - The inequality of. Stephen added to his other thoughts the stern reflection, that of all the casualties of this existence upon earth, not one was dealt out with so unequal a hand as Death.* The in- equality of Birth was nothing to it. For, say that the child of a King and the child of a Weaver were born to-night in the same moment, what was that disparity to the death of any hu- man creature who was serviceable to, or beloved by, another, while this abandoned woman lived on ! — Hard Times , Book I., Chap. 13. DEATH— Not to be frightened by. “ The sun sets every day, and people die every minute, and we mustn’t be scared by the com- mon lot. If we failed to hold our own, because that equal foot at all men’s doors was heard knocking somewhere, every object in this world would slip from us. No ! Ride on ! Rough- shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on ! Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race ! ” — David Copperfield, Chap. 28. DEATH— Its expressions. It was no unfit messenger of death that had disturbed the quiet of the matron’s room. Her body was bent by age ; her limbs trembled with palsy ; and her face, distorted into a mumbling leer, resembled more the grotesque shaping of some wild pencil, than the work of Nature’s hand. Alas ! how few of Nature’s faces are left to gladden us with their beauty ! The cares, and sorrows, and hungerings, of the world change them as they change hearts ; and it is only when those passions sleep, and have lost their hold forever, that the troubled clouds pass off, and leave Heaven’s surface clear. It is a com- mon thing for the countenances of the dead, even in that fixed and rigid state, to subside into the long-forgotten expression of sleeping infancy, and settle into the very look of early life ; so calm, so peaceful do they grow again, that those who knew them in their happy child- hood kneel by the coffin’s side in awe, and see the Angel even upon earth. Oliver Twist, Chap. 24. DEATH-Of Stephen Blackpool. “ Rachael, my dear.” She took his hand. He smiled again and said, “ Don’t let ’t go.” “ Thou’rt in great pain, my own dear Ste- phen ? ” DEATH 138 DEATH “ I ha’ been, but not now. I ha’ been — dreadful, and dree, and long, my dear — but ’ i i s ower now. Ah, Rachael, aw a muddle ! Fro’ first to last, a muddle !” The spectre of his old look seemed to pass as he said the word. “ I ha’ fell into th’ pit, my dear, as have cost wi’in the knowledge o’ old folk now livin’, hun- dreds and hundreds o’ men’s lives — fathers, sons, brothers, dear to thousands an’ thousands, an’ keeping ’em fro’ want and hunger. I ha’ fell into a pit that ha’ been wi’ th’ Fire-damp crueller than battle. I ha’ read on’t in the public petition, as onnv one may read, fro’ the men that works in pits, in which they ha’ pray’n an’ pray’n the law makers for Christ’s sake not to let their work be murder to ’em, but to spare ’em for th’ wives and children that they loves as well as gentlefolk loves theirs. When it were in work, it killed wi’out need ; when ’tis let alone, it kills wi’out need. See how we die an’ no need, one way an’ another — in a muddle — every day ! ” He faintly said it, without any anger against any one. Merely as the truth. “ Thy little sister, Rachael, thou hast ngt for- got her. Thou’rt not like to forget her now, and me so nigh her. Thou know’st — poor, patient, sufF riii’ dear — how thou didst work for her, seet’n all day long in her little chair at thy winder, and how she died, young and misshap- en, awlung o’ sickly air as had’n no need to be, an awlung o’ working people’s miserable homes. A muddle ! Aw a muddle ! ” Louisa approached him ; but he could not see her, lying with his face turned up to the night sky. “ If aw th’ things that tooches us, my dear, was not so muddled, I should’n ha’ had’n need to coom heer. If we was not in a muddle among ourseln, I should’n ha’ been by my own fellow-weavers and workin’ brothers, so mis- took. If Mr. Bounderby had ever know’d me right — if he’d ever know’d me at aw — he would’n ha’ took’n offence wi’ me. He would’n ha’ sus- pect’n me. But look up yonder, Rachael ! Look aboove ! ” Following his eyes, she saw that he was gaz- ing at a star. “ It ha’ shined upon me,” he said reverently, “ in my pain and trouble down below. It ha’ shined into my mind. I ha’ look’n at’t an’ thowt o’ thee, Rachael, till the muddle in my mind have cleared awa, above a bit, I hope.” * * * * ❖ * The bearers being now ready to carry him away, and the surgeon being anxious for his re- moval,' those who had torches or lanterns, pre- pared to go in front of the litter. Before it was raised, and while they were arranging how to go, he said to Rachael, looking upward at the star : “ Often as I coom t'o myseln, and found it shinin on me down there in my trouble, I thowt it were the star as guided to Our Saviour’s home. I awmust think it be the very star!” They lifted him up, and he was overjoyed to find that they were about to take him in the direction, whither the star seemed to him to lead. “ Rachael, beloved lass ! Don’t let go my hand. We may walk toogether t’night, my dear ! ” “ I will hold thy hand, and keep beside thee, Stephen, all the way.” “ Bless thee ! Will soombody be pleased to coover my face ! ” They carried him very gently along the fields, and down the lanes, and over the wide land- scape ; Rachael always holding the hand in hers. Very few whispers broke the mournful silence. It was soon a funeral procession. The star had shown him where to find the God of the poor , and through humility, and sorrow, and forgive- ness, he had gone to his Redeemer’s rest. Liard Times , Book III., Chap. 6. DEATH In the street. As the load was put down in thfe street, Riah drew the head of the party aside, and whispered that he thought the man was dying. “ No, surely not ? ” returned the other. But he became less confident, on looking, and directed the bearers to “bring him to the nearest doctor’s shop.” Thither he was brought ; the window becom- ing from within a wall of faces, deformed into all kinds of shapes through the agency of glo- bular red bottles, green bottles, blue bottles, and other colored bottles. A ghastly light shining upon him that he did’nt need, the beast so furious but a few minutes gone, was quiet enough now, with a strange mysterious writing on his face, reflected from one of the great bot- tles, as if Death had marked him : “ Mine.” The medical testimony was more precise and more to the purpose than it sometimes is in a Court of Justice. “ You had better send for something to cover it. All’s over.” Our Mutual Friend , Book IV., Chap. g. DEATH-Of Quilp. “If I could find a wall or fence,” said the dwarf, stretching out his arms, and walking slowly on, “ I should know which way to turn. A good, black, devil’s night this, to have my dear friend here ! If I had but that wish, it might, for anything 1 cared, never be day again.” As the word passed his lips, he staggered and fell — and next moment was fighting with the cold, dark water ! For all its bubbling up and rushing in his ears, he could hear the knocking at the gate again — could hear a shout that followed it — could recognize the voice. For all his strug- gling and plashing, he could understand that they had lost their way, and had wandered back to the point from which they started ; that they were all but looking on, while he was drowned ; that they were close at hand, but could not make an effort to save him ; that he himself had shut and barred them out. He answered the shout — with a yell, which seemed to make the hun- dred fires that danced before his eyes tremble and flicker, as if a gust of wind had stirred them. It was of no avail. The strong tide filled his throat, and bore him on upon its rapid current. Another mortal struggle, and he was up again, beating the water with his hands, and looking out with wild and glaring eyes, that showed him some black object he was drifting close upon. The hull of a ship ! He could touch its smooth and slippery surface with his hand. One loud cry now — but the resistless water bore him down before he could give it utterance, and, driving him under it, carried away a corpse. It toyed and sported with its ghastly freight, DEATH 139 DEATH now bruising it against the slimy piles, now hid- ing it in mud or long rank grass, now dragging it heavily over rough stones and gravel, now feigning to yield it to its own element, and in the same action luring it away, until, tired of the ugly plaything, it flung it on a swamp — a dis- mal place, where pirates had swung in chains, through many a wintry night — and left it there to bleach. And there it lay, alone. The sky was red with flame, and the water that bore it there had been tinged with the sullen light a.s it flowed along. The place the deserted carcass had left so recently, a living man, was now a blazing ruin. There was something of the glare upon its face. The hair, stirred by the damp breeze, played in a kind of mockery of death — such a mockery as the dead man himself would have delighted in when alive — about its head, and its dress fluttered idly in the night wind. Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. 67. DEATH-Of Mrs. Weller. (Mr. Weller’s let- ter.) “ Never mind my eyes ; you had much better read your letter,” said the pretty housemaid ; and as she said so, she made the eyes twinkle with such slyness and beauty that they were perfectly irresistible. Sam refreshed himself with a kiss, and read as follows : “ Markis Gran By dorken “ My dear Sammle. Wen& dy ' “ I am wery sorry to have the pleasure of bein a Bear of ill news your Mother in law cort cold consekens of imprudently settin too long on the damp grass in the rain a hearin of a shepherd who warnt able to leave off till late at night owen to his havin vound his-self up with brandy and vater and not being able to stop his-self till he got a little sober which took a many hours to do the doctor says that if she’d svallo’d varm brandy and vater artervards insted of afore she mightn’t have been no vus her veels wos im- medetly greased and everythink done to set her agoin as could be inwented your farther had hopes as she vould have vorked round as usual but just as she wos a turnen the corner my boy she took the wrong road and vent down hill vith a welocity you never see and notvithstandin that the drag wos put on drectlyby the medikelman it wornt of no use at all for she paid the last pike at twenty minutes afore six o’clock yester- day evenin havin done -the journey wery much under the reglar time vich praps was partly owen to her havin taken in wery little luggage by the vay your father says that if you vill come and see me Sammy he vill take it as a wery great favor for I am wery lonely Samivel n b he vill have it spelt that vay vich I say ant right and as there is sich a many things to settle he is sure your guvner wont object of course he vill not Sammy for I knows him better so he sends his dooty in which I join and am Samivel in- fernally yours “ Tony Veller.” “ Wot a incomprehensible letter,” said Sam; “ who’s to know wot it means, vith all this he- ing and I-ing ! It ain’t my father’s writin’, ’cept this here signater in print letters ; that’s his.” Pickwick , Chap. 52. DEATH OF THE RICH MAN— Its cause, “ Pressure.” The report that the great man was dead, got about with astonishing rapidity. At first, he was dead of all the diseases that ever were known, and of several bran-new maladies invented with the speed of Light to meet the demand of the oc- casion. He had concealed a dropsy from in- fancy, he had inherited a large estate of water on the chest from his grandfather, he had had an operation performed upon him every morning of his life for eighteen years, he had been subject to the explosion of important veins in his body after the manner of fireworks, he had had some- thing the matter with his lungs, he had had something the matter with his heart, he had had something the matter with his brain. Five hun- dred people who sat down to breakfast entirely uninformed on the whole subject, believed before they had done breakfast, that they private- ly and personally knew Physician to have said to Mr. Merdle, “You must expect to go out, some day, like the snuff of a candle,” and that they knew Mr. Merdle to have said to Physician, “ A man can die but once.” By about eleven o’clock in the forenoon, something the matter with the bra-in, became the favorite theory against the field ; and by twelve the something had been distinctly ascertained to be “ Pressure.” Pressure was so entirely satisfactoiy to the public mind, and seemed to make everybody so comfortable, that it might have lasted all day but for Bar’s having taken the real state of the case into Court at half-past nine. This led to its beginning to be currently whispered all over London by about one, that Mr. Merdle had kill- ed himself. Pressure, however, so far from be- ing overthrown by the discovery, became a greater favorite than ever. There was a general moralizing upon Pressure, in every street. All the people who hnd tried to make money and had not been able to do it, said, There you were ! You no sooner began to devote yourself to the pursuit of wealth, than you got Pressure. The idle people improved the occasion in a similar manner. See, said they, what you brought your- self to by work, work, work ! You persisted in working, you overdid it. Pressure came on, and you were done for ! This consideration was very potent in many quarters, but nowhere more so than among the young clerks and partners who had never been in the slightest danger of overdoing it. These one and all declared, quite piously, that they hoped they would never forget the warning as long as they lived, and that their conduct might be so regulated as to keep off Pressure, and preserve them, a comfort to their friends, for many years. Little Dorrit, Book II., Chap. 25. DEATH— Of the prisoner. It was a large, bare, desolate room, with a number of stump bedsteads made of iron : on one of which lay stretched the shadow of a man ; wan, pale, and ghastly. His breathing was hard and thick, and he moaned painfully as it came and went. At the bedside sat a short old man in a cobbler’s apron, who, by the aid of a pair of horn spectacles, was reading from the Bible aloud. It was the fortunate legatee. The sick man laid his hand upon his attend- ant’s arm, and motioned him to stop. He closed the book, and laid it on the bed. DEATH 140 DEATH “ Open the window,” said the sick man. He did so. The noise of carriages and carts, the rattle of wheels, the cries of men and boys, all the busy sounds of a mighty multitude in- stinct with life and occupation, blended into one deep murmur, floated into the room. Above the hoarse loud hum, arose, from time to lime, a boisterous laugh ; or a scrap of some jingling song, shouted forth by one of the giddy crowd, would strike upon the ear, for an instant, and then be lost amidst the roar of voices and the tramp of footsteps ; the breaking of the billows of the restless sea of life, that rolled heavily on, without. Melancholy sounds to a quiet listener at any time ; how melancholy to the watcher by the bed of death ! “ There is no air here," said the sick man, faintly. “ The place pollutes it. It was fresh round about, when I walked there, years ago ; but it grows hot and heavy in passing these walls. I cannot breathe it.” “We have breathed it together for a long time,” said the old man. “ Come, come.” There was a short silence, during which the two spectators approached the bed. The sick man drew a hand of his old fellow-prisoner to- wards him, and pressing it affectionately between both his own, retained it in his grasp. “ I hope,” he gasped after a while : so faintly that they bent their ears close over the bed to catch the half-formed sounds his pale lips gave vent to : “I hope my merciful Judge will bear in mind my heavy punishment on earth. Twenty years, my friend, twenty years in this hideous grave ! My heart broke when my child died, and I could not even kiss him in his little coffin. My loneliness since then, in all this noise and riot, has been very dreadful. May God forgive me ! He has seen my solitary, lingering death.” He folded his hands, and , .tyiurm^i wig some- thing more they could not hcur, fell into a sleep — only a sleep at first, for they saw hh^. smile. They whispered together / ;,a little time, and the turnkey, stooping over the pillow, drew has- tily back. “ He has got his discharge, by G — ! ” said the man. He had. But he had grown so like death in life, that they knew not when he died. Pickwick , Chap. 44. DEATH-Of Little Nell. She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life ; not one who had lived and suffered death. Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green leaves gathered in a spot she had been used to favor. “ When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always.” Those were her words. She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little bird — a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed — was stirring nimbly in its cage ; and the strong heart of its child mistress was mute and motion- less for ever. Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues? All gone. Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happiness were born ; imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repose. And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. Yes. The old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face ; it had passed, like a dream, through haunts of misery and care ; at the door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire upon the cold, wet night, at the still bed side of the dying boy. there had been the same mild, lovely look. So shall we know the angels in their majesty after death. The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand light folded to his breast, for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched out to him with her last smile — the hand that led him on, through all their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips ; then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now ; and, as he said it, he looked, in agony, to those who stood around, as if im- ploring them to help her. She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient rooms she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was waning fast — the garden she had tended — the eyes she had gladdened — the noiseless haunts of many a thoughtful hour — the paths she had trodden as it were but yesterday — could know her never more. “ It is not,” said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on the cheek, and gave his tears free vent, “ it is not on earth that Hea- ven’s justice ends. Think what earth is, com- pared with the World to which her young spirit has winged its early flight ; and say, if one de- liberate wish expressed in solemn terms above this bed could call her back to life, which of us would utter it ! ” ****** “ She is sleeping soundly,” he said ; “ but no wonder. Angel hands have strewn the ground deep with snow, that the lightest footstep may be lighter yet ; and the very birds are dead, that they may not wake her. She used to feed them, sir. Though never so cold and hungry, the timid things would fly from us. They never flew from her ! ” Again he stopped to listen, and scarcely drawing breath, listened for a long, long time. That fancy past, he opened an old chest, took out some clothes as fondly as if they had been living things, and began to smooth and brush them with his hand. “ Why dost thou lie so idle there, dear Nell,” he murmured, “ when there are bright red ber- ries out of doors waiting for thee to pluck them ! Why dost thou lie so idle there, when thy little friends come creeping to the door, crying ‘ where is Nell — sweet Nell?’ — and sob, and weep, be- cause they do not see thee. She was always gentle with children. The wildest would do her bidding — she had a tender way with them, indeed she had ! ” Old Curiosity Shop. Chap. 71. DEATH— Of the young:. “ Oh ! it is hard to take to heart The lesson that such deaths will teach, But let no man reject it, For it is one that all must learn, And is a mighty, universal Truth. When Death strikes down the innocent and young For every fragile form from which he lets The parting spirit free, A hundred virtues rise. In shapes of mercy, charity, and love. To walk the world and bless it. DEATH 141 DEATH Of every tear That sorrowing mortals shecl on such green graves Some good is born, some gentler nature comes.” Old Curiosity Shop. DEATH— By starvation. The man’s face was thin and very pale ; his hair and beard were grizzly ; his eyes were bloodshot. The old woman’s face was wrinkled ; her two remaining teeth protruded over her un- der lip ; and her eyes were bright and piercing. Oliver was afraid to look at either her or the man. They seemed so like the rats he had seen outside. “Nobody shall go near her,” said the man, starting fiercely up, as the undertaker approached the recess. “ Keep back ! d — n you, keep back, if you’ve a life to lose !” “Nonsense, my good man,” said the under- taker, who was pretty well used to misery in all its shapes. “ Nonsense !” “ I tell you,” said the man ; clinching his hands, and stamping furiously on the floor, — “ I tell you I won’t have her put into the ground. She couldn’t rest there. The worms would worry her — not eat her — she is so worn away.” The undertaker offered no reply to this rav- ing ; but, producing a tape from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the body. “Ah!” said the man, bursting into tears, and sinking on his knees at the feet of the dead woman; “kneel down, kneel down — kneel round her, every one of you, and mark my words ! I say she was starved to death. I never knew how bad she was, till the fever came upon her ; and then her bones were start- ing through the skin. There was neither fire nor candle ; she died in the dark — in the dark ! She couldn’t even see her children’s faces, though we heard, her gasping out their names. I begged for her in the streets ; and they sent me to prison. When I came back, she was dying ; and all the blood in my heart has dried up, for they starved her to death. I swear it before the God that saw it ! They starved her ! ” He twined his hands in his hair ; and, with a loud sci-eam, rolled grovelling upon the floor : his eyes fixed, and the foam covering his lips. The terrified children cried bitterly ; but the old woman, who had hitherto remained as quiet as if she had been wholly deaf to all that passed, menaced them into silence. Having unloosed the cravat of the man, who still remained ex- tended on the ground, she tottered toward the undertaker. “ She was my daughter,” said the old woman, nodding her head in the direction of the corpse, and speaking with an idiotic leer, more ghastly than even the presence of death in such a place. “Lord, Lord! Well, it is strange that I, who gave birth to her, and was a woman then, should be alive and merry now, and she lying there ; so cold and stiff! Lord, Lord ! — to think of it ; — it’s as good as a play — as good as a play ! ” Oliver Twist , Chap. 5. DEATH— In old ag-e (Anthony Chuzzle wit) . He had fallen from his chair in a fit, and lay there, battling for each gasp of breath, with every shrivelled vein and sinew starting in its place, as if it were bent on bearing witness to his age, and sternly pleading with Nature against his recovery. It was frightful to see how the principle of life, shut up within his withered frame, fought like a strong devil, mad to be re- leased, and rent its ancient prison-house. A young man in the fullness of his vigor, struggling with so much strength of desperation, would have been a dismal sight ; but an old, old, shrunken body, endowed with preternatural might, and giving the lie jn every motion of its every limb and joint to its enfeebled aspect, was a hideous spectacle indeed. * * * * * On his livid face, and on his horny hands, and in his glassy eyes, and traced by an eternal finger in the very drops of sweat upon his brow, was one word — Death. Marlin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 18. DEATH— Weller’s philosophy at his loss. “Sammy,” said Mr. Weller, “you’re vel- come.” “ I’ve been a callin’ to you half a dozen times,” said Sam, hanging his hat on a peg, “but you didn’t hear me.” “No, Sammy,” replied Mr. Weller, again looking thoughtfully at the fire. “ I was in a referee, Sammy.” “Wot about?” inquired Sam, drawing his chair up to tlfe fire. “ In a referee, Sammy,” replied the elder Mr. Weller, “ regarding her , Samivel.” Here Mr. Weller jerked his head in the direction of Dor- king churchyard, in mute explanation that his words referred to the late Mrs. Weller. “I wos a thinkin’, Sammy,” said Mr. Weller, eyeing his son, with great earnestness, over his pipe ; as if to assure him that however extraor- dinary and incredible the declaration might ap- pear, it was nevertheless calmly and deliberately uttered. “ I wos a thinkin’, Sammy, that upon the whole I wos wery sorry she wos gone.” “Veil, and so ought to be,” replied Sam. Mr. Weller nouded his acquiescence in the sentimei. , and afrain fastening his eyes on the fire, shrouded i. ;elf in a cloud, and mused deeply. “Veil,” said Sam, venturing to offer a little homely consolation, after the lapse of three or four minutes, consumed by the old gentleman in slowly shaking his head from side to side, and solemnly smoking; “veil, gov’ner, ve must all come to it, one day or another.” “ So we must, Sammy,” said Mr. Weller the elder. “ There’s a Providence in it all,” said Sam. “ O’ course there is,” replied his father, with a nod of grave approval. “ Wot ’ud become of the undertakers vithout it, Sammy ? ” Lost in the immense field of conjecture opened by this reflection, the elder Mr. Weller laid his pipe on the table, and stirred the fire with a meditative vision. — Pickwick , Chap. 52. DEATH-Of “Jo.” Jo is very glad to see his old friend ; and says, when they are left alone, that he takes it uncom- mon kind as Mr. Sangsby should come so far out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr. Sangsby, touched by the spectacle before him, immediately lays upon the table half-a-crown ; that magic balsam of his for all kinds of wounds. “ And how do you find yourself, my poor lad ? ” inquires the stationer, with his cough of sympathy. DEATH 142 DEATH “ I am in luck, Mr. Sangshy, I am,” returns Jo, “and don’t want for nothink. I’m more cumfbler nor you can’t think. Mr. Sangshy ! I’m wery sorry that I done it, but I didn’t go fur to do it, sir.” The stationer softly lays down another half- cijown, and asks him what it is that he is sorry for having done ? “ Mi. Sangshy,” says Jo, “I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos and yit as warn’t the t’other lady, and none of ’em never says no- think to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser good and my having been s’un- fortnet. The lady come herself and see me yesday, and she ses, ‘Ah Jo!’ she ses. ‘We thought we’d lost you, Jo !’ she ses. And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don’t pass a word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don’t, and I turns again the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him a-forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to giv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he’s alius a-doin oh day and night, and wen he come a-bendin ove: me and a-speakin up so bold, I see his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby.” The softened stationer deposits another half- crown on the table. Nothing less than a repe- tition of that infallible remedy would relieve his feelings. , “ Wot I wos a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby,” pro- ceeds Jo, “ wos, as you wos able to write wery large, p’raps ? ” “ Yes, Jo, please God,” returns the stationer. “Uncommon precious large, p’raps?” says Jo, with eagerness. “ Yes, my poor boy.” Jo laughs with pleasure. “Wot I wos a- thinking on then, Mr. Sangsby, wos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go and couldn’t be moved no furder, whether you might be so good p’raps, as to write out, wery large, so that any one could see it anywheres, as that I wos wery truly hearty sorry that I done it and that I never went fur to do it ; and that though I didn’t know nothink at all, I knowd as Mr. Woodcot once cried over it and wos alius grieved over it, and that I hoped as he’d be able to for- give me in his mind. If the writin could be made to say it wery large, he might.” “ It shall say it, Jo. Very large.” Jo laughs again. “Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It’s wery kind of you, sir, and it makes me more cumfbler nor I wos afore.” The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips down his fourth half- crown — he has never been so close to a case re- quiring so many — and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon this little earth, shall meet no more. No more. For the cart, so hard to draw, is near its jour- ney’s end, and drags over stony ground. All round the clock it labors up the broken steps, shattered and worn. Not many times can the sun rise, and behold it still upon its weary road. Phil Squod, with his smoky gunpowder visage, at once acts as nurse and works as armorer at his little table in a corner ; often looking round, and saying, with a nod of his green baize cap, and an encouraging elevation of his one eye- brow, “ Hold up, my boy ! Hold tip!” There, too, is Mr. Jarndyce many a time, and Allan Woodcourt almost always; both thinking much how strangely Fate has entangled this rough out- cast in the web of very different lives. There, too, the trooper is a frequent visitor, filling the doorway with his athletic figure, and, from his superfluity of life and strength, seeming to shed down temporary vigor upon Jo, who never fails to speak more robustly in answer to his cheer- ful words. Jo is in a sleep or in a stupor to-day, and Allan Woodcourt, newly arrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form. After a while he softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face towards him — just as he sat in the law-writer’s room — and touches his chest and heart. The cart had very nearly given up, but labors on a little more. The trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent. Phil has stopped in a low clinking noise, with his little hammer in his hand. Mr. Wood- court looks round with that grave professional interest and attention on his face, and, glancing significantly at the trooper, signs to Phil to carry his table out. When the little hammer is next used, there will be a speck of rust upon it. “Well, Jo! What is the matter? Don’t be frightened.” “ I thought,” says Jo, who has started, and is looking round, “ I thought I was in Tom-all- Alonc’s agin. Ain’t there nobody here but you, Mr. Woodcot? ” “ Nobody.” “And I ain’t took back to Tom-all- Alone’s. Am I, sir ? ” “No.” Jo closes his eyes, muttering, “I’m wery thankfu*l.” After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very near his ear, and says to him in a low, distinct voice : “ Jo ! Did you ever know a prayer?” “ Never knowd nothink, sir.” “ Not so much as one short prayer? ” “ No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at Mr. Sangsby’s and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin’ to hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn’t make out nothink on it. Different times, there wos other genlmen come down Tom- All- Alone’s a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t’other wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking to theirselves, or a passing blame on the t’others, and not a-talkin to us. We never knowd nothink. 1 never knowd what it wos all about.” It takes him a long time to say this ; and few but an experienced and attentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. After a short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sud- den, a strong effort to get out of bed. “Stay, Jo ! What now?” “ It’s time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir,” he returns, with a wild look. “ Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo ? ” “ Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed, he was. It’s time fur me to go down to that there berryin ground, sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be berried. Pie used fur to say to me, ‘I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,’ he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now, and have come there to be laid along with him.” “ By-and-bye, Jo. By-and-bye.” DEATH 143 DEATH “ Ah ! P’raps they wouldn’t do it if I wos to go myself. But will you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him ? ” “ I will, indeed.” “ Thank’ee, sir. Thank’ee, sir. They'll have to get the key of the gate afore they can take me in, for it’s alius locked. And there’s a step there, as I used fur to clean with my broom. — It’s turned wery dark, sir. Is there any light a- comin ? ” “ It is coming fast, Jo.” Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and* the rugged road is very near its end. “Jo, my poor fellow ! ” “ I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I’m a-gropin — a gropin — let me catch hold of your hand.” “Jo, can you say what I say?” “ I’ll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it’s good.” “Our Father.” “ Our Father ! — yes, that’s very good, sir.” “Which art in Heaven.” “ Art in Fleaven — is the light a-comin, sir?” “It is close at hand. Hallowed be thy NAME ! ” “ Hallowed be — thy ” The light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead ! Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and wo- men, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day. Bleak House , Chap. 47. DEATH— Its oblivion. So Edith’s mother lies unmentioned of her dear friends, who are deaf to the waves that are hoarse with repetition of their mystery, and blind to the dust that is piled upon the shore, and to the white arms that are beckoning, in the moonlight, to the invisible country far away. But all goes on, as it was wont, upon the margin of the unknown sea ; and Edith, standing there alone, and listening to its waves, has dank weed cast up at her feet, to strew her path in life withal. — Dombey 6° Son, Chap. 41. DEATH— Of a mother. “ Mamma ! ” said the child. The little voice, familiar and dearly loved, awakened some show of consciousness, even at that ebb. For a moment, the closed eye-lids trembled, and the liostril quivered, and the faintest shadow of a smile was seen. “Mamma!” cried the child, sobbing aloud. “ Oh dear Mamma ! oh dear Mamma ! ” The Doctor gently brushed the scattered ring- lets of the child aside from the face and mouth of the mother. Alas ! how calm they lay there ; how little breath there was to stir them ! Thus, clinging fast to that slight spar within her arms, the mother drifted out upon the dark and unknown sea that rolls round all the world. Dombey 6° Son , Chap. 1. DEATH— Of youth. Paul had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly ; not caring much how the time went, but watching everything about him with observing eyes. When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that evening was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. As the reflection died away, and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he watched it deepen, deepen, deepen, into night. Then he thought how the long streets were dotted with lamps, and how the peaceful stars were shining overhead. His fancy had a strange tendency to wander to the river, which he knew < was flowing through the great city ; and now he thought how black it was, and how deep it would look, reflecting the hosts of stars — and more than all, how steadily it rolled away to meet the sea. As it grew later in the night, and footsteps in the street became so rare that he could hear them coming, count them as they passed, and lose them in the hollow distance, he would lie and watch the many-colored ring about the can- dle, and wait patiently for day. His only trou- ble was, the swift and rapid river. He felt forced, sometimes, to try to stop it — to stem it with his childish hands — or choke its way with sand — and when he saw it coming on, resistless, he cried out ! But a word from Florence, who was always at his side, restored him to himself ; and leaning his poor head upon her breast, he told Floy of his dream, and smiled. When day began to dawn again, he watched for the sun ; and when its cheerful light began to sparkle in the room, he pictured to himself — pictured ! he saw the high church towers rising up into the morning sky, the town reviving, wak ing, starting into life once more, the river glisten- ing as it rolled (but rolling fast as ever), and the country bright with dew. Familiar sounds and cries came by degrees into the street below ; the servants in the house were roused and busy ; faces looked in at the door, and voices asked his attendffets softly how he was. Paul always answered for himself, “ I am better. I am a great deal better, thank you. Tell Papa so !” By little and little he got tired of the bustle of the day, the noise of carriages and carts, and people passing and re-passing ; and would fall asleep, or be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense again— the child could hardly tell whether this were in his sleeping or his waking mo- ments — of that rushing river. “Why, will it never stop, Floy?” he would sometimes ask her. “It is bearing me away, I think !” But Floy could always soothe and re-assure him ; and it was his daily delight to make her lay her head down on his pillow, and take some rest. :jc Jj; % :js -J5- “Now lay me down,” he said, “and Floy, come close to me, and let me see you ! ” Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together. “ How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes, Floy ! But it’s very near the sea. I hear the waves ! They always said so ! ” Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream was lulling him to rest. How green the banks were now, how bright the flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes ! Now the boat was out at sea, but gliding smoothly on. And now there was a shore before him. Who stood on the bank ! — DEATH 144 DEPORTMENT lie put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his prayers. lie did not remove his arms to do it ; but they saw him fold them so, behind her neck. “Mamma is like you, Floy. I know her by the facel But tell them that the print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. The light about the head is shining on me as I go !” The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion ! The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last un- changed until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion — Death ! Oh, thank God, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of Immortality ! And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean ! — Do m bey 6° Son. DEATH-Of Marley. Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been in- clined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of cur ancestors is in the simile ; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Scrooge knew he was dead ? Jpf course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t know how many year's. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain. Christmas Carol , , Stave i. DEATH— Of the young 1 — (Thoughts of little Nell). But the sad scene she had witnessed was not without its lesson of content and gratitude ; of content with the lot which left her health and freedom ; and gratitude that she was spared to the one relative and friend she loved, and to live and move in a beautiful world, when so many young creatures — as young and full of hope as she — were stricken down and gathered to their graves. How many of ihe mounds in that old churchyard where she had lately strayed, grew green above the graves of children ! And though she thought as a child herself, and did not, perhaps, sufficiently consider to what a bright and happy existence those who die young are borne, and how in death they lose the pain of seeing others die around them, bearing to the tomb some strong affection of their hearts (which makes the old die many times in one long life), still she thought wisely enough, to draw a plain and easy moral from what she had seen that night, and to store it deep in her mind. Her dreams were of the little scholar ; not cof- fined and covered up, but mingling with angels, and smiling happily. The sun, darting his cheerful rays into the room, awoke her: and now there remained but to take leave of the poor schoolmaster and wander forth once more. Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 26. DEBT -Skimpole’s idea of. His furniture had been all cleared off, it ap- peared, by the person who took possession of it on his blue-eyed daughter’s birthday; but lie seemed quite relieved to think that it was gone. Chairs and tables, he said, were wearisome ob- jects ; they were monotonous ideas, they had no variety of expression, they looked you out of countenance, and you looked them out of coun- tenance. How pleasant, then, to be bound to no particular chairs and tables, but to sport like a butterfly among all the furniture on hire, and to flit from rosewood to mahogany, and from mahogany to walnut, and from this shape to that, as the humor took one ! “ The oddity of the thing is,” said Mr. Skim- pole, with a quickened sense of the ludicrous, “ that my chairs and tables were not paid for, and yet my landlord walks off with them as composedly as possible. Now, that seems droll ! There is something grotesque in it. The chair and table merchant never engaged to pay my landlord my rent. Why should my landlord quarrel with him? If I have a pim- ple on my nose which is disagreeable to my landlord’s peculiar ideas of beauty, my landlord has no business to scratch my chair and table merchant’s nose, which has no pimple on it. His reasoning seems defective !” Bleak House , Chap. 17. DEBTORS— Paying 1 debts a disease. It was evident from the general tone of the whole party, that they had come to regard in- solvency as the normal state of mankind, and the payment of debts as a disease that occa- sionally broke out. Little Dorr it, Book /., Chap. 8. DEPORTMENT— Turveydrop on. “ A lady so graceful and accomplished,’ - he said, kissing his right glove, and afterwards ex- tending it towards the pupils, “will look leni- ently on the deficiencies here. We do our best to polish — polish — polish ! ” He sat down beside me ; taking some pains to sit on the form, I thought, in imitation of the print of his illustrious model on the sofa. And really he did look very like it. “To polish — -polish — polish!” he repeated, taking a pinch of snuff and gently fluttering his fingers. “ But we are not — if I may say so, to one formed to be graceful both by Nature and Art;’’ with the high-shouldered bow, which it seemed impossible for him to make without lift- ing up his eyebrows and shutting his eyes — “ we are not what we used to be in point of Deport- ment.” “ Are we not, sir? ” said I. “ We have degenerated,” he returned, shak- ing his head, which he could do to a very limi- ted extent, in his cravat. “ A levelling age is not favorable to Deportment. It develops vul- DEPORTMENT 145 DESTINY garity. Pei'haps I speak with some little parti- ality. It may not be for me to say that I have been called, for some years now, Gentleman Turveydrop ; or that His Royal Highness the Prince Regent did me the honor to inquire, on my removing my hat as he drove out of the Pavilion at Brighton (that fine building), ‘ Who is he ? Who the Devil is he ? Why don’t I know him ? Why hasn’t he thirty thousand a-year ? ’ But these are little matters of anec- dote — the general property, ma’am — still re- peated, occasionally, among the upper classes.” “ Indeed ? ” said I. He- replied, with the high-shouldered bow, “ Where what is left among us of Deportment,” he added, “ still lingers. England — alas, my country ! — has degenerated very much, and is degenerating every day. She has not many gentlemen left. We are few. I see nothing to succeed us but a race of weavers.” “ One might hope that the race of gentlemen would be perpetuated here,” said I. “You are very good,” he smiled, with the high-shouldered bow again. “ You flatter me. But, no — no ! I have never been able to imbue my poor boy with that part of his art. Heaven forbid that I should disparage my dear child, but he has — no Deportment.” “ He appears to be an excellent master,” I observed. “ He is celebrated, almost everywhere, for his Deportment.” “ Does he teach ? ” asked Ada. “ No, he don’t teach anything in particular,” replied Caddy. “ But his Deportment is beau- tiful.” — Bleak House , Chap. 14. The power of his Deportment was such, that they really were as much overcome with thank- fulness as if, instead of quartering himself upon them for the rest of his life, he were making some munificent sacrifice in their favor. “ For myself, my children,” said Mr. Turvey- drop, “ I am falling into the sear and yellow leaf, and it is impossible to say how long the last feeble traces of gentlemanly Deportment may linger in this weaving and spinning age. But, so long, I will do my duty to society, and will show myself, as usual, about town.” Bleak House , Chap. 23. DEPORTMENT— “ Botany Bay Ease.” “ Good morning, my dear,” said the princi- pal, addressing the young lady at the bar, with Botany Bay ease, and New South Wales gen- tility ; “ which is Mr. Pickwick’s room, my dear?” — Pickwick, Chap. 40. DEPRAVITY- Natural. “ Hold there, you and your philanthropy,” cried the smiling landlady, nodding her head more than ever. “ Listen then. I am a woman, I. I know nothing of philosophical philan- thropy. But I know what I have seen, and what I have looked in the face, in this world here, where I find myself. And I tell you this, my friend, that there are people (men and women both, unfortunately) who have no good in them £ — none. That there are people whom it is necessary to detest without compromise. That there are people who must be dealt with as enemies of the human race. That there are people who have no human heart, and who must be crushed like savage beasts and cleared out of the way. They are but few, I hope ; but I have seen (in this world here where I find myself, and even at the little Break of Day) that there are such people.” — Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 11. DEPRAVITY— Its written lessons. I have yet to learn that a lesson of the purest good may not be drawn from the vilest evil. I have always believed this to be a recognized and established truth, laid down by the greatest men the world has ever seen, constantly acted upon by the best and wisest natures, and confirmed by the reason and experience of every thinkin \ mind. I saw no reason, when I wrote thi < book, why the dregs of life, so long as thei speech did not offend the ear, should not serv the purpose of a moral, at least as well as it froth and cream. Nor did I doubt that then, lay festering in Saint Giles’s as good material, toward the truth as any to be found in Sain> James’s. In this spirit, when I wished to show, in little Oliver, the principle of Good surviving through every adverse circumstance, and triumphing at last ; and when I considered among what com- panions I could try him best, having regard to that kind of men into whose hands he would most naturally fall ; I bethought myself of those who figure in these volumes. When I came to discuss the subject more maturely with myself, I saw many strong reasons for pursuing the course to which I was inclined. I had read of thieves by scores — seductive fellows (amiable for the most part), faultless in dress, plump in pock- et, choice in horse-flesh, bold in bearing, fortu- nate in gallantry, great at a song, a bottle, pack of cards or dice-box, and fit companions for the bravest. But I had never met (except in Ho- garth) with the miserable reality. It appeared to me that to draw a knot of such associates in crime as really do exist ; to paint them in all their deformity, in all their wretchedness, in all the squalid poverty of their lives ; to show them as they really are, forever skulking uneasily through the dirtiest paths of life, with the great, black, ghastly gallows closing up their prospect, turn them where they may ; it appeared to me that to do this, would be to attempt a something which was greatly needed, and which would be a service to society. And therefore I did it as^ I best could. — Oliver Twist. Preface . DEPRESSION— Of spirits. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone intensely melancholy, because, after he was gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes fixed on the fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty, — Great Expectations , Chap. 36. DESTINY. “ Shaken out of destiny’s dice box.” Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 11. DESTINY— The high-roads and by-roads of. Strange, if the little sick-room fire were .in ef- fect a beacon fire, summoning some one, and that the most unlikely some one in the world, tc the spot that must be come to. Strange, if the little sick-room light were in effect a watch-light, burning in that place every night until an ap- DETECTIVE 140 DEVOTION pointed event should be watched out ! Which of the vast multitude of travellers, under the sun and the stars, climbing the dusty hills and toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by sea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and re-act on one another, which of the host may, with no sus- picion of the journey’s end, be travelling surely hither? Time shall show us. The post of honor and the post of shame, the general’s station and the drummer’s, a peer’s statue in Westminster Ab- bey and a seaman’s hammock in the bosom of the deep, the mitre and the workhouse, the woolsack and the gallows, the throne and the guillotine — the travellers to all are on the high- road ; but it has wonderful divergencies, and only time shall show us whither each traveller is bound . — Little Dorrit, Book /., Chap. 15. DETECTIVE-Mr. Bucket, the. Mr. Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together under existing circum- stances. When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this pressing interest under his consideration, the fat forefinger seems to rise to the dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his ears, and it wliispers information ; he puts it to his lips, and it enjoins him to secrecy ; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens his scent ; he shakes it be- fore a guilty man, and it charms him to his des- truction. The Augurs of the Detective Temple invariably predict, that when Mr. Bucket and that finger are in much conference, a terrible avenger will be heard of before long. Otherwise mildly studious in his observation of human nature, on the whole a benignant philosopher, not disposed to be severe upon the follies of mankind, Mr. Bucket pervades a vast number of houses, and strolls about an infinity of streets : to outward appearance rather languish- ing for want of an object. He is in the friendliest condition towards his species, and will drink with most of them. He is free with his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his conversation — but, through the placid stream of his life, there glides an under-current of fore-finger. Time and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket. Like man in the abstract, he is here to-day and gone to-morrow — but, very unlike man indeed, he is here again the next day. This evening he will be casually looking into the iron extin- guishers at the door of Sir Leicester Ded lock’s house in town ; and to-morrow morning he will Ibe walking on the leads at Chesney Wold, where erst the old man walked whose ghost is propitiated with a hundred guineas. Drawers, desks, pockets, all things belonging to him, Mr. Bucket examines. A few hours afterwards, he and the Roman will be alone together, compar- ing forefingers . — Bleak House , Chap. 53. DETERMINATION. “ And again,” repeats Mademoiselle, catalep- tic with determination . — Bleak House, Chap. 42. DEVIL When he is dang-erous. And yet he had not, even now, any earnest wickedness of purpose in him. Publicly and privately, it were much better for the age in which he lived, that he and the legion of whom he was one were designedly bad, than indifferent and purposeless. It is the drifting icebergs, set- ting with any current anywhere, that wreck the ships. When the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, he goeth about in a shape by which few but savages and hunters are attracted. But, when he is trimmed, smoothed, and varnished, according to the mode ; when he is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue ; used up as to brim- stone, and used up as to bliss ; then, whether he take to serving out of red tape, or to the kin- dling of red fire, he is the very Devil. Hard Times, Book II., Chap. 8. DEVOTION Of Little Dorrit. At first, such a baby could do little more than sit with him, deserting her livelier place by the high fender, and quietly watching him. But this made her so far necessary to him that he I became accustomed to her, and began to be | sensible of missing her when she was not there, j Through this little gate, she passed out of child- hood into the care-laden world. What her pitiful look saw, at that early time, in her father, in her sister, in her brother, in the jail ; how much, or how little, of the wretched truth it pleased God to make visible to her ; lies hidden with many mysteries. It is enough that she was inspired to be something which was not what the rest were, and to be that something, different and laborious, for the sake of the rest. Inspired ? Yes. Shall we speak of the inspira- tion of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self-devotion to the low- liest work in the lowliest way of life ! With no earthly friend to help her, or so much as to see her, but the one so strangely assorted ; with no knowledge even of the common daily tone and habits of the common members of the free community who are not shut up in prisons ; born and bred, in a social condition, false even with a reference to the falsest condition outside the walls ; drinking from infancy of a well whose waters had their own peculiar stain, their own unwholesome and unnatural taste ; the Child of the Marshalsea began her womanly life. No matter through what mistakes and dis- couragements, what ridicule (not unkindly meant, but deeply felt) of her youth and little figure, what humble consciousness of her own babyhood and want of strength, even in the matter of lifting and carrying ; through how much weariness and helplessness, and how many secret tears, she trudged on, until recog- nized as useful, even indispensable. That time came. She took the place of eldest of the three, in all things but precedence ; was the head of the fallen family ; and bore, in her own heart, its anxieties and shames. Little Dorrit, Book I., Chap. 7. DEVOTION— Of Tom Pinch. God’s love upon thy patience, Tom! Who, that had beheld thee, for three summer weeks, poring through half the deadlong night over the jingling anatomy of that inscrutable old harpsi- chord in the back parlor, could have missed the entrance to thy secret heart : albeit it was dimly known to thee ? Who that had seen the glow upon thy cheek when, leaning down to listen, after hours of labor, for the sound of one incor- rigible note, thou foundst that it nad a voice at last, and wheezed out a flat something, distantly DIAMONDS 147 DINNER iakin to what it ought to be, would not have jknown that it was destined for no common couch, but one that smote, though gently as an angel’s hand, upon the deepest chord within jthee! And if a friendly glance — aye, even though it were as guileless as thine own, Dear ' Tom— could but have pierced the twilight of that evening, when, in a voice well tempered to the time, sad, sweet, and low, yet hopeful, she | 'first sang to the altered instrument, and won- 1 dered at the change ; and thou, sitting apart at jj the open window, kept a glad silence and a swelling heart ; must not that glance have read I perforce the dawning of a story, Tom, that it 1 were well for thee had never been begun ! Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 24. DIAMONDS. j The arch of diamonds spanning her dark S hair, flashed and glittered like a starry bridge. I ^There was no warning in them, or they would lhave turned as dull and dim as tarnished honor. Dombey & Son , Chap. 47. DIGESTION— The process of “winding up.” “ The process of digestion, as I have been in- 1 formed by anatomical friends, is one of the most wonderful works of nature. I do not (know how it may be with others, but it is a great satisfaction to me to know, when regaling on my humble fare, that I am putting in motion the most beautiful machinery with which we have any acquaintance. I really feel at such times as if I was doing a public service. When I have wound myself up, if I may employ such ! a term,” said Mr. Pecksniff, with exquisite ten- I derness, “ and know that I am Going, I feel that in the lesson afforded by the works within me, I am a Benefactor to my Kind ! ” Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 8. DIGNITY— An expression of. He threw himself on a bench with the air of j a man who was faint with dignity. Barnaby Budge, C hap. b. DIGNITY— Like an eight-day clock. He carried himself like an eight-day clock at all times : like one of a race of eight-day clocks in gorgeous cases, that never go and never went ; — Ha ha ha ! — but he will have some extra 'stiffness. — Bleak House , Chap. 18. DINING-ROOM-A gloomy. So thought Mr. Dombey, when he was left | alone at the dining-table, and mused upon his ! past and future fortunes : finding no uncongeni- I ality in an air of scant and gloomy state that pervaded the room, in color a dark brown, with black hatchments of pictures blotching the walls, and twenty-four black chairs, with almost as many nails in them as so many coffins, wait- ing like mutes, upon the threshold of the Tur- key carpet ; and two exhausted negroes holding up two withered branches of candelabra on the sideboard, and a musty smell prevailing, as if the ashes of ten thousand dinners were en- tombed in the sarcophagus below it. ^ ^ It was so funereal as to want nothing but a body in it to be quite complete. No bad representation of the body, for the nonce, in his unbending form, if not in his atti- tude, Mr. Dombey looked down into the cold depths of the dead sea of mahogany on which the fruit dishes and decanters lay at anchor. Dombey Sf Son , Chap. 30. DINNER— Bagstock at. Between his mental excitement, and the ex- ertion of saying all this in wheezy whispers, the Major sat gurgling in the throat, and watering at the eyes, until dinner was ready. The Major, like some other noble animals, exhibited himself to great advantage at feeding time. During the first course or two, the Major was usually grave ; for the Native, in obedience to general orders, secretly issued, collected every sauce, and cruet round him, and gave him a great deal to do, in taking out the stoppers, and mixing up the contents in his plate. Besides which, the Native had private zests and flavors on a side-table, with which the Major daily scorched himself : to say nothing of strange machines out of which he spirted unknown liquids into the Major’s drink. Dombey & Son, Chap. 26. DINNER— Bagstock after. The Major being by this time in a state of repletion, with essence of savory pie oozing out at the corners of his eyes, and devilled grill and kidneys tightening his cravat ; and the time moreover approaching for the departure of the railway train to Birmingham, by which they were to leave town ; the Native got him into his great-coat with immense difficulty, and buttoned him up until his face looked staring and gasping, over the top of that garment, as if he were in a barrel. * * * * * * He sat for a long time afterwards, leering and choking, like an over-fed Mephistopheles. Dombey Cf Son, Chap. 20. DINNER— And dinner-time. “ There’s nothing,” said Toby, “ more regular in its coming round than dinner time, and noth- ing less regular in its coming round than din- ner. That’s the great difference between ’em It’s took me a long time to find it out. I won- der whether it would be worth any gentleman’s while now, to buy that obserwation for the pa- pers ; or the Parliament ! ” Christmas Chimes , 1st quarter. DINNER-Toby Veck’s. “ He’d eat his dinner with an appetite, who- ever he was, if it smelt like this,” said Meg, cheerfully. “ Make haste, for there’s a hot po- tato besides, and half a pint of fresh-drawn beer in a bottle. Where will you dine, father 1 On the Post, or on the Steps? Dear, dear, how grand w r e are. Two places to choose from ! ” “"The steps to-day, my pet,” said Trotty. “ Steps in dry weather. Post in wet. There’s a greater conveniency in the steps at all times, because of the sitting down ; but they’re rheu- matic in the damp.” Christmas Chwies, 1st quarter. DINNER— An American. It was a numerous company, eighteen or DINNER 148 DINNER twenty, perhaps. Of these some five or six were ladies, who sat wedged together in a little phalanx by themselves. All the knives and forks were working away at a rate that was quite alarming ; very few words were spoken ; and everybody seemed to eat his utmost in self-defence, as if a famine were expected to set in before breakfast-time to-morrow morn- ing, and it had become high time to assert the first law of nature. The poultry, which may perhaps be considered to have formed the sta- le of the entertainment — for there was a tu r- ey at the top, a pair of ducks at the bottom, and two fowls in the middle — disappeared as rapidly as if every bird had had the use of its wings, and had flown in desperation down a human throat. The oysters, stewed and pickled, leaped from their capacious reservoirs, and slid by scores into the mouths of the assembly. The sharpest pickles vanished, whole cucumbers at once, like sugar-plums, and no man winked his eye. Great heaps of indigestible matter melted away as ice before the sun. It was a solemn and an awful thing to see. Dyspeptic individuals bolted their food in wedges ; feeding, not them- selves, but broods of nightmares, who were con- tinually standing at livery within them. Spare men, with lank and rigid cheeks, came out un- satisfied from the destruction of heavy dishes, and glared with watchful eyes upon the pastry. What Mrs. Pawkins felt each day at dinner- time is hidden from all human knowledge. But she had one comfort. It was very soon over. Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 16. DINNER— Dick Swiveller’s observations on. “ May the present moment,” said Dick, stick- ing his fork into a large carbuncular potato, “ be the worst of our lives ! I like this plan of sending ’em with the peel on ; there’s a charm in drawing a potato from Its native element (if I may so express it) to which the rich and powerful are strangers. Ah ! ‘ Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long!' How true that is ! — after dinner.” “ I hope the eating-house keeper will want but little and that he may not want that little long,” returned his companion ; “but I suspect you’ve no means of paying for this ! ” “ I shall be passing presently, and I’ll call,” said Dick, winking his eye significantly. “ The waiter’s quite helpless. The goods are gone, Fred, and there’s an end of it.” In point of fact, it would seem that the wait- er felt this wholesome truth, for when he re- turned for the empty plates and dishes and was informed by Mr. Swiveller with dignified care- lessness that he would call and settle when he should be passing presently, he displayed some perturbation of spirit, and muttered a few re- marks about “payment on delivery,” and “no trust,” and other unpleasant subjects, but was fain to content himself with inquiring at what hour it was likely the gentleman would call, in order that, being personally responsible for the beef, greens, and sundries, he might take care to be in the way at the time. Mr. Swiveller, after mentally calculating his engagements to a nicety, replied that he should look in at from two minutes before six to seven minutes past : and the man disappearing with this feeble con- solation, Richard Swiveller took a greasy mem- orandum-book from his pocket and made an entry therein. — Old Cuiiosity Shop, Chap. 8. DINNER Mrs. BaR-net’s birthday. A great annual occasion has come round in the establishment of Mr. Joseph Bagnet, other- wise Lignum Vitro, ex-artilleryman and present bassoon-player. An occasion of feasting and festival. The celebration of a birthday in the family. It is not Mr. Bagnet’s birthday. Mr. Bagnet merely distinguishes that epoch in the musical instrument business, by kissing the children with an extra smack before breakfast, smoking an additional pipe after dinner, and wondering towards evening what his poor old mother is thinking about it — a subject of infinite specu- lation, and rendered so by his mother having departed this life twenty years. Some men rarely revert to their father, but seem, in the ! bank-books of their remembrance, to have trans- 1 ferred all the stock of filial affection into their 1 mother’s name. Mr. Bagnet is one of these. 1 Perhaps his exalted appreciation of the merits I of the old girl, causes him usually to make the I noun-substantive, Goodness, of the feminine I gender. It is not the birthday of one of the three chil- dren. Those occasions are kept with some marks of distinction, but they rarely overleap the bounds of happy returns and a pudding. It is the old girl’s birthday ; and that is the greatest holiday and reddest-letter day in Mr. Bagnet’s calendar. The auspicious event is al- ways commemorated according to certain forms settled and prescribed by Mr. Bagnet some years since. Mr. Bagnet being deeply convinced that to have a pair of fowls for dinner is to attain the highest pitch of imperial luxury, invariably goes forth himself very early in the morning of this day to buy a pair ; he is, invariably, taken in by the vendor, and installed in the possession of the oldest inhabitants of any coop in Europe. Returning with these triumphs of toughness tied up in a clean blue and white cotton handker- chief (essential to the arrangements), he in a casual manner invites Mrs. Bagnet to declare at breakfast what she would like for dinner. Mrs. Bagnet, by a coincidence never known to fail, replying Fowls, Mr. Bagnet instantly produces his bundle from a place of concealment, amidst general amazement and rejoicing. He further requires that the old girl shall do nothing all day long, but sit in her very best gown, and be served by himself and the young people. As he is not illustrious for his cookery, this may be supposed to be a matter of state rather than en- joyment on the old girl’s part ; but she keeps her state with all imaginable cheerfulness. Further conversation is prevented, for the time, by the necessity under which Mr. Bagnet finds himself of directing the whole force of his mind to the dinner, which is a little endangered by the dry humor of the fowls in not yielding any gravy, and also by the made gravy acquiring no flavor, and turning out of a flaxen com- plexion. With a similar perverseness, the po- | tatoes crumble off forks in the process of peel- ing, upheaving from their centres in every di- rection, as if they were subject to earthquakes. The legs of the fowls, too, are longer than could be desired, and extremely scanty. Overcoming DINNER 149 DINNER hese disadvantages to the best of his ability, 4r. Bagnet at last dishes, and they sit down at {able ; Mrs. Bagnet occupying the guest’s place ;.t his right hand. It was well for the old girl that she has but line birthday in a year, for two such indulgences L poultry might be injurious. Every kind of liner tendon and ligament that is in the nature >f poultry to possess, is developed in these Specimens in the singular form of guitar-strings. 1'heir limbs appear to have struck roots into heir breasts and bodies, as aged trees strike oots into the earth. Their legs are so hard, as o encourage the idea that they must have de- moted the greater part of their long and arduous jives to pedestrian exercises, and the walking of patches. But Mr. Bagnet, unconscious of these little defects, sets his heart on Mrs. Bagnet eat- ing a most severe quantity of the delicacies before ;ier : and as that good old girl would not cause nm a moment’s disappointment on any day, least j>f all on such a day, for any consideration, she imperils her digestion fearfully. How young Woolwich cleans the drumsticks without being >f ostrich descent, his anxious mother is at a joss to understand. 1 The old girl has another trial to undergo after j.he conclusion of the repast, in sitting in state :o see the room cleared, the hearth swept, and :he dinner-service washed up and polished in die back yard. The great delight and energy 'With which the two young ladies apply them- selves to these duties, turning up their skirts in imitation of their mother, and skating in and put on little scaffolds of pattens, inspire the highest hopes for the future, but some anxiety for the present. The same causes lead to con- fusion of tongues, a clattering of crockery, a rat- tling of tin mugs, a whisking of brooms, and ^ati expenditure of water, all in excess ; while I the saturation of the young ladies themselves is almost too moving a spectacle for Mrs. Bagnet [to look upon, with the calmness proper to her position. At last the various cleansing processes Bare triumphantly completed ; Quebec and Malta appear in fresh attire, smiling and dry ; pipes, ; tobacco, and something to drink, are placed [upon the table ; and the old girl enjoys the first [peace of mind she ever knows on the day of j'this delightful entertainment. Bleak House , Chap. 49. DINNER— A fashionable. Its g-uests. j A series of entertainments in celebration of ' the late nuptials, and in cultivation of society, Bwere arranged, chiefly by Mr. Dombey and Mrs. [ Skewton ; and it was settled that the festive | proceedings should commence by Mrs. Dombey’s r being at home upon a certain evening, and by ! Mr. and Mrs. Dombey’s requesting the honor of ; the company of a great many incongruous peo- I pie to dinner on the same day. * Accordingly, Mr. Dombey produced a list of [ sundry eastern magnates who were to be bidden ff to this feast on his behalf ; to which Mrs. Skew- i ton, acting for her dearest child, who. was [ haughtily careless on the subject, subjoined a western list, comprising Cousin Feenix,. and a variety of moths of various degrees and ages, who had, at various times, fluttered round the light of her fair daughter or herself, without any lasting injury to their wings. ***** The proceedings commenced by Mr. Dom- bey, in a cravat of extraordinary height and stiffness, walking restlessly about the drawing- room until the hour appointed for dinner ; punctual to which, an East India Director, of immense wealth, in a waistcoat apparently con- structed in serviceable deal by some plain car- penter, but really engendered in the tailor’s art, and composed of the material called nankeen, arrived, and was received by Mr. Dombey alone. The next stage of the proceedings was Mr. Dombey’s sending his compliments to Mrs. Dombey, with a correct statement of the time ; and the next, the East India Director’s falling prostrate, in a conversational point of view, and as Mr. Dombey was not the man to pick him up, staring at the fire until rescue appeared in the person of Mrs. Skewton ; whom the director, as a pleasant start in life for the evening, mistook for Mrs. Dombey, and greeted with enthusiasm. The next arrival was a Bank Director, reputed to be able to buy up anything — human Nature generally, if he should take it in his head to in- fluence the money market in that direction — but who was a wonderfully modest spoken man, al- most boastfully so, and mentioned his “ little place” at Kingston-upon-Thames, and its just being barely equal to giving Dombey a bed and a chop, if he would come and visit it. Ladies, he said, it was not for a man who lived in his quiet way to take upon himself to invite but if Mrs. Skewton and her daughter, Mrs. Dom- bey, should ever find themselves in that direction, and would do him the honor to look at a little bit of a shrubbery they would find there, and a poor little flower-bed or so, and a humble apo- logy for a pinery, and two or three little attempts of that sort without any pretension, they would distinguish him very much. Carrying out his character, this gentleman was very plainly dressed, in a wisp of cambric for a neckcloth, big shoes, a coat that was too loose for him, and a pair of trousers that were too spare ; and men- tion being made of the Opera by Mrs. Skewton, he said he very seldom went there, for he couldn t afford it. It seemed greatly to delight and ex- hilarate him to say so : and he beamed on his audience afterwards, with his hands in his pockets, and excessive satisfaction twinkling in his eyes. Now Mrs. Dombey appeared, beautiful and proud, and as disdainful and defiant of them all as if the bridal wreath upon her head had been a garland of steel spikes put on to force conces- sion from her which she would die sooner than The arrivals quickly became numerous. More directors, chairmen of public companies, eldei'ly ladies carrying burdens on their heads for full dress, Cousin Feenix, Major Bagstock, friends of Mrs. Skewton, with the same bright bloom on their complexion, and very precious necklaces on very withered necks. Among these, a young lady of sixty-five, remarkably coolly dressed as to her back and shoulders, who spoke with an engaging lisp, and whose eyelids wouldn’t keep up well, without a great deal of trouble on her part, and whose manners had that indefinable charm which so frequently attaches to the giddiness of youth. As the greater part of Mr. Dombey’s list were disposed DINNER 150 DINNER-PARTY to be taciturn, and the greater part of Mrs. Dombey’s list were disposed to be talkative, and there was no sympathy between them, Mrs. Dombey’s list, by magnetic agreement, entered into a bond of union against Mr. Dombey’s list, who, wandering about the rooms in a desolate manner, or seeking refuge in corners, entangled themselves with company coming in, and be- came barricaded behind sofas, and had doors opened smartly from without against their heads, and underwent every sort of discomfi- ture. When dinner was announced, Mr. Dombey took down an old lady like a crimson velvet pincushion stuffed with bank notes, who might have been the identical old lady of Thread- needle Street, she was so rich, and looked so unaccommodating ; Cousin Feenix took down Mrs. Dombey ; Major Bagstock took down Mrs. Skewton ; the young thing with the shoulders was bestowed, as an extinguisher, upon the East India Director ; and the re- maining ladies were left on view in the draw- ing-room by the remaining gentlemen, until a forlorn hope volunteered to conduct them down- stairs, and those brave spirits with their cap- tives blocked up the dining-room door, shutting out seven mild men in the stony-hearted hall. When all the rest were got in and were seated, one of these mild men still appeared, in smiling confusion, totally destitute and unprovided for, and escorted by the butler, made the complete circuit of the table twice before his chair could be found, which it finally was, on Mrs. Dom- bey’s left hand ; after which the mild man never held up his head again. Now, the spacious dining-room, with the company seated round the glittering table, busy with their glittering spoons, and knives and forks, and plates, might have been taken for a grown-up exposition of Tom Tiddler’s ground, where children pick up gold and silver. Mr. Dombey, as Tiddler, looked his character to admiration ; and the long plateau of precious metal frosted, separating him from Mrs. Dom- bey, whereon frosted Cupids offered scentless flowers to each of them, was allegorical to see. Cousin Feenix was in great force, and looked astonishingly young. But he was sometimes thoughtless in his good humor — his memory oc- casionally wandering like his legs — and on this occasion caused the company to shudder. * * * * * * Through the various stages of rich meats and wines, continual gold and silver, dainties of earth, air, fire, and water, heaped-up fruits, and that unnecessary article in Mr. Dombey’s ban- quets — ice — the dinner slowly made its way : the later stages being achieved to the sonorous music of incessant double knocks, announcing the arrival of visitors, whose portion of the feast was limited to the smell thereof. When Mrs. Dombey rose, it was a sight to see her lord, with stiff throat and erect head, hold the door open for the withdrawal of the ladies ; and to see how she swept past him with his daughter on her arm. Mr. Dombey was a grave sight, behind the decanters, in a state of dignity ; and the East India Director was a forlorn sight, near the un- occupied end of the table, in a state of solitude ; and the Major was a military sight, relating stories of the Duke of York to six of the seven mild men (the ambitious one was utterly quenched) ; and the Bank Director was a lowly sight, making a plan of his little attempt at a pinery, with dessert-knives, for a group of ad mirers ; and Cousin Feenix was a thoughtful sight, as he smoothed his long wristbands, and stealthily adjusted his wig. But all these sights were of short duration, being speedily broken up by coffee, and the desertion of the room. Dombey dr* Son , Chap. 36. DINNER -After. Giddiness prevails below stairs too. The very tall young man whose excitement came on so soon, appears to have his head glued to the table in the pantry, and cannot be detached from it Air. lowlinson has a singing in his ears and a large wheel going round and round inside his head. The housemaid wishes it wasn’t wicked to wish that one was dead. There is a general delusion likewise, in these lower regions, on the subject of time ; everybody conceiving that it ought to be, at the earliest, ten o’clock at night, whereas it is not yet three in the afternoon. A shadowy idea of wicked- ness committed, haunts every individual in the party ; and each one secretly thinks the other a companion in guilt, whom it would be agreea- ble to avoid. Any one reviving the notion of the ball, would be scouted as a malignant idiot. The hatchments in the dining-room look down on crumbs, dirty plates, spillings of wine, half thawed ice, stale, discolored heel-taps, scraps of lobster, drumsticks of fowls, and pensive jel- lies, gradually resolving themselves into a luke- warm, gummy soup. — Dombey & Son. DINNER-PARTY — A fashionable. 1 he great looking-glass above the sideboard reflects the table and the company. Reflects the new Veneering crest, in gold and eke in silver, frosted and also thawed, a camel of all work. The Flerald’s College found out a Cru- sading ancestor for Veneering who bore a camel on his shield (or might have done it if he had thought of it), and a caravan of camels take charge of the fruits and flowers and candles, and kneel down to be loaded with the salt. Re- flects Veneering ; forty, wavy-haired, dark, tending to corpulence, sly, mysterious, filmy — a kind of sufficiently well-looking veiled prophet, not prophesying. Reflects Mrs. Ve- neering ; fair, aquiline nosed and fingered, not so much light hair as she might have, gorgeous in raiment and jewels, enthusiastic, propitiatory, conscious that a corner of her husband’s veil is over herself. Reflects Podsnap ; prosperously feeding ; two little light-colored wiry wings, one on either side of his else bald head, looking as like his hairbrushes as his hair, dissolving view of red beads on his forehead, large allowance of crumpled shirt-collar up behind. Reflects Mrs. Podsnap ; fine woman for Professor Owen, quantity of bone, neck, and nostrils like a rock- ing-horse, hard features, majestic head-dress, in which Podsnap has hung golden offerings. Re- flects Twemlow ; gray, dry, polite, susceptible to east wind, First-Gentleman-in-Europe collar and cravat, cheeks drawn in as if he had made a great effort to retire into himself some years ago, and had got so far and had never got any farther. Reflects mature young lady ; raven locks, and complexion that lights up well when DINNER 151 DINNERS well powdered — as it is — carrying on consider- bly in the captivation of mature young gentle- man, with too much nose in his face, too much ginger in his whiskers, too much torso in his waistcoat, too much sparkle in his studs, his eyes, his buttons, his talk, and his teeth. Re- flects charming old Lady Tippins on Veneer- ing’s right ; with an immense obtuse drab ob- long face, like a face in a table-spoon, and a dyed Long Walk up the top of her head, as a convenient public approach to the bunch of false hair behind, pleased to patronize Mrs. Veneering opposite, who is pleased to be patron- ized. Reflects a certain “ Mortimer,” another of Veneering’s oldest friends ; who never was in the house before, and appears not to want to come again ; who sits disconsolate on Mrs. Veneering’s left, and who was inveigled by Lady Tippins (a friend of his boyhood) to come to these people’s and talk, and who won’t talk. Reflects Eugene, friend of Mortimer ; buried alive in the back of his chair, behind a shoulder — with a powder-epaulette on it — of the mature young lady, and gloomily resorting to the cham- pagne chalice whenever proffered by the Ana- lytical Chemist. Lastly, the looking-glass re- flects Boots and Brewer, and two other stuffed Buffers interposed between the rest of the com- pany and possible accidents. The Veneering dinners are excellent dinners — or new people wouldn’t come — and all goes well. Notably, Lady Tippins has made a series of experiments on her digestive functions, so extremely complicated and daring, that if they could be published with their results it might benefit the human race. Having taken in pro- visions from all parts of the world, this hardy old cruiser has last touched at the North Pole, when, as the ice-plates are being removed, the following words fall from her. Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap. i. DINNER— In state. Every young gentleman had a massive silver fork, and a napkin ; and all the arrangements were stately and handsome. In particular, tliere was a butler in a blue coat and bright buttons, who gave quite a winey flavor to the table-beer ; he poured it out so superbly. Dombey < 5 f Sou, Chap. 12. DINNER— An unsocial. There they found Mr. Pitt turning up his nose at a cold collation, set forth in a cold pomp of glass and silver, and looking more like a dead dinner lying in state than a social re- freshment. The very linkmen outside got hold of it, and compared the party to a funeral out of mourn- ing, with none of the company remembered in the will. There was a toothache in everything. The wine was so bitter cold that it forced a little scream from Miss Tox, which she had great difficulty in turning into a “ Hem ! ” The veal had come from such an airy pantry, that the first taste of it had struck a sensation as of cold lead to Mr. Chick’s extremities. Mr. Dombey alone remained unmoved. He might have been hung up for sale at a Russian fair as a specimen of a frozen gentleman. Such temporary indications of a partial thaw that had appeared, vanished ; and the frost set in again, as cold and hard as ever. Mr. Chick was twice heard to hum a tune at the bottom of the table, but on both occasions it was a fragment of the Dead March in Saul. The party seemed to get colder and colder, and to be gradually resolving itself into a congealed and solid state, like the collation round which it was assembled . — Dombey 6° Son , Chap. 5. DINNERS— Description of public. All public dinners in London, from the Lord Mayor’s annual banquet at Guildhall, to the Chimney-sweepers’ anniversary at White Con- duit House ; from the Goldsmiths’ to the But- chers’, from the Sheriffs’ to the Licensed Victual- lers’, are amusing scenes. Of all entertainments of this description, however, we think the an- nual dinner of some public charity is the most amusing. At a Company’s dinner, the people are nearly all alike — regular old stagers, who make it a matter of business, and a thing not to be laughed at. At a political dinner, every- body is disagreeable, and inclined to speechify — much the sanje thing, by-the-bye — but at a charity dinner you see people of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions. The w'ine may not be re- markably special, to be sure, and we have heard some hard-hearted monsters grumble at the col- lection ; but we really think the amusement to be derived from the occasion sufficient to coun- terbalance even these disadvantages. ***** The first thing that strikes you, on your en- trance, is the astonishing importance of the committee. You observe a door on the first landing, carefully guarded by two waiters, in and out of which stout gentlemen with very red faces keep running, with a degree of speed highly un- becoming the gravity of persons of their years and corpulency. You pause, quite alarmed at the bustle, and thinking, in your innocence, that two or three people must have been carried out of the dining-room in fits, at least. You are im- mediately undeceived by the waiter — “ Up stairs, if you please, sir ; this is the committee-room.” Up-stairs you go, accordingly ; wondering, as you mount, what the duties of the committee can be, and whether they ever do anything be- yond confusing each other, and running over the waiters. Having deposited your hat and cloak, and re- ceived a remarkably small scrap of pasteboard in exchange (which, as a matter of course, you lose, before you require it again), you enter the hall, down which there are three long tables for the less distinguished guests, with a cross table on a raised platform at the upper end for the re- ception of the very particular friends of the in- digent orphans. Being fortunate enough to find a plate without anybody’s card in it, you wisely seat yourself at once, and have a little leisure to look about you. Waiters, with wine-baskets in their hands, are placing decanters of sherry down the tables, at very respectable distances ; melancholy-looking salt-cellars and decayed vinegar-cruets, which might have belonged to the parents of the indigent orphans in their time, are scattered at distant intervals on the cloth ; and the knives and forks look as if they had done duty at every public dinner in London since the accession of George the First. The musicians are scraping and grating and screwing DINNERS 152 DINNER tremendously — playing no notes but notes of preparation ; and several gentlemen are gliding along the sides of the tables, looking into plate after plate with frantic eagerness, the expression of their countenances growing more and more dismal as they meet with everbody’s card but their own. You turn round to take a look at the table be- hind you, and — not being in the habit of attend- ing public dinners — are somewhat struck by the appearance of the party on which your eyes rest. One of its principal members appears to be a little man with a long and rather inflamed face, and gray hair brushed bolt upright in front ; he wears a wisp of black silk round his neck, without any stiffener, as an apology fora necker- chief, and is addressed by his companions by the familiar appellation of “ Fitz,” or some such monosyllable. Near him is a stout man in a white neckerchief and buff waistcoat, with shining dark hair, cut very short in front, and a great, round, healthy-looking face, on which he studiously preserves a half-sentimental simper. Next him, again, is a large-headed man, with black hair and bushy whiskers ; and opposite them are two or three others, one of whom is a little, round-faced person, in a dress-stock and blue under- waistcoat. There is something pecu- liar in their air and manner, though you could hardly describe what it is; you cannot divest yourself of the idea that they have come for some other purpose than mere eating and drink- ing. You have no time to debate the matter, however, for the waiters (who have been arrang- ed in lines down the room, placing the dishes on the table), retire to the lower end ; the dark man in the blue coat and bright buttons, who has the direction of the music, looks up to the gallery, and calls out “ band” in a very loud voice ; out bursts the orchestra, up rise the visit- ors, in march fourteen stewards — each with a long wand in his hand, like the evil genius in a pantomime — then the chairman, then the titled visitors ; they all make their way up the room, as fast as they can, bowing, and smiling, and smirking, and looking remarkably amiable. The applause ceases, grace is said, the clatter of plates and dishes begins ; and every one appears highly gratified, either with the presence of the distinguished visitors, or the commencement of the anxiously-expected dinner. As to the dinner itself — the mere dinner — it goes off much the same everywhere. Tureens of soup are emptied with awful rapidity — waiters take plates of turbot away, to get lobster-sauce, and bring back plates of lobster-sauce without turbot ; people who can carve poultry are great fools if they own it, and people who can’t, have no wish to learn. The knives and forks form a pleasing accompaniment to Auber’s music, and Auber’s music would form a pleasing accompani- ment to the dinner, if you could hear anything besides the cymbals. The substantials disappear — moulds of jelly vanish like lightning — hearty eaters wipe their foreheads, and appear rather overcome with their recent exertions — people who have looked very cross hitherto, become remarkably bland, and ask you to take wine in the most friendly manner possible — old gentlemen direct your attention to the ladies’ gallery, and take great pains to impress you with the fact that the charity is always peculiarly favored in this respect — every one appears dis- posed to become talkative — and the hum of con- versation is loud and general. Scenes, Chap. 19. DINNER With a philanthropist (Mrs. Jel- ly by). I was a little curious to know who a mild, bald gentleman in spectacles was, who dropped into a vacant chair (there was no top or bottom in particular) after the fish was taken away, and seemed passively to submit himself to Borrio- boola-Gha, but not to be actively interested in that settlement. As he never spoke a word, he might have been a native, but for his complex- ion. It was not until we left the table, and he remained alone with Richard, that the possi- bility of his being Mr. Jellyby ever entered my head. But he was Mr. Jellyby; and a loqua- cious young man called Mr. Quale, with large shining knobs for temples, and his hair all brushed to the back of his head, who came in the evening, and told Ada he was a philanthro- pist, also informed her that he called the matri- monial alliance of Mrs. Jellyby with Mr. Jellyby the union of mind and matter. This young man, besides having a great deal to say for himself about Africa, and a project of his for teaching the coffee colonists to teach the natives to turn piano-forte legs and establish an export trade, delighted in drawing Mrs. Jellyby out by saying, “I believe now, Mrs. Jellyby, you have received as many as from one hundred and fifty to two hundred letters respecting Africa in a single day, have you not?” or, “If my memory does not deceive me, Mrs. Jellyby, you once mentioned that you had sent off five thou- sand circulars from one post-office at one time?” — always repeating Mrs. Jellyby’s answer to us like an interpreter. During the whole evening Mr. Jellyby sat in a corner with his head against the w r all, as if he were subject to low spirits. It seemed that he had several times opened his mouth when alone with Richard, after dinner, as if he had something on his mind ; but had always shut it again, to Richard’s extreme con- fusion, without saying anything. Bleak House , Chap. 4. DINNER— Pickwick after wine. The wine, which had exerted its somniferous influence over Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle, had stolen upon the senses of Mr. Pickwick. That gentleman had gradually passed through the various stages which precede the lethargy produced by dinner, and its consequences. He had undergone the ordinary transitions from the height of conviviality to the depth of misery, and from the depth of misery to the height of conviviality. Like a gas-lamp in the street, with the wind in the pipe, he had exhibited for a moment an unnatural brilliancy ; then sunk so low as to be scarcely discernible : after a short interval he had burst out again, to en- lighten for a moment, then flickeied with an uncertain, staggering sort of light, and then gone out altogether. His head was sunk upon his bosom ; and perpetual snoring, with a par- tial choke occasionally, were the only audible indications of the great man’s presence. Pickwick , Chap. 2. DINNER Pip’s misfortunes at. Among this good company I should have felt DINNER 153 DISAPPEARANCE myself, even if I hadn’t robbed the pantry, in a false position. Not because I was squeezed in at an acute angle of the table-cloth, with the table in my chest, and the Pumblechookian elbow in my eye, nor because I was not allowed to speak (I didn’t want to speak), nor because I was regaled with the scaly tips of the drum- sticks of the fowls, and with those obscure cor- ners of pork of which the pig, when living, had had the least reason to be vain. No ; I should not have minded that, if they would only have left me alone. But they wouldn’t leave me alone. They seemed to think the opportunity lost, if they failed to point the conversation at me, every now and then, and stick the point into me. I might have been an unfortunate little bull in a Spanish arena, I got so smarting- ly touched up by these moral goads. It began the moment we sat down to dinner. Mr. Wopsle said grace with theatrical declama- tion — as it now appears to me, something like a religious cross of the ghost in Hamlet with Richard III. — and ended with the very proper aspiration that we might be truly grateful. Upon which my sister fixed me with her eye, and said, in a low, reproachful voice, “ Do you hear that? Be grateful.” “Especially,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “be grateful, boy, to them which brought you up by hand.” Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contem- plating me with a mournful pfesentiment that I should come to no good, asked, “Why is it that the young are never grateful?” This moral mystery seemed too much for the company, until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, “ Naterally wicious.” Everybody then mur- mured “ True !” and looked at me in a particu- larly unpleasant and personal manner. Great Expectations , Chap. 4. DINNER— A fashionable. It was a dinner to provoke an appetite, though he had not had one. The rarest dishes, sump- tuously cooked and sumptuously served ; the choicest fruits ; the most exquisite wines ; mar- vels of workmanship in gold and silver, china and glass ; innumerable things delicious to the senses of taste, smell, and sight, were insinuated into its composition. O, what a wonderful man this Merdle, what a great man, what a master man, how blessedly and enviably endowed — in one word, what a rich man ! Little Dorr it, Book II., Chap. 12. DINNER— A restaurant. They walked on with him until they came to a dirty shop-window in a dirty street, which was made almost opaque by the steam of hot meats, vegetables, and puddings. But glimpses were to be caught of a roast leg of pork, burst- ing into tears of sage and onion in a metal reser- voir full of gravy, of an unctuous piece of roast beef and blisterous Yorkshire pudding bubbling hot in a similar receptacle, of a stuffed fillet of veal in rapid cut, of a ham in a perspiration with the pace it was going at, of a shallow tank of baked potatoes glued together by their own richness, of a truss or two of boiled greens, and other substantial delicacies. Little Dorrit, Book /., Chap. 20. DISAPPEARANCE— A mysterious (Sam Weller’s story). They had walked some distance ; Mr. Pick- wick trotting on before, plunged in profound meditation, and Sam following behind, with a countenance expressive of the most enviable and easy defiance of everything and everybody : when the latter, who was always especially anxious to impart to his master any exclusive information he possessed, quickened his pace until he was close at Mr. Pickwick's heels ; and, pointing up to a house they were passing, said : “ Wery nice pork-shop that ’ere, sir.” “Yes, it seems so,” said Mr. Pickwick. “ Celebrated sassage factory,” said Sam. “Is it?” said Mr. Pickwick. “ Is it ! ” l'eiterated Sam with some indigna- tion ; “ I should rayther think it was. Why, sir, bless your innocent eyebrows, that’s were the mysterious disappearance of a ’spectable trades- man took place four year ago.” “You don’t mean to say he was burked, Sam?” said Mr. Pickwick, looking hastily round. “ No, I don’t ^indeed, sir,” replied Mr. Weller, “ I wish I did ; far worse than that. He was the master o’ that ’ere shop, sir, and the inwenter o’ the patent never-leavin’-off sassage steam-ingine, as ud swaller up a pavin’ stone if you put it too near, and grind it into sassages as easy as if it was a tender young babby. Wery proud o’ that machine he was, as it was nat’ral he should be, and he’d stand down in the celler a lookin’ at it wen it was in full play, till he got quite melan- choly with joy. A wery happy man he’d ha’ been, sir, in the procession o’ that ’ere ingine and two more lovely hinfants besides, if it hadn’t been for his wife, who was a most ow- dacious wixin. She was always a follerin’ him about, and dinnin’ in his ears, till at last he couldn’t stand it no longer. ‘I’ll tell you what it is, my dear,’ he says one day ; ‘ if you perse- were in this here sort of amusement,’ he says, ‘I’m blessed if I don’t go away to ’Merriker, and that’s all about it.’ ‘ You’re a idle willin’, says she, ‘and I wish the ’Merrikins joy of their bargain.’ Arter wich she keeps on abusin’ of him for half an hour, and then runs into the little parlor behind the shop, sets to a-screamin’, says he’ll be the death on her, and falls in a fit, which lasts for thi’ee good hours — one o’ them fits which is all screamin’ and kickin’. Well, next mornin’, the husband was missin’. He hadn’t taken nothin’ from the till — hadn’t even put on his great-coat — so it was quite clear he warn’t gone to ’Merriker. Didn’t come back next day ; didn’t come back next week ; Missis had bills printed, sayin’ that, if he’d come back, he should be forgiven everythin’ (which was very liberal, seein’ that he hadn’t done nothin’ at all) ; the canals was dragged, and for two months artervards, wenever a body turned up, it was carried, as a reg’lar thing, straight off to the sassage shop. Hows’ever, none on ’em an- swered ; so ihey gave out that he’d run away, and she kep on the bis’ness. One Saturday night, a little thin old gen’l’m’n comes into the shop in a great passion and says, ‘ Are you the missis o’ this here shop?’ ‘Yes, I am,’ says she. ‘Well, ma’am,’ says he, ‘then I’ve just looked in to say that me and my family ain’t a goin’ to be choked for nothin’ ; and more than that, ma’am,’ he says, ‘ you’ll allow me to ob- DISPLAY 154 DOG serve, that as you don’t use the primest parts of the meat in the manafacter o’ sassages, I think you’d find beef come nearly as cheap as buttons.’ ‘As buttons, sir!’ says she. ‘Buttons, ma’am,’ says the little old gentleman, unfolding a bit of paper, and shewin’ twenty or thirty halves of buttons. ‘Nice seasonin’ for sassages, is trou- sers’ buttons, ma’am.’ ‘ They’re my husband’s buttons!’ says the widder, beginnin’ to faint. ‘ What ! ’ screams the little old gen’l’m’n, turnin’ wery pale. ‘ I see it all,’ says the widder ; ‘ in a fit of temporary insanity he rashly converted his-self into sassages!’ And so he had, sir,” said Mr. Weller, looking steadily into Mr. Pick- wick’s horror-stricken countenance, “or else he’d been draw’d into the ingine ; but however that might ha’ been, the little old gen’l’m’n, who had been remarkably partial to sassages all his life, rushed out o’ the shop in a wild state, and was never heerd on artervards ! ” Pickwick, Chap. 31. DISPLAY- Value of public. “ Why do you come here to do this?” said the old man, sitting down beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight. “ Why, you see,” rejoined the little man, “we’re putting up for to-night at the public- house yonder, and it wouldn’t do to let them see the present company undergoing repair.” “No!” cried the old man, making signs to Nell to listen, “why not, eh? why not?” “ Because it would destroy all the delusion, and take away all the interest, wouldn’t it?” replied the little man. “ Would you care a ha’penny for the Lord Chancellor if you know’d him in private and without his wig? — certainly not.” — Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 16. DOCKS— Down by the. My road lies through that part of London generally known to the initiated as “ Down by the Docks.” Down by the Docks is Home to a good many people — to too many, if I may judge from the overflow of local population in the streets — but my nose insinuates that the number to whom it is Sweet Home might be easily counted. Down by the Docks is a region I would choose as my point of embarkation aboard ship if I were an emigrant. It would present my intention to me in such a sensible light ; it would show me so many things to be run away from. Down by the Docks they eat the largest oys- ters and scatter the roughest oyster-shells known to the descendants of St. George and the Dragon. Down by the Docks they consume the slimiest of shell-fish, which seem to have been scraped off the copper bottoms of ships. Down by the Docks, the vegetables at green-grocers’ doors acquire a saline and a scaly look, as if they had been crossed with fish and sea-weed. Down by the Docks they “ board seamen” at the eating- houses, the public-houses, the slop-shops, the coffee-shops, the tally-shops, all kinds of shops, mentionable and unmentionable, — board them, as it were, in the piratical sense, making them bleed terribly, and giving no quarter, flown by the Docks the seamen roam in mid- street and midday, their pockets inside out, and their heads no better. Down by the Docks, the daughters of wave-ruling Britannia also rove, clad in silken attire, with uncovered tresses streaming in the breeze, bandanna kerchiefs floating from their shoulders, and crinoline not wanting. Down by the Docks, you may hear the Incomparable Joe Jackson sing the Standard of England with a hornpipe, any night ; or any day may see at the waxwork, for a penny and no waiting, him as killed the policeman at Acton, and suflered for it. Down by the Docks, you may buy polonies, saveloys, and sausage pre- parations various, if you are not particular what they are made of besides seasoning. Down by the Docks, the children of Israel creep into any gloomy cribs and entries they can hire, and hang slops there, — pewter watches, sou’wester hats, waterproof overalls,; — “ firtht rate articleth, Thjack.” Down by the Docks, such dealers, ex- hibiting on a frame a complete nautical suit without the refinement of a waxen visage in the hat, present the imaginary wearer as drooping at the yard-arm, with his sea-faring and earth- faring troubles over. Down by the Docks the placards in the shops apostrophize the customer, knowing him familiarly beforehand, as, *• Look here, Jack!” “Here’s your sort, my lad!” “ Try our sea-going mixed, at two and nine?” “ The right kit for the British tar ! ” “ Ship ahoy ! ” “ Splice the main-brace, brother ! ” “ Come, cheer up, my lads, We’ve the best liquors here, And you’ll find something new In our won- derful Beer ! ” Down by the Docks, the pawn- broker lends money on Union-Jack pocket-hand- kerchiefs, on watches with little ships pitching fore and aft on the dial, on telescopes, nautical instruments in cases, and such like. Down by the Docks, the apothecary sets up in business on the wretchedest scale — chiefly on lint and plaster for the strapping of wounds — and with no bright bottles, and with no little drawers. Down by the Docks, the shabby undertaker’s shop will bury you for next to nothing, after the Malay or Chinaman has stabbed you for nothing at all : so you can hardly hope to make a cheaper end. Down by the Docks, anybody drunk will quarrel with anybody drunk or sober, and every- body else will have a hand in it, and on the shortest notice you may revolve in a whirlpool of red shirts, shaggy beards, wild heads of hair, bare tattooed arms, Britannia’s daughters, malice, mud, maundering, and madness. Down by the Docks, scraping fiddles go in the public-houses all day long, and shrill above their din, and all the din, rises the screeching of innumerable parrots brought from foreign parts, who appear to be very much astonished by what they find on these native shores of ours. Possibly parrots don’t know, possibly they do, that Down by the Docks is the road to the Pacific Ocean, with its lovely islands, where the savage girls plait flow- ers, and the savage boys carve cocoa-nut shells, and the grim, blind idols muse in their shady groves to exactly the same purpose as the priests and chiefs. And possibly the parrots don’t know, possibly they do, that the noble savage is a wearisome impostor wherever he is, and has five hundred thousand volumes of indifferent rhyme, and no reason, to answer for. Uncommercial Traveller, Chap. 20. DOG -His friendship and fidelity. But though Diogenes was as ridiculous a dog as one would meet with on a summer’s day ; a blundering, ill-favored, clumsy, bullet-headed dog, continually acting on a wrong idea that DOG 155 DOGS there was an enemy in the neighborhood, whom it was meritorious to bark at ; and though he was far from good-tempered, and certainly was not clever, and had hair all over his eyes, and a comic nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff voice, he was dearer to Florence, in virtue of that parting remembrance of him, and that request that he might be taken care of, than the most valuable and beautiful of his kind. So dear, indeed, was this same ugly Diogenes, and so welcome to her, that she took the jewelled hand of Mr. Toots, and kissed it in her gratitude. And when Diogenes, released, came tearing up the stairs, and bouncing into the room (such a business as there was first, to get him out of the cabriolet !) dived under all the furniture, and wound a long iron chain, that dangled from his neck, round legs of chairs and tables, and then tugged at it until his eyes became unnatu- rally visible, in consequence of their nearly start- ing out of his head ; and when he growled at Mr. Toots, who affected familiarity; and went pell-mell at Towlinson, morally convinced that he was the enemy whom he had barked at round the corner all his life, and had never seen yet, Florence was as pleased with him as if he had been a miracle of discretion. Putting out his tongue, as if he had come express to a Dispensary, to be examined for his health. — Dombey dr 5 Son, Chap. 18. Diogenes would lay his head upon the win- dow-ledge, and placidly open and shut his eyes upon the street, all through a summer morning ; sometimes pricking up his head to look with great significance after some noisy dog in a cart, who was barking his way along, and sometimes, with an exasperated and unaccountable recol- lection of his supposed' enemy in the neighbor- hood, rushing to the door, whence, after a deafen- ing disturbance, he would come jogging back with a ridiculous complacency that belonged to him, and lay his jaw upon the window-ledge again, with the air of a dog who had done a public service. — Dombey dr 3 Son , Chap. 23. It was plain that he considered the Captain one of the most amiable of men, and a man whom it was an honor to a dog to know. Dombey Cf Son , Chap. 48. He soon appeared to comprehend, that with the most amiable intentions he had made one of those mistakes which will occasionally arise in the best-regulated dogs’ minds ; as a friendly apology for which he stuck himself up on end between the two, in a very hot place in front of the fire, and sat panting at it, with his tongue out and a most imbecile expression of counte- nance, listening to the conversation. Dombey & Son, Chap. 35. DOG— A Christian. “ He wouldn’t so much as bark in a witness- box, for fear of committing himself ; no, not if you tied him up in one, and left him there with- out wittles for a fortnight,” said the Dodger. “Not a bit of it,” observed Charley. “ He’s a rum dog. Don’t he look fierce at any strange cove that laughs or sings when he’s in company ! ” pursued the Dodger. “ Won’t he growl at all, when he hears a fiddle playing ! And don’t he hate other dogs as ain’t of ms breed ! — Oh, no ! ” “ He’s an out-and-out Christian,” said Char- ley. This was merely intended as a tribute to the animal’s abilities, but it was an appropriate re- mark in another sense, if Master Bates had only known it ; for there are a great many ladies and gentlemen, claiming to be out-and-out Chris- tians, between whom, and Mr. Sikes’s dog, there exist very strong and singular points of resem- blance. — Oliver Twist, Chap. 18. DOG— A pug 1 . The mistress of the Establishment holds no place in our memory ; but, rampant on one eternal door mat, in an eternal entry long and narrow, is a puffy pug-dog, with a personal ani- mosity towards us, who triumphs over Time. The bark of that baleful Pug, a certain radiat- ing way he had of snapping at our undefended legs, the ghastly grinning of his moist black muzzle and white teeth, and the insolence of his crisp tail, curled like a pastoral crook, all live and flourish... From an otherwise unaccounta- ble association of him with a fiddle, we con- clude that he was of French extraction, and his name Fide.’e. He belonged to some female, chiefly inhabiting a back-parlor, whose life ap- pears to us to have been consumed in sniffing, and in wearing a brown beaver bonnet. For her, he would sit up and balance cake upon his nose, and not eat it until twenty had been counted. To the best of our belief we were once called in to witness this performance ; when, unable, even in his milder moments, to endure our presence, he instantly made at us, cake and all. — Our School. Reprinted Pieces. DOG— The gambols of Boxer. Then, Boxer gave occasion to more good-na- tured recognitions of, and by, the Carrier, than half a dozen Christians could have done ! Every- body knew him, all along the road— especially the fowls and pigs, who, when they saw him ap- proaching with his body all on one side, and his ears pricked up inquisitively, and that nob of a tail making the most of itself in the air, immediately withdrew into remote back settle- ments, without waiting for the honor of a near acquaintance. He had business everywhere ; going down all the turnings, looking into all the wells, bolting in and out of all the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the Dame-Schools, fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the cats, and trotting into the public- houses like a regular customer. Wherever he went, somebody or other might have been heard to cry, “ Hallo ! Here’s Boxer 1 ” and out came that somebody forthwith, accompanied by at least two or three other somebodies, to give John Peerybingle and his pretty wife, Good Day ! — Cricket on the Hearth, Chap. 2. DOGS— And cats. As the dogs of shy neighborhoods usually be- tray a slinking consciousness of being in poor circumstances — for the most part manifested in an aspect of anxiety, an awkwardness in their play, and a misgiving that somebody is going to harness them to something, to pick up a living, — so the cats of shy neighborhoods exhibit a strong tendency to relapse into barbarism. Not DONKEY 150 DOOR-KNOCKERS only are they made selfishly ferocious by rumi- nating on the surplus population around them, and on the densely crowded state of all the avenues to cat’s meat — not only is there a moral and politico-economical haggardness in them, traceable to these reflections — but they evince a physical deterioration. Their linen is not clean, and is wretchedly got up ; their black turns rusty, like old mourning ; they wear very indifferent fur, and take to the shabbiest cotton velvet, instead of silk velvet. I am on terms of recognition with several small -streets of cats, about the Obelisk in Saint George’s Fields, and also in the vicinity of Clerkenwell Green, and also in the back settlements of Drury Lane. In appearance they are very like the women among whom they live. They seem to turn out of their unwholesome beds into the street, without any preparation. They leave their young families to stagger about the gutters unassisted, while they frowzily quarrel and swear and scratch and spit, at street corners. In particular, I re- mark that when they are about to increase their families (an event of frequent recurrence) the resemblance is strongly expressed in a certain dusty dowdiness, down-at-heel self-neglect, and general giving up of things. I cannot honestly report that I have ever seen a feline matron of this class washing her face when in an interesting condition. — Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. io. DONKEY— His obstinacy. Taking a donkey towards his ordinary place of residence is a very different thing, and a feat much more easily to be accomplished, than tak- ing him from it. It requires a great deal of foresight and presence of mind in the one case, to anticipate the numerous flights of his discur- sive imagination ; whereas, in the other, all you have to do is, to hold on. and place a blind con- fidence in the animal. — Tales , Chap. 4. DONKEYS. Donkeys again. I know shy neighborhoods where the Donkey goes in at the street-door, and appears to live up-stairs, for I have examined the back yard from over the palings, and have been unable to make him out. Gentility, no- bility, royalty, would appeal to that donkey in vain to do what he does for a costermonger. Feed him with oats at the highest price, put an infant prince and princess in a pair of panniers on his back, adjust his delicate trappings to a nicety, take him to the softest slopes at Wind- sor, and try what pace you can get out of him. Then starve him, harness him anyhow to a truck with a flat tray on it, and see him bowl from Whitechapel to Bayswater. There appears to be no particular private understanding between birds and donkeys in a state of nature ; but in the shy-neighborhood state you shall see them always in the same hands, and always develop- ing their very best energies for the very worst company. I have known a donkey — by sight ; we were not on speaking terms — who lived over on the Surrey side of London Bridge, among the fastnesses of Jacob’s Island and Dockhead. It was the habit of that animal, when his ser- vices were not in immediate requisition, to go out alone, idling. I have met him, a mile from bis place of residence, loitering about the streets ; and the expression of his countenance at such times was most degraded. lie was attached to the establishment of an elderly lady who sold periwinkles ; and he used to stand on Saturday nights with a cartful of those delicacies outside a gin-shop, pricking up his ears when a cus- tomer came to the cart, and too evidently de- riving satisfaction from the knowledge that they got bad measure. His mistress was sometimes overtaken by inebriety. The last time I ever saw him (about five years ago) he was in cir- cumstances of difficulty, caused by this failing. Having been left alone with the cart of peri- winkles, and forgotten, he went off idling. He prowled among his usual low haunts for some time, gratifying his depraved tastes, until, not taking the cart into his calculations, he endeav- ored to turn up a narrow alley, and became greatly involved. He was taken into custody by the police, and, the Green Yard of the dis- trict being near at hand, was backed into that place of durance. At that crisis I encountered him ; the stubborn sense he evinced of being — not to compromise the expression — a black- guard, I never saw exceeded in the human sub- ject. A flaring candle in a paper shade, stuck in among his periwinkles, showed him, with his ragged harness broken and his cart extensively shattered, twitching his mouth and shaking his hanging head, a picture of disgrace and obdu- racy. I have seen boys, being taken to station- houses, who were as like him as his own brother. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 10. DONKEYS— Blooded. * * * Three donkeys — which the proprie- tor declared on his solemn asseveration to be “three parts blood, and the other corn” — were engaged in the service. — Tales , Chap. 4. DOOR-KNOCKERS— The physiognomy of. We are very fond of speculating, as we walk through a street, on the character and pursuits of the people who inhabit it ; and nothing so materially assists us in these speculations as the appearance of the house-doors. The various expressions of the human countenance afford a beautiful and interesting study ; but there is something in the physiognomy of street-door knockers, almost as characteristic, and nearly as infallible. Whenever w'e visit a man for the first time, we contemplate the features of his knocker with the greatest curiosity, for we well know', that betw'een the man and his knocker, there will inevitably be a greater or less degree of resemblance and sympathy. For instance, there is one description of knocker that used to be common enough, but w'hich is fast passing away — a large round one, with the jolly face of a convivial lion smiling blandly at you, as you twist the sides of your hair into a curl, or pull up your shirt-collar while you are waiting for the door to be opened — w'e never saw that knocker on the door of a churl- ish man — so far as our experience is concerned, it invariably bespoke hospitality, and another bottle. No man ever saw this knocker on the door of a small attorney or bill-broker ; they always patronise the other lion ; a heavy ferocious- looking fellow, with a countenance expressive of savage stupidity — a sort of grand master among the knockers, and a great favorite with the selfish and brutal. Then there is a little pert Egyptian knocker, DRAMA 157 DRESS with a long, thi-n face, a pinched-up nose, and a very sharp chin ; he is most in vogue with your government-office people, in light drabs and starched cravats ; little, spare, priggish men, who are perfectly satisfied with their own opinions, and consider themselves of paramount impor- tance. We were greatly troubled a few years ago, by the innovation of a new kind of knocker, with- out any face at all, composed of a wreath, de- pending from a hand or small truncheon. A little trouble and attention, however, enabled us to overcome this difficulty, and to reconcile the new system to our favorite theory. You will invariably find this knocker on the doors of cold and formal people, who always ask you why you don't come, and never say do. Everybody knows the brass knocker is com- mon to suburban villas, and extensive boarding- schools ; and, having noticed this genus, we have recapitulated all the most prominent and strong- ly-defined species. Some phrenologists affirm, that the agitation of a man’s brain by different passions, produces corresponding developments in the form of his skull. Do not let us be understood as pushing our theory to the length of asserting, that any alteration in a man’s disposition would produce a visible effect on the feature of his knocker. Our position merely is, that in such a case, the magnetism which must exist between a man and his knocker would induce the man to remove, and seek some knocker more congenial to his altered feelings. If you ever find a man chang- ing his habitation without any reasonable pre- text, depend upon it, that, although he may not be aware of the fact himself, it is because he and his knocker are at variance. This is a new theory, but we venture to launch it, neverthe- less, as being quite as ingenious and infallible as many thousands of the learned speculations which are daily broached for public good and private fortune-making. Sketches {Scenes), Chap. 7. DRAMA— Mr. Curdle’s opinion of the. “ As an exquisite embodiment of the poet’s visions, and a realization of human intellectual- ity, gilding with refulgent light our dreamy mo- ments, and laying open a new and magic world before the mental eye, the drama is gone, per- fectly gone,” said Mr. Curdle. Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 24. DREAMS— Of the sane and insane. From the dead wall associated on those houseless nights with this too-common story, I chose next to wander by Bethlehem Hospital — partly because it lay on my road round to West- minster, partly because I had a night fancy in my head which could be best pursued within sight of its walls and dome. And the fancy was this : Are not the sane and the insane equal at night as the sane lie a-dreaming? Are not all of us outside this hospital, who dream, more or less in the condition of those inside it, every night of our lives? Are we not nightly persuaded, as they daily are, that we associate preposterously with kings and queens, emperors and empresses, and notabilities of all sorts? Do we not nightly jumble events and personages and times and places, as these do daily? Are we not sometimes troubled by our own sleep- ing inconsistencies, and do we not vexedly try to account for them or excuse them, just as these do sometimes in respect of their waking delusions? Said an afflicted man to me, when I was last in an hospital like this, “ Sir, I can frequently fly.” I was half ashamed to reflect that so could I — by night. Said a woman to me on the same occasion, “ Queen Victoria fre- quently comes to dine with me ; and her Majes- ty and I dine off peaches and maccaroni in our nightgowns, and his Royal Highness the Prince Consort does us the honor to make a third, on horseback in a Field-Marshal’s uniform.” Could I refrain from reddening with conscious- ness when I remembered the amazing royal par- ties I myself had given (at night), the unac- countable viands I had put on table, and my extraordinary manner of conducting myself on those distinguished occasions? I wonder that the great master who knew everything, when he called Sleep the death of each day’s life, did not call Dreams the insanity of each day’s sanity. U ncom mercia l Traveller, Chap. 13. DRESS— Individuality of. The Captain was one of those timber-looking men, suits of oak as well as hearts, whom it is almost impossible for the liveliest imagination to separate from any part of their dress, how- ever insignificant. Accordingly, when Walter knocked at the door, and the Captain instantly poked his head out of one of his little front windows, and hailed him, with the hard glazed hat already on it, and the shirt collar like a sail, and the wide suit of blue, all standing as usual, Walter was as fully persuaded that he was always in that state, as if the Captain had been a bird and those had been his feathers. Dombey 6° Son, Chap. 9. DRESS— Of Miss Tox. Miss Tox’s dress, though perfectly genteel and good, had a certain character of angularity and scantiness. She was accustomed to weai odd weedy little flowers in her bonnets and caps. Strange grasses were sometimes per- ceived in her hair ; and it was observed by the curious, of all her collars, frills, tuckers, wrist- bands, and other gossamer articles — indeed of everything she wore which had two ends to it intended to unite — that the two ends were never on good terms, and wouldn’t quite meet without a struggle. She had furry articles for winter wear, as tippets, boas, and muffs, which stood up on end in a rampant manner, and were not at all sleek. She was much given to the carry- ing about of small bags with snaps to them, that went off like little pistols when they were shut up : and when full-dressed, she wore round her neck the barrenest of lockets, representing a fishy old eye, with no approach to speculation in it . — Dombey Son, Chap. 1. DRESS— Party toilette. Mrs. Blimber appeared, looking lovely, Paul thought ; and attired in such a number of skirts that it was quite an excursion to walk round her. Miss Blimber came down soon after her mamma ; a little squeezed in appearance, but very charming. There was a grand array of white waistcoats DRE3S 158 DRESS and cravats in the young gentlemen’s bed- rooms as evening approached ; and such a smell of singed hair, that Doctor Blimber sent up the footman with his compliments, and wished to know if the house was on fire. But it was only the hair-dresser curling the young gentlemen, and overheating his tongs in the ardor of busi- ness . — Dombey dr* Son, Chap. 14. “ Miss Tox ! ” And enter that fair enslaver, with a blue nose and indescribably frosty face, referable to her being very thinly clad in a maze of fluttering odds and ends, to do honor to the ceremony. Miss Tox, in the midst of her spreading gauzes, went down altogether like an opera- glass shutting-up. — Dombey & Son , Chap. 5. Mr. Toots was one blaze of jewelry and but- tons ; and he felt the circumstance so strongly, that when he had shaken hands with the Doctor, and had bowed to Mrs. Blimber and Miss Blim- ber, he took Paul aside, and said “ What do you think of this, Dombey ? ” But notwithstanding this modest confidence in himself, Mi*. Toots appeared to be involved in a good deal of uncertainty whether, on the whole, it was judicious to button the bottom button of his waistcoat, and whether, on a calm revision of all the circumstances, it was best to wear his wristbands turned up or turned down. Observing that Mr. Feeder’s were turned up, Mr. Toots turned his up ; but the wristbands of the next arrival being turned down, Mr. Toots turned his down. The differences in point of waistcoat buttoning, not only at the bottom, but at the top too, became so numerous and complicated as the arrivals thickened, that Mr. Toots was continually fingering that article of dress, as if he were performing on some instru- ment ; and appeared to find the incessant ex- ecution it demanded, quite bewildering. Dombey & Son, Chap. 14. DRESS— The power of. What an excellent example of the power of dress young Oliver Twist was ! Wrapped in the blanket which had hitherto formed his only covering, he might have been the child of a nobleman or a beggar ; it would have been hard for the haughtiest stranger to have assigned him his proper station in society. But now that he was enveloped in the old calico robes which had grown yellow in the same service, he was badged and ticketed, and fell into his place at once — a parish child — the orphan of a workhouse — the humble, half-starved drudge — to be cuffed 'and buffeted through the world — despised by all, and pitied by none. — Oliver Twist, Chap. 1. DRESS— Its relations to dignity. There are some promotions in life, which, in- dependent of the more substantial rewards they offer, acquire peculiar value and dignity from the coals and waistcoats connected with them. A field-marshal has his uniform ; a bishop his silk apron ; a counsellor his silk gown ; a beadle his cocked hat. Strip the bishop of his apron, or the beadle of his hat and lace ; what are they? Men. Mere men. Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine. Oliver Twist, Chap. 37. DRE3S Of Barkis. Mr. Barkis bloomed in a new blue coat, of which the tailor had given him such good meas- ure, that the cuffs would have rendered gloves unnecessary in the coldest weather, while the collar was so high that it pushed his hair up on end on the top of his head. His bright buttons, too, were of the largest size. Rendered com- plete by drab pantaloons and a buff waistcoat, I thought Mr. Barkis a phenomenon of respecta- bility. — David Copperjield, Chap. 10. DRESS— Of Mr. Bounderby. So, Mr. Bounderby threw on his hat — he al- ways threw it on, as expressing a man who had been far too busily employed in making himself, to acquire any fashion of wearing his ha f — and with his hands in his pockets, sauntered out into the hall. “ I never wear gloves,” it was his cus- tom to say. “ I didn’t climb up the ladder in them. Shouldn’t be so high up, if I had.” Hard Times, Book /., Chap. 4. DRESS— A seedy. Mr. Jobling is buttoned up closer than mere adornment might require. His hat presents at the rims a peculiar appearance of a glistening nature, as if it had been a favorite snail-promen- ade. The same phenomenon is visible on some parts of his coat, and particularly at the seams. He has the faded appearance of a gentleman in embarrassed circumstances ; even his light whiskers droop with something of a shabby air. Bleak House, Chap. 20. DRESS-Of Joe. I knew he made himself so dreadfully uncom- fortable entirely on my account, and that it was for me he pulled up his shirt-collar so very high behind, that it made the hair on the crown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers. Great Expectations, Chap. 13. As to his shirt-collar, and his coat-collar, they were perplexing to reflect upon — insoluble mys- teries both. Why should a man scrape himself to that extent, before he could consider himself full-dressed ? Why should he suppose it neces- sary to be purified by suffering for his holiday clothes ? — Great Expectations, Chap. 27. DRESS— Pip and Joe in uncomfortable. My sister having so much to do, was going to church vicariously ; that is to say, Joe and I were going. In his working clothes, Joe was a well-knit, characteristic-looking blacksmith; in his holiday clothes, he was more like a scarecrow in good circumstances than any thing else. Nothing that he wore, then, fitted him or seemed to belong to him ; and everything that he wore then, grazed him. On the present festive oc- casion he emerged from his room, when the blithe bells were going, the picture of misery, in a full suit of Sunday penitentials. As to me, I think my sister must have had some general idea that I was a young offender whom an ac- coucheur policeman had taken up (on my birth- day) and delivered over to her, to be dealt with according to the outraged majesty of the law. I was always treated as if I had insisted on be- ing born, in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuad- ing arguments of my best friends. Even, when DRESS 159 DROWNED I was taken to have a new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to make them like a kind of reformatory, and on no account to let me have the free use of my limbs. Great Expectations , Chap. 4. DRESS— Of Mr. Sloppy. The consideration of Mrs. Boffin had clothed Mr. Sloppy in a suit of black, on which the tailor had received personal directions from Rokesmith to expend the utmost cunning of his art, with a view to the concealment of the co- hering and sustaining buttons. But, so much more powerful were the frailties of Sloppy’s form than the strongest resources of tailoring science, that he now stood before the Council a perfect Argus in the way of buttons: shining and winking and gleaming and twinkling out of a hundred of those eyes of bright metal, at the dazzled spectators. The artistic taste of some unknown hatter had furnished him with a hat- band of wholesale capacity, which was fluted behind, from the crown of his hat to the brim, and terminated in a black bunch, from which the imagination shrunk discomfited and the rea- son revolted. Some special powers with which his legs were endowed, had already hitched up his glossy trousers at the ankles, and bagged them at the knees ; while similar gifts in his arms had raised his coat-sleeves from his wrists and accumulated them at his elbows. Thus set forth, with the additional embellishments of a very little tail to his coat, and a yawning gulf at his waistband, Sloppy stood confessed. Our Mutual Friend , Book //., Chap. 10. He was entombed by an honest jobbing tailor of the district in a perfect Sepulchre of coat and gaiters, sealed with ponderous buttons. Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap. 9. DRESS-Of Mrs. Wilfer. Mrs. Wilfer was, of course, a tall woman and an angular. Her lord being cherubic, she was necessarily majestic, according to the principle which matrimonially unites contrasts. She was much given to tying up her head in a pocket- handkerchief, knotted under her chin. This head-gear, in conjunction with a pair of gloves worn within doors, she seemed to consider as at once a kind of armor against misfortune (inva- riably assuming it when in low spirits or diffi- culties), and as a species of full dress. It was therefore with some sinking of the spirit that her husband beheld her thus heroically attired, putting down her candle in the little hall, and coming down the doorsteps through the little front court to open the gate for him. Our Mutual F'riend, Book /., Chap. 4. DRESS— Dr. Marigold’s. I am at present a middle-aged man of a broad- ish build, in cords, leggings, and a sleeved waist- coat, the strings of which is always gone behind. Repair them how you will, they go like fiddle- strings. You have been to the theatre, and you have seen one of the wiolin -players screw up his wiolin, after listening to it as if it had been whispering the secret to him that it feared it was out of order, and then you have heard it snap. That’s as exactly similar to my waist- coat, as a waistcoat and a wiolin can be like one another. I am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck worn loose and easy. Sitting down is my favorite posture. If I have a taste in point of personal jewelry, it is mother-of- pearl buttons. There you have me again, as large as life. — Dr. Marigold. DRESS-A bad fit. The Native wore a pair of ear-rings in his dark-brown ears, and his European clothes sat with an outlandish impossibility of adjustment — being, of their own accord, and without any ref- erence to the tailor’s art, long where they ought to be short, short where they ought to be long, tight where they ought to be loose, and loose where they ought to be tight — and to which he imparted a new grace, whenever the Major attacked him, by shrinking into them like a shrivelled nut, or a cold monkey. Dombey &r Son , Chap. 20. DRESS- Of an artificial woman. Whereabout in the bonnet and drapery an- nounced by her name, any fragmerit of the real woman may be concealed, is perhaps known to her maid ; but you could easily buy all you see of her, in Bond Street ; or you might scalp her, and peel her, and scrape her, and make two Lady Tippinses out of her, and yet not pene- trate to the genuine article. She has a large gold eye-glass, has Lady Tippins, to survey the proceedings with. If she had one in each eye, it might keep that other drooping lid up, and look more uniform. But perennial youth is in her artificial flowers, and her list of lovers is full. Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap. to. DRESS— The rustle of. Through a fortuitous concourse of accidents, the matronly Tisher heaves in sight, rustling through the room like the legendary ghost of a dowager in silken skirts. Edwin Drood, Chap. 3. DRESS— Its Influence on age. What does she do to be so neat? How is it that every trifle she wears belongs to her, and cannot choose but be a part of her? And even Mystery, look at her ! A model. Mystery is not young, not pretty, though still of an average candle-light passabilily ; but she does such mira- cles in her own behalf, that, one of these days, when she dies, they’ll be amazed to find an old woman in her bed, distantly like her. A Flight. — Reprinted Pieces. DRESS. “ Stop ! ” cried the gentleman, stretching forth his right aian, which was so tightly wedged into his threadbare sleeve that it looked like a cloth sausage. — Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 4. DRESS— An antediluvian pocket-handker- chief. * * * Mr. Tigg took from his hat what seemed to be the fossil remains of an antedilu- vian pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his eyes therewith. — Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 7. DROWNED— And resuscitated. (Rcbin Ri- derhood.) If you are not gone for good, Mr. Riderhood, it would be something to know where you are DROWNED 160 DRUNKARD hiding at present. This flabby lump of mor- tality that we work so hard at with such patient perseverance, yields no sign of you. If you are gone for good, Rogue, it is very solemn, and if you are coming back, it is hardly less so. Nay, in the suspense and mystery of the latter ques- tion, involving that of where you may be now, there is a solemnity even added to that of death, making us who are in attendance alike afraid to look on you and to look off you, and making those below start at the least sound of a creak- ing plank on the floor. Stay ! Did that eyelid tremble? So. the doc- tor, breathing low, and closely watching, asks himself. No. Did that nostril twitch ? No. This artificial respiration ceasing, do I feel any faint flutter under my hand upon the chest ? No. Over and over again No. No. But try over and over again, nevertheless. See ! A token of life ! An indubitable token of life ! The spark may smoulder and go out, or it may glow and expand, but see ! The four rough fellows, seeing, shed tears. Neither Riderhood in this world, nor Riderhood in the other, could draw tears from them ; but a striving human soul between the two can do it easily. He is struggling to come back. Now, he is almost here, now he is far away again. Now he is struggling harder to get back. And yet — like us all, when we swoon — like us all, every day of our lives when we -wake — he is instinctively unwilling to be restored to the consciousness of this existence, and would be left dormant, if he could. * $ « $ $ But they minister to him with such extraordin- ary interest, their anxiety is so keen, their vigil- ance is so great, their excited joy grows so intense as the signs of life strengthen, that how can she resist it, poor thing ! And now he be- gins to breathe naturally, and he stirs, and the doctor declares him to have come back from that inexplicable journey where he stopped on the dark road, and to be here. There is intelligence in his eyes. He wants to ask a question. He wonders where he is. Tell him. “ Father, you were run down on the river, and are at Miss Abbey Potterson’s.” He stares at his daughter, stares all round him, closes his eyes, and lies slumbering on her arm. The short-lived delusion begins to fade. The low, bad, unimpressible face is coming up from the depths of the river, or what other depths, to the surface again. As he grows warm, the doc- tor and the four men cool. As his lineaments soften with life, their faces and their hearts harden to him. “ He will do now,” says the doctor, washing his hands, and looking at the patient with grow- ing disfavor. “ Many a better man,” moralizes Tom Tootle with a gloomy shake of the head, “ ain’t had his luck.” “ It’s to be hoped he’ll make a better use of his life,” says Bob Glamour, “ than I expect he will.” * * * * * Becoming more and more uncomfortable, a3 though the prevalent dislike were finding him out somewhere in his sleep and expressing it- self to him, the patient at last opens his eyes wide, and is assisted by his daughter to sit up in bed. * * * * * He has an impression that his nose is bleed- ing, and several times draws the back of his hand across it, and looks for the result, in a pu- gilistic manner, greatly strengthening that in- congruous resemblance. “Where’s my fur cap ? ” he asks in a surly voice, when he has shuffled his clothes on. “ In the river,” somebody rejoins. “ And warn’t there no honest man to pick it up ? O’ course there was, though, and to cut of! with it arterwards. You are a rare lot, all on you ! ” Thus, Mr. Riderhood : taking from the hands of his daughter, with special ill-will, a lent cap, and grumbling as he pulls it down over his ears. Then, getting on his unsteady legs, leaning heavily upon her, and growling “ Hold still, can’t you? What! You must be a staggering next, must you? ” he takes his departure out of the ring in which he has had that little turn-up with Death. Our Mutual Friend \ Book III., Chap. 3. DROWNED-Gaffer. Father, was that you calling me ? Father! I thought I heard you call me twice before ! Words never to be answered, those, upon the earth-side of the grave. The wind sweeps jeer- ingly over Father, whips him with the frayed ends of his dress and his jagged hair, tries to turn him where he lies stark on his back, and force his face towards the rising sun, that he maybe shamed the more. A lull, and the wind is secret and prying with him ; lifts and lets fall a rag ; hides palpitating under another rag ; runs nimbly through his hair and beard. Then, in a rush, it cruelly taunts him. Father, was that you calling me? Was it you, the voiceless and the dead ? Was it you, thus buffeted as you lie here in a heap? Was it you, thus baptized unto Death, with these flying impurities now flung upon your face? Why not speak, Father? Soaking into this filthy ground as you lie here, is your own shape. Did you never see such a shape soaked into your boat? Speak, Father. Speak to us, the winds, the only listeners left you ! Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap. 14. DRTJNKARD-His descent. We will be bold to say, that there is scarcely a man in the constant habit of walking, day after day, through any of the crowded thorough- fares of London, who cannot recollect among the people whom he “ knows by sight,” to use a familiar phrase, some being of abject and wretched appearance whom he remembers to have seen in a very different condition, whom he has observed sinking lower and lower, by almost imperceptible degrees, and the shabbi- ness and utter destitution of whose appearance, at last, strike forcibly and painfully upon him, as he passes by. Is there any man who has mixed much with society, or whose avocations have caused him to mingle, at one time or other, with a great number of people, who cannot call DRUNKARD 161 DRUNKARD to mind the time when some shabby, miserable wretch, in rags and filth, who shuffles past him now in all the squalor of disease and poverty, was a respectable tradesman, or a clerk, or a man following some thriving pursuit, wi-th good prospects, and decent means ? — or cannot any of our readers call to mind from among the list of their quondam acquaintance, some fallen and degraded man, who lingers about the pavement in hungry misery — from whom every one turns coldly away, and who preserves himself from sheer starvation, nobody knows how? Alas ! such cases are of too frequent occurrence to be rare items in any man’s experience ; and but too often arise from one cause — drunkenness — that fierce rage for the slow, sure poison that oversteps every other consideration ; that casts aside wife, children, friends, happiness, and sta- tion ; and hurries its victims madly on to degra- dation and death. Some of these men have been impelled, by misfortune and misery, to the vice that has de- graded them. The ruin of worldly expectations, the death of those they loved, the sorrow that slowly consumes, but will not break the heart, has driven them wild ; and they present the hid- eous spectacle of madmen, slowly dying by their own hands. But by far the greater part have willfully, and with open eyes, plunged into the gulf from which the man who once enters it never rises more, but into which he sinks deep- er and deeper down, until recovery is hopeless. Tales , Chap. 12. DRUNKARD— The death of the. He begged his bread from door to door. Every halfpenny he could wring from the pity or credulity of those to whom he addressed him- self, was spent in the old way. A year passed over his head ; the roof of a jail was the only one that had sheltered him for many months. He slept under archways, and in brickfields — anywhere, where there was some warmth or shelter from the cold and rain. But in the last stage of poverty, disease, and houseless want, he was a drunkard still. At last, one bitter night, he sunk down on a door-step, faint a*nd ill. The premature decay of vice and profligacy had worn him to the bone. His cheeks were hollow and livid ; his eyes were sunken, and their sight was dim. His legs trembled beneath his weight, and a cold shiver ran through every limb. And now the long-forgotten scenes of a mis- spent life crowded thick and fast upon him. He thought of the time when he had a home — a happy, cheerful home— and of those who peo pled it, and flocked about him then, until the forms of his elder children seemed to rise from the grave, and stand about him — so plain, so clear, and so distinct they were, that he could touch and feel them. Looks that he had long forgotten were fixed upon him once more ; voices long since hushed in death sounded in his ears like the music of village bells. But it was only for an instant. The rain beat heavily upon him ; and cold and hunger were gnawing at his heart again. He rose, and dragged his feeble limbs a few paces further. The street was silent and empty ; the few passengers who passed by, at that late hour, hurried quickly on, and his tremulous voice was lost in the violence of the storm. Again that heavy chill struck through his frame, and his blood seemed to stagnate beneath it. He coiled himself up in a projecting doorway, and tried to sleep. But sleep had fled from his dull and glazed eyes. His mind wandered strangely, but he was awake, and conscious. The well-known shout of drunken mirth sounded in his ear, the glass was at his lips, the board was covered with choice rich food — they were before him ; he could see them all, he had but to reach out his hand, and take them — and, though the illu- sion was reality itself, he knew that he was sit- ting alone in the deserted street, watching the rain-drops as they pattered on the stones ; that death was coming upon him by inches — and that there were none to care for or help him. Suddenly he started up in the extremity of terror. He had heard his own voice shouting in the night air, he knew not what or why. Hark ! A groan ! — another ! His senses were leaving him : half-formed and incoherent words burst from his lips ; and his hands sought to tear and lacerate iiis flesh. He was going mad, and he shrieked for help till his voice failed him. He raised his head and looked up the long, dismal street. He recollected that outcasts like himself, condemned to wander day and night in those dreadful streets, had sometimes gone dis- tracted with their own loneliness. He remem- bered to have heard many years before that a homeless wretch had once been found in a soli- tary corner, sharpening a rusty knife to plunge into his own heart, preferring death to that end- less, weary, wandering to and fro. In an instant his resolve was taken, his limbs received new life ; he ran quickly from the spot, and paused not for breath until he reached the river-side. He crept softly down the steep stone stairs that lead from the commencement of Waterloo Bridge, down to the water’s level. He crouched into a corner, and held his breath, as the patrol passed. Never did prisoner’s heart throb with the hope of liberty and life half so eagerly as did that of the wretched man at the prospect of death. The watch passed close to him, but he remained unobserved ; and after waiting till the sound of footsteps had died away in the dis- tance, he cautiously descended, and stood be- neath the gloomy arch that forms the landing- place from the river. The tide was in, and the water flowed at his feet. The rain had ceased, the wind was lulled, and all was, for the moment, still and quiet — so quiet, that the slightest Sound on the opposite bank, even the rippling of the water against the barges that were moored there, was distinctly audible to his ear. The stream stole languidly and sluggishly on. Strange and fantastic forms rose to the surface, and beckoned him to ap- proach ; dark gleaming eyes peered from the water, and seemed to mock his hesitation, while hollow murmurs from behind urged him on- wards. He retreated a few paces, took a short run, a desperate leap, and plunged into the water. Not five seconds had passed when he rose to the water’s surface — but what a change had taken place in that short time, in all his thoughts and feelings ! Life — life — in any form, poverty, misery, starvation — anything but death. He fought and struggled with the water that closed over his head, and screamed in agonies of terror. DRUNKENNE3S 102 DRUNKENNESS The curse of his own son rang in his ears. The shore — bill: one fool of dry ground — he could almost touch the step. One hand’s-breadth nearer, and he was saved — but the tide bore him onward, under the dark arches of the bridge, and he sank to the bottom. Again he rose, and struggled for life. For one instant — for one brief instant — the build- ings on the river’s banks, the lights on the bridge through which the current had borne him, the black water, and the fast-flying clouds, were distinctly visible — once more he sunk, and once again he rose. Bright flames of fire shot up from earth to heaven, and reeled before his eyes, while the water thundered in his ears, and stunned him with its furious roar. A week afterwards the body was washed ashore, some miles down the river, a swollen and disfigured mass. Unrecognised and unpit- ied, it was borne to the grave ; and there it has long since mouldered away! — Tales , Chap. 12. DRUNKENNESS-The Pickwickians. Mr. Pickwick, with his hands in his pockets, and his hat cocked completely over his left eye, was leaning against the dresser, shaking his head from side to side, and producing a constant suc- cession of the blandest and most benevolent smiles without being moved thereunto by any discernible cause or pretence whatsoever ; old Mr. Wardle, with a highly-inflamed countenance, was grasping the hand of a strange gentleman, muttering protestations of eternal friendship ; Mr. Winkle, supporting himself by the eight- day clock, was feebly invoking destruction upon the head of any member of the family who should suggest the propriety of his retiring for the night ; and Mr. Snodgrass had sunk into a chair, with an expression of the most abject and hopeless misery that the human mind can im- agine, portrayed in every lineament of his ex- pressive face. * * * * * * “ It wasn’t the wine,” murmured Mr. Snod- grass, in a broken voice. “ It was the salmon.” (Somehow or other, it never is the wine, in these cases.) “ Hadn’t they better go to bed, ma’am?” in- quired Emma. “ Two of the boys will carry the gentlemen up stairs.” “ I won’t go to bed,” said Mr. Winkle, firmly. “No living boy shall carry me,” said Mr. Pickwick, stoutly ; and he went on smiling as before. “ Hurrah !” gasped Mr. Winkle, faintly. “ Hurrah ! ” echoed Mr. Pickwick, taking off his hat and dashing it on the floor, and insanely casting his spectacles into the middle of the kitchen. At this humorous feat he laughed out- right. “Let’s — have — ’nother — bottle,” cried Mr. Winkle, commencing in a very loud key, and ending in a very faint one. His head dropped upon his breast ; and, muttering his invincible determination not to go to his bed, and a san- guinary regret that he had not “done for old Tupman” in the morning, he fell fast asleep; in which condition he was borne to his apart- ment by two young giants, under the personal superintendence of the fat boy, to whose pro- tecting care Mr. Snodgrass shortly afterwards confided his own person. Mr. Pickwick ac- cepted the proffered arm of Mr. Tupman and quietly disappeared, smiling more than ever ; and Mr. Wardle, after taking as affectionate a leave of the whole family as if he were ordered for immediate execution, consigned to Mr. Trundle the honor of conveying him up stairs, and re- tired with a very futile attempt to look impi'es sively solemn and dignified. Pickwick, Chap. 8. DRUNKENNESS Of Dick Swivoller. Mr. Swiveller chanced at the moment to be sprinkling a glass of warm gin and water on the dust of the law, and to be moistening his clay, as the phrase goes, rather copiously. But as clay in the abstract, when too much moistened, becomes of a weak and uncertain consistency, breaking down in unexpected places, retain- ing impressions but faintly, and preserving no strength or steadiness of character, so Mr. Swiv- eller’s clay, having imbibed a considerable quantity of moisture, was in a very loose and slippery state, insomuch that the various ideas impressed upon it were fast losing their distinc- tive character, and running into each other. It is not uncommon for human clay in this condi- tion to value itself above all things upon its great prudence and sagacity. Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 48. DRUNKENNESS-Of Mr. Pecksniff. They carried him up stairs, and crushed the youngest gentleman at every step. His bedroom was at the top of the house, and it was a long way ; but they got him there in course of time. He asked them frequently on the road for a little drop of something to drink. It seemed an idiosyncrasy. The youngest gentleman in com- pany proposed a draught of water. Mr. Peck- sniff called him opprobrious names for the sug- gestion. Jinkins and Gander took the rest upon them- selves, and made him as comfortable as they could, on the outside of his bed ; and when he seemed disposed to sleep, they left him. But before they had all gained the bottom of the staircase, a vision of Mr. Pecksniff, strangely at- tired, was seen to flutter on the top landing. Pie desired to collect their sentiments, it seemed, upon the nature of human life. “ My friends,” cried Mr. Pecksniff, looking over the banisters, “ let us improve our minds by mutual inquiry and discussion. Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence. Where is Jinkins ? ” “ Here,” cried that gentleman. “Go to bed again ! ” “To bed ! ” said Mr. Pecksniff. “ Bed ! ’Tis the voice of the sluggard, I hear him complain, you have woke me too soon, I must slumber again. If any young orphan will repeat the remainder of that simple piece from Doctor Watts’s collection an eligible opportunity now offers.” Nobody volunteered. “ This is very soothing,” said Mr. Pecksniff, after a pause. “ Extremely so. Cool and re- freshing ; particularly to the legs ! The legs of the human subject, my friends, are a beautiful production. Compare them with wooden legs, and observe the difference between the anatomy of nature and the anatomy of art. Do you know,” said Mr. Pecksniff, leaning over the I banisters, with an odd recollection of his familial DRUNKENNESS 163 DRUNKENNESS manner among new pupils at home, “ that I should very much like to see Mrs. Todgers’s notion of a wooden leg, if perfectly agreeable to herself ! ” As it appeared impossible to entertain any reasonable hopes of him after this speech, Mr. Jinkins and Mr. Gander went up stairs again, and once more got him into bed. But they had not descended to the second floor before he was out again ; nor, when they had repeated the pro- cess, had they descended the first flight, before he was out again. In a word, as often as he was shut up in his own room, he darted out afresh, charged with some new moral sentiment, which he continually repeated over the banisters, with extraordinary relish, and an irrepressible desire for the improvement of his fellow-creatures that nothing could subdue. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. g. DRUNKENNESS- Of David Copperfield. Somebody was leaning out of my bedroom window, refreshing his forehead against the cool stone of the parapet, and feeling the air upon his face. It was myself. I was addressing my- self as “ Copperfield,” and saying, “ Why did you try to smoke ? You might have known you couldn’t do it.” Now, somebody was un- steadily contemplating his features in the look- ing-glass. That was I too. I was very pale in the looking-glass ; my eyes had a vacant appear- ance ; and my hair — only my hair, and nothing else — looked drunk. Somebody said to me, “ Let us go to the thea- tre, Copperfield ! ” There was no bedroom be- fore me, but again the jingling table covered with glasses ; the lamp ; Grainger on my right hand, Markham on my left, and Steerforth op- posite — all sitting in a mist, and a long way off. The theatre ! To be sure. The very thing. Come along ! But they must excuse me if I saw everybody out first, and turned the lamp off — in case of fire. Owing to some confusion in the dark, the door was gone. I was feeling for it in the window-curtains, when Steerforth, laughing, took me by the arm and led me out. We went down stairs, one behind another. Near the bot- tom, somebody fell, and rolled down. Some- body else said it was Copperfield. I was angry at that false report, until, finding myself on my back in the passage. I began to think there might be some foundation for it. A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the streets ! There was an indistinct talk of its being wet. I considered it frosty. Steerforth dusted me under a lamp-post, and put my hat into shape, which somebody pro- duced from somewhere in a most extraordinary manner, for I hadn’t had it on before. Steer- forth then said, “ You are all right, Copper- field, are you not?” and I told him, “Never- berrer.” A man, sitting in a pigeon-hole place, looked out of the fog, and took money from somebody, inquiring if I was one of the gentlemen paid for, and appearing rather doubtful (as I remem- ber in the glimpse I had of him) whether to take the money for me or not. Shortly after- wards, we were very high up in a very hot theatre, looking down into a large pit, that seemed to me to. smoke; the people with whom it was crammed were so indistinct. There was a great stage, too, looking very clean and smooth after the streets ; and there were people upon it, talk- ing about something or other, but not at all in- telligibly. There was an abundance of bright lights, and there was music, and there were ladies down in the boxes, and I don’t know what more. The whole building looked to me as if it were learning to swim ; it conducted itself in such an unaccountable manner, when I tried to steady it. On somebody’s motion, we resolved to go down stairs to the dress-boxes, where the ladies were. A gentleman lounging, full-dressed, on a sofa, with an opera-glass in his hand, passed before my view, and also my own figure at full length in a glass. Then I was being ushered into one of these boxes, and found myself say- ing something as I sat down, and people about me crying “Silence!” to somebody, and ladies casting indignant glances at me, and — what ! yes ! — Agnes, sitting on the seat before me, in the same box, with a lady and gentleman beside her, whom I didn’t know. I see her face now better than I did then, I dare say, with its in- delible look of regret and wonder turned upon me. “ Agnes ! ” I said thickly, “ Lorblessmer ! Ag- nes ! ” “Hush! Pray !” she answered, I could not conceive why. “ You disturb the company. Look at the stage ! ” I tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something of what was going on there, but quite in vain. I looked at her again by-and-by, and saw her shrink into her corner, and put her gloved hand to her forehead. “ Agnes ! ” I said. “ I’mafraidyou’renorwell.” “Yes, yes. Do not mind me, Trotwood,” she returned. “ Listen ! Are you going away soon ? ” “ Amigoarawaysoo ? ” I repeated. “ Yes.” I had a stupid intention of replying that I was going to wait, to hand her down stairs. I sup- pose I expressed it somehow ; for, after she had looked at me attentively for a little while, she appeared to understand, and replied in a low tone : “ I know you will do as I ask you, if I tell you I am very earnest in it. Go away now, Trot- wood, for my sake, and ask your friends to take you home.” She had so far improved me. for the time, that though I was angry with her, I felt ashamed, and with a short “ Goori ! ” (which I intended for “ Good-night ! ”) got up and went away. They followed, and I stepped at once out of the box-door into my bedroom, where only Steer- forth was with me, helping me to undress, and where I was by turns telling him that Agnes was my sister, and adjuring him to bring the cork- screw, that I might open another bottle of wine. How somebody, lying in my bed, lay saying and doing all this over again, at cross purposes, in a feverish dream all night — the bed a rocking sea that was never still ! How, as that some- body slowly settled down into myself, did I be- gin to parch, and feel as if my outer covering of skin were a hard board ; my tongue the bottom of an empty kettle, furred with long service, and burning up over a slow fire ; the palms of my hands hot plates of metal which no ice could cool ! — David Copperfield, Chap. 24. DRUNKENNE33 131 DUEL DRUNKENNESS -The effects of. An odd confusion in my mind, as if a body of Titans had taken an enormous lever and pushed the day before yesterday some months back. David Copper field, Chap. 25. DRINKING— Without moderation. “ ‘ Do you drink ? * said the baron, touching the bottle with the bowl of his pipe. “ ‘ Nine times out of ten, and then very hard,’ rejoined the figure, drily. “ ‘ Never in moderation ?’ asked the baron. “ ‘ Never,’ replied the figure, with a shudder ; * that breeds cheerfulness.’ ” Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 6. DRY ROT— in men— The. A very curious disease the Dry Rot in men, and difficult to detect the beginning of. It had carried Horace Kinch inside thd wall of the old King’s Bench prison, and it had carried him out with his feet foremost. He was a likely man to look at, in the prime of life, well to do, as clever as he needed to bey and popular among many friends. He was suitably married, and had healthy and pretty children. But, like some fair-looking houses or fair-looking ships, he took the Dry Rot. The first strong external revelation of the Dry Rot in men is a tendency to lurk and lounge ; to be at street corners without intelligible reason ; to be going any- where when met ; to be about many places rather than at any ; to do nothing tangible, but to fiave an intention of performing a variety of intangible duties to-morrow or the day after. When this manifestation of the disease is ob- served, the observer will usually connect it with a vague impression once formed or received, that the patient was living a little too hard. He will scarcely have had leisure to turn it over in his mind, and form the terrible suspicion “ Dry Rot,” when he will notice a change for the worse in the patient’s appearance — a certain slovenliness and deterioration, which is not pov- erty, nor dirt, nor intoxication, nor ill-health, but simply Dry Rot. To this succeeds a smell as of strong waters, in the morning ; to that, a looseness respecting money ; to that, a stronger smell as of strong waters, at all times ; to that, a looseness respecting everything ; to that, a trembling of the limbs, somnolency, misery, and crumbling to pieces. As it is in wood, so it is in men. Dry Rot advances at a compound usury quite incalculable. A plank is found in- fected with it, and the whole structure is de- voted. Thus it had been with the unhappy Horace Kinch, lately buried by a small sub- scription. Those who knew him had not nigh done saying, “ So well off, so comfortably estab- lished, with such hope before him — and yet, it is feared, with a slight touch of Dry Rot ! ” when, lo ! the man was all Dry Rot and dust. Unconwiercial Traveller , Chap. 13. DUEL— Description of a. “ We shall just have comfortable time, my lord,” said the captain, when he had communi- cated the arrangements, “ to call at my rooms for a case of pistols, and then jog coolly down. If you will allow me to dismiss your servant, we’ll take my cab ; for yours, perhaps, might be recognized.” What a contrast, when they reached the street, to the scene they had just left ! It was already daybreak. For the flaring yellow light within, was substituted the clear, bright, glorious morn- ing : for a hot, close atmosphere, tainted with the smell of expiring lamps, and reeking with the steams of riot and dissipation, the free, fresh, wholesome air. But to the fevered head on which that cool air blew, it seemed to come laden with remorse for the time misspent and countless opportunities neglected. With throb- bing veins and burning skin, eyes wild and heavy, thoughts hurried and disordered, he felt as though the light were a reproach, and shrank involuntarily from the day as if he were some foul and hideous thing. “Shivering?” said the captain. “You are cold.” “ Rather.” “It does strike cool, coming out of those hot rooms. Wrap that cloak about you. So, so ; now we’re off.” They rattled through the quiet streets, made their call at the captain’s lodgings, cleared the town, and emerged upon the open road without hindrance or molestation. Fields, trees, gardens, hedges, everything looked very beautiful : the young man scarcely seemed to have noticed them before, though he had passed the same objects a thousand times. There was a peace and serenity upon them all, strangely at variance with the bewilderment and confusion of his own half-sobered thoughts, and yet impressive and welcome. He had no fear upon his mind ; but, as he looked about him, he had less anger ; and though all old delu- sions, relative to his worthless late companion, were now cleared away, he rather wished he had never known him than thought of its hav- ing come to this. The past night, the day before, and many other days and nights beside, all mingled them- selves up in one unintelligible and senseless whirl ; he could not separate the transactions of one time from those of another. Now, the noise of the wheels resolved itself into some wild tune in which he could recognize scraps of airs he knew ; now, there was nothing in his ears but a stunning and bewildering sound, like rushing water. But his companion rallied him on being so silent, and they talked and laughed boisterously. When they stopped, he was a little surprised to find himself in the act of smoking ; but, on reflection, he remembered when and where he had taken a cigar. They stopped at the avenue gate and alighted, leaving the carriage to the care of the servant, who was a smart fellow, and nearly as well ac- customed to such proceedings as his master. Sir Mulberry and his friend were already there. All four walked in profound silence up the aisle of stately elm-trees, which, meeting far above their heads, formed a long green per- spective of Gothic arches, terminating, like some old ruin, in the open sky. After a pause, and a brief conference between the seconds, they, at length, turned to the right, and taking a track across a little meadow, passed Ham House and came into some fields beyond. In one of these they stopped. The ground was measured, some usual forms gone through, the two principals were placed front to front at the distance agreed upon, and Sir Mulberry turned his face towards his young adversary for the first DUST 165 EARLY RISING time. He was very pale, his eyes were blood- shot, his dress disordered, and his hair dishev- elled. For the face, it expressed nothing but violent and evil passions. He shaded his eyes with his hands ; gazed at his opponent, stead- fastly, for a few moments ; and then, taking the weapon which was tendered to him, bent his eyes upon that, and looked up no more until the word was given, when he instantly fired. The two shots were fired, as nearly as possi- ble, at the same instant. In that instant, the young lord turned his head sharply round, fixed upon his adversary a ghastly stare, and, without a groan or stagger, fell down dead. “He’s gone!” cried Westwood, who, with the other second, had run up to the body, and fallen on one knee beside it. “ His blood is on his own head,” said Sir Mulberry. “ He brought this upon himself, and forced it upon me.” “ Captain Adams,” cried Westwood, hastily, “ I call you to witness that this was fairly done. Hawk, we have not a moment to lose. We must leave this place immediately, push for Brighton, and cross to France with all speed. This has been a bad business, and may be worse, if we delay a moment. Adams, consult your own safety, and don’t remain here ; the liv- ing before the dead ; good-bye ! ” With these words, he seized Sir Mulberry by the arm, and hurried him away. Captain Adams — only pausing to convince himself, beyond all question, of the fatal result — sped off in the same direction, to concert measures with his servant for removing the body, and securing his own safety likewise. So died Lord Frederick Verisoplit, by the hand which he had loaded with gifts, and clasped a thousand times ; by the act of him, but for whom, and others like him, he might have lived a happy man, and died with chil- dren’s faces round his bed. The sun came proudly up in all his majesty, the noble river ran its winding course, the leaves quivered and rustled in the air, the birds poured their cheerful songs from every tree, the short-lived butterfly fluttered its little wings ; all the light and life of day came on ; and, amidst it all, and pressing down the grass whose every blade bore twenty tiny lives, lay the dead man, with his stark and rigid face turned upward to the sky. — Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 50. DUST— In London. A very dark night it was, and bitter cold ; the east wind blowing bleak, and bringing with it stinging particles from marsh, and moor, and fen — from the Great Desert and Old Egypt, may be. Some of the component parts of the sharp-edged vapor that came flying up the Thames at London might be mummy-dust, dry atoms from the Temple at Jerusalem, camels’ foot-prints, crocodiles’ hatching places, loosened grains of expression from the visages of blunt- nosed sphynxes, waifs and strays from caravans of turbaned merchants, vegetation from jungles, frozen snow from the Himalayas. O ! It was very dark upon the Thames, and it was bitter, bitter cold. Down with the Tide. Reprinted Pieces. DUTY— The test of a great soul. He was simply and stanchly true to his duty, alike in the large case and in the small. So ah true souls ever are. So every true soul ever was, ever is, and ever will be. There is nothing Vit- tle to the really, great in spirit. Edwin Drood, Chap. 17. DUTY— To society. “ No, my good sir,” said Mr. Pecksniff, firmly, “ No. But I have a duty to discharge which 1 owe to society ; and it shall be discharged, my friend, at any cost ! ” Oh, late-remembered, much-forgotten, mouth- ing, braggart duty ! always owed, and seldom paid in any other coin than punishment and wrath, when will mankind begin to know thee? When will men acknowledge thee in thy ne- glected cradle and thy stunted youth, and not begin their recognition in thy sinful manhood and thy desolate old age? Oh, ermined Judge ! whose duty to society is, now, to doom the ragged criminal to punishment and death, hadst thou never, Man, a duty to discharge in barring up the hundred open gates that wooed him to the felon’s dock, and throwing but ajar the por- tals to a decent life ? Oh, Prelate, Prelate ! whose duty to society it is to mourn in melancholy phrase the sad degeneracy of these bad times in which thy lot of honors has been cast, did nothing go before thy elevation to the lofty seat, from which thou dealest out thy homilies to other tarriers for dead men’s shoes, whose duty to society has not begun? Oh, Magistrate ! so rare a country gentleman and brave a squire, had you no duty to society, before the ricks were blazing and the mob were mad ; or did it spring up, armed and booted from the earth, a corps of yeomanry, full-grown ? Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 31. DUTY— The world’s idea of. “ I have heard some talk about duty first and last ; but it has always been of my duty to other people. I have wondered now and then — to pass away the time — whether no one ever owed any duty to me.” — Dotnbey 6° Son, Chap. 34. EAGLE— The French. The Eagle of France, apparently afflicted with the prevailing infirmities that have lighted on the poultry, is in a very undecided state of policy, and as a bird moulting. Uncommercial Traveller, Chap. 25. EARLY RISING. If there be one thing in existence more miser- able than another, it most unquestionably is the being compelled to rise by candle-light. If you ever doubted the fact, you are painfully con- vinced of your error, on the morning of your departure. You left strict orders, overnight, to be called at half-past four, and you have done nothing all night but doze for five minutes at a time and start up suddenly from a terrific dream of a large church clock with the small hand run- ning round, with astonishing rapidity, to every EATING 163 EATING figure on the dial-plate. At last, completely exhausted, you fall gradually into a refreshing sleep — your thoughts grow confused — the stage coaches, which have been “ going off” before your eyes all night, become less and less dis- tinct, until they go off altogether; one moment you are driving with all the skill and smartness of an experienced whip — the next you are ex- hibiting, u la Ducrovv, on the off leader ; anon you are closely muffled up, inside, and have just recognized in the person of the guard an old schoolfellow, whose funeral, even in your dream, you remember to have attended eighteen years ago. At last you fall into a state of complete oblivion, from which you are aroused, as if into a new state of existence, by a singular illusion. You are apprenticed to a trunk-maker; how, or why, or when, or wherefore, you don’t take the trouble to inquire ; but there you are, pasting the lining in the lid of a portmanteau. Con- found that other apprentice in the back shop, how he is hammering ! — rap, rap, rap — what an industrious fellow he must be ! you have heard him at work for half an hour past, and he has been hammering incessantly the whole time. Rap, rap, rap, again — he’s talking now — what’s that he said? Five o’clock ! You make a vio- lent exertion, and start up in bed. The vision is at once dispelled ; the trunk-maker’s shop is your own bed-room, and the other apprentice your shivering servant, who has been vainly en- deavoring to wake you for the last quarter of an hour, at the imminent risk of breaking either his own knuckles or the panels of the door. You proceed to dress yourself, with all possi- ble despatch. The flaring flat candle with the long snuff, gives light enough to show that the things you want are not where they ought to be, and you undergo a trifling delay in consequence of having carefully packed up one of your boots in your over-anxiety of the preceding night. You soon complete your toilet, however, for you are not particular on such an occasion, and you shaved yesterday evening ; so, mounting your » Petersham great-coat, and green travelling- shawl, and grasping your carpet-bag in your right hand, you walk lightly down-stairs, lest you should awaken any of the family, and after pausing in the common sitting-room for one moment, just to have a cup of coffee (the said common sitting-room looking remarkably com- fortable, with everything out of its place, and strewed with the crumbs of last night’s supper), you undo the chain and bolts of the street-door, and find yourself fairly in the street. Scenes , Chap. 15. It became high time to remember the first clause of that great discovery made by the an- cient philosopher, for securing health, riches, and wisdom ; the infallibility of which has been for generations verified by the enormous for- tunes constantly amassed by chimney-sweepers and other persons who get up early and go to bed betimes . — Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 5. EATING— A pauper overfed. “ It’s not madness, ma’am,” replied Mr. Bum- ble, after a few moments of deep meditation. “ It’s meat.” “What?” exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry. “ Meat, ma’am, meat,” replied Bumble, with stern emphasis. “ You’ve overfed him, ma’am. You’ve raised a artificial soul and spirit in him, ma’am, unbecoming a person of his condition ; as the board, Mrs. Sowerberry, who are practi- cal philosophers, will tell you. What have pau- pers to do with soul or spirit? It’s quite enough that we let ’em have live bodies. If you had kept the boy on gruel, ma’am, this would never have happened.” — Oliver Twist , Chap. 7. EATING- A bill of fare. She put forth a bill of fare that might kindle exhilaration in the breast of a misanthrope. Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 24. EATING Bread and butter (Joe and Pip). My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread-and-butter for us, that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard and fast against her bib — where it some- times got a pin into it, and sometimes a needle, which we afterward got into our mouths. Then she took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if she was making a plaster — using both sides of the knife with a slapping dexter- ity, and trimming and moulding the butter off round the crust. Then she gave the knife a final smart wipe on the edge of the plaster, and then sawed a very thick round off the loaf : which she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into two halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other. I knew Mrs. Joe’s housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe. Therefore I resolved to put my hunk of bread-and-butter down the leg of my trousers. Joe was evi- dently made uncomfortable by what he sup- posed to be my loss of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he didn’t seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like a pill. He was about to take an- other bite, and had just got his head on one side for a good purchase on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw that my bread-and-butter was gone. The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold of his bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister’s observation. “ What’s the matter' now ? ” said she, smartly, as she put down her cup. “I say, you know!” muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very serious remonstrance, “ Pip, old chap ! You’ll do yourself a mischief. It’ll stick somewhere. You can’t have chawed it, Pip.” “ What’s the matter now ? ” repeated my sis- ter, more sharply than before. “ If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I’d recommend you to do it,” said Joe, all aghast. “ Manners is manners, but still your elth’s your elth.” By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe, and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while against the wall behind him : while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily on. “Now, perhaps, you’ll mention what’s the matter,” said my sister, out of breath, “you staring great stuck pig.” EATING AND GROWTH 167 EDUCATION Joe looked at her in a helpless way ; then took a helpless bite, and looked at me again. “You know, Pip,” said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his cheek, and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite alone, “you and me is always friends, and I’d be the last to tell upon you, any time. But such a — ” he moved his chair, and looked about the floor between us, and then again at me — “ such a most oncommon bolt as that ! ” “Been bolting his food, has he?” cried my sister. “ You know, old chap,” said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe, with his bite still in his cheek, “ I Bolted, myself, when 1 was your age — frequent — and as a boy I’ve been among a many Bolters ; but I never see your bolting equal yet, Pip, and it’s a mercy you ain’t Bolted dead.” — Great Expectations, Chap. 2 . EATING AND GEOWTH-Guppy’s lunch. Beholding him in which glow of contentment, Mr. Guppy says : “ You are a man again, Tony !” “ Well, not quite, yet,” says Mr. Jobling. “ Say, just born.” “ Will you take any other vegetables? Grass ? Peas ? Summer cabbage ? ” “Thank you, Guppy,” says Mr. Jobling. “I really don’t know but what I will take summer cabbage.” Order given ; with the sarcastic addition (from Mr. Smallweed) of “Without slugs, Polly!” And cabbage produced. “ I am growing up, Guppy,” says Mr. Jobling, plying his knife and fork with a relishing steadi- ness. “ Glad to hear it.” “ In fact I have just turned into my teens,” says Mr. Jobling. He says no more until he has performed his task, which he achieves as Messrs. Guppy and Smallweed finish theirs ; thus getting over the ground in excellent style, and beating those two gentlemen easily by a veal and ham and a cab- bage. “Now, Small,” says Mr. Guppy, “what would you recommend about pastry?” “Marrow puddings,” says Mr. Smallweed, in- stantly. Three marrow puddings being produced, Mr. Jobling adds, in a pleasant humor, that he is coming of age fast. To* these succeed, by com- mand of Mr. Smallweed, “ three Cheshires ; ” and to those, “ three small rums.” This apex of the entertainment happily reached, Mr. Jobling puts up his legs on the carpeted seat (having his own side of the box to himself), leans against the wall, and says, “ I am grown up, now, Guppy. I have arrived at maturity.” “ What do you think, now,” says Mr. Guppy. “ Why, what I may think after dinner,” re- turns Mr. Jobling, “ is one thing, my dear Gup- py, and what I may think before dinner is another thing. Still, even after dinner, I ask my- self the question, What am I to do ? How am 1 to live? Ill fo manger, you know,” says Mr. Jobling, pronouncing that word as if he meant a necessary fixture in an English stable. “ 111 fo manger. That’s the French saying, and mangering is as necessary to me as it is to a Frenchman. Or more so.” Bleak House, Chap. 20. EATING— Its “ mellering:” influence. Wegg, who had been going to put on his spectacles, immediately laid them down, with the sprightly observation : “You read my thoughts, sir. Do my eyes deceive me, or is that object up there a — a pie? It can’t be a pie.” “ Yes, it’s a pie, Wegg,” replied Mr. Boffin, with a glance of some little discomfiture at the Decline and Fail. “ Have I lost my smell for fruits, or is it a apple pie, sir?” asked Wegg. “ It’s a veal and ham pie,” said Mr. Boffin. “ Is it indeed, sir ? And it would be hard, sir, to name the pie that is a better pie than a weal and hammer,” said Mr. Wegg, nodding his head emotionally. “ Have some, Wegg ? ” •“ Thank you, Mr. Boffin, I think I will, at your invitation. I wouldn’t at any other party’s at the present juncture ; but at yours, sir — And meaty jelly too, especially when a little salt, which is the case where there’s ham, is mellering to the organ, is very mellering to the organ.” Mr. Wegg did not say what organ, but spoke with a cheerful generality. Our Alutual Friend, Book I., Chap. 5 . EATING— Beef and mutton. “ Here I am ! This is my frugal breakfast. Some men want legs of beef and mutton for breakfast ; I don’t. Give me my peach, my cup of coffee, and my claret ; I am content. I don’t want them for themselves, but they remind me of the sun. There’s nothing solar about legs of beef and mutton. Mere animal satisfaction !” Bleak House, Chap. 43 . EDU CATION— Of children. Spitfire seemed to be in the main a good-na- tured little body, although a disciple of that school of trainers of the young idea which holds that childhood, like money, must be shaken and rattled and jostled about a good deal to keep it bright. — Dombey dr 5 Son, Chap. 3 . EDUCATION— Mrs. Pipchin’s system. Master Bitherstone read aloud to the rest a pedigree from Genesis (judiciously selected by Mrs. Pipchin), getting over the names with the ease and clearness of a person tumbling up the treadmill. That done, Miss Pankey was borne away to be shampoo’d ; and Master Bitherstone to have something else done to him with salt water, from which he always returned very blue and dejected. About noon Mrs. Pipchin pre- sided over some Early Readings. It being a part of Mrs. Pipchin’s system not to encourage a child’s mind to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by force like an oyster, the moral of these lessons was usually of a violent and stunning character: the hero — a naughty boy — seldom, in the mildest catastrophe being finished off by anything less than a lion, or a bear. — Dombey Son, Chap. 8 . EDU CATION— A victim of. Rob the Grinder, whose reverence for the in- spired writings, under the admirable system of the Grinders’ School, had been developed by a perpetual bruising of his intellectual shins against all the proper names of all the tribes of Judah, and by the monotonous repetition of hard, verses, .EDUCATION 168 EDUCATION especially by way by punishment, and by the parading of him at six years old in leather breeches, three times a Sunday, very high up, in a very hot church, with a great organ buz- zing against his drowsy head, like an exceedingly busy bee — Rob the Grinder made a mighty show of being edified when the Captain ceased to read, and generally yawned and nodded while the reading was in progress. Dombey & Son, Ch. 39. EDUCATION— Early. “ There is a great deal of nonsense — and worse — talked about young people not being- pressed too hard at first, and being tempted on, and all the rest of it, Sir,” said Mrs. Pipchin, impatiently rubbing her hooked nose. “It never was thought of in my time, and it has no busi- ness to be thought of now. My opinion is, ‘ keep ’em at it.’ ” — Doinbey dr 5 Son , Chap. 11. EDUCATION— The forcing- process in Dr. Blimher’s School. Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor Blimber, he might consider him- self sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The doctor only undertook the charge of ten young gentle- men, but he had, always ready, a supply of learn- in^for a hundred, on the lowest estimate : and it was at once the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with it. It was not that Miss Blimber meant to be too haid upon him, or that Doctor Blimber meant to bear too heavily on the young gentlemen in general. Cornelia merely held the faith in which she had been bred ; and the Doctor, in some partial confusion of his ideas, regarded the young gentlemen as if they were all Doctors, and were born grown up. Comforted by the applause of the young gentlemen’s nearest rela- tions, and urged on by their blind vanity and ill considered haste, it would have been strange if Doctor Blimber had discovered his mistake, or trimmed his swelling sails to any other tack. Thus in the case of Paul. When Doctor Blimber said he made great progress; and was naturally clever, Mr. Dombey was more bent than ever on his being forced and crammed. In the case of Briggs, when Doctor Blimber reported that he did not make great progress yet, and was not naturally clever, Briggs senior was inexorable in the same purpose. In short, however high and false the temperature at which the Doctor kept his hot-house, the owners of the plants were always ready to lend a helping hand at the bellows, and to stir the fire. * * * * * In fact, Doctor Blimber’s establishment was a great hot-house, in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual aspar- agus all the year round. Mathematical goose- berries (very sour ones, too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegeta- ble was got off the driest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, Doctor Blim- ber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other. 'Phis was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing was attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right taste about the premature productions, and they didn’t keep well. Moreover, one young gentle- man, with a swollen nose and an excessively large head (the oldest of the ten who had “gone through” everything), suddenly left off blowing one day, and remained in the establishment a mere stalk. And people did say that the Doc- tor had rather overdone it with young Toots, and that when he began to have whiskers he left off having brains. ***** The young gentlemen were prematurely full of carking anxieties. They knew no rest from the pursuit of stony-hearted verbs, savage noun- substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of exercises that appeared to them in their dreams. Under the forcing system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his spi- rits in three weeks. He had all the cares of the world on his head in three months. He con- ceived bitter sentiments against his parents or guardians in four ; he was an old misanthrope, in five ; envied Curtius that blessed refuge in the earth, in six ; and at the end of the first twelvemonth had arrived at the conclusion, from which he never afterwards departed, that all the fancies of the poets, and lessons of the sages, were a mere collection of words and gram- mar, and had no other meaning in the world. ***** The studies went round like a mighty wheel, and the young gentlemen were always stretched upon it. — Dombey dr 5 Son, Chap. 12. EDUCATION— In England. Of the monstrous neglect of education in Eng- land, and the disregard of it by the state as the means of forming good or bad citizens, and miserable or happy men, private schools long afforded a notable example. Although any man who had proved his unfitness for any other occupation in life, was free, without examina- tion or qualification, to open a school anywhere ; although preparation for the functions he un- dertook, was required in the surgeon who as- sisted to bring a boy into the world, or might one day assist, perhaps, to send him out of it ; in the chemist, the attorney, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker; the whole round of crafts and trades, the schoolmaster excepted : and although schoolmasters, as a race, weie the blockheads and impostors who might naturally be expected to spring from such a state of things, and to flourish in it ; these Yorkshire schoolmasters were the lowest and most rotten round in the whole ladder. Traders in the ava- rice, indifference, or imbecility of parents, and the helplessness of children ; ignorant, sordid, brutal men, to whom few considerate persons would have entrusted the board and lodging of a horse or a dog ; they formed the worthy cor- ner-stone of a structure, which, for absurdity and a magnificent high-minded laissez-aller neg- lect, has rarely been exceeded in the world. We hear sometimes of an action for damages against the unqualified medical practitioner, who has deformed a broken limb in pretending to heal it. But what of the hundreds of thou- sands of minds that have been deformed for- ever by the incapable pettifoggers who have pretended to form them ! EDUCATION 169 EDUCATION I make mention of the race, as of the York- shire schoolmasters, in the past tense. Though it has not yet finally disappeared, it is dwin- dling daily. A long day’s work remains to be done about us in the way ot education, Heaven knows ; buf great improvements and facilities towards the attainment of a good one, have been furnished of late years. I cannot call to mind, now, how I came to hear about Yorkshire schools when I was a not very robust child, sitting in bye-places near Rochester Castle, with a head full of Par- tridge, Strap, Tom Pipes, and Sancho Panza ; but I know that my first impressions of them were picked up at that time, and that they were somehow or other connected with a suppurated abscess that, some boy had come home with, in consequence 1 of his Yorkshire guide, philosopher, and friend, having ripped it open with an inky pen-knife. The impression made upon me, however made, never left me. I was always curious about Yorkshire schools — fell, long afterwards, and at sundry times, into the way of hearing more about them — at last, having an audience, resolved to write about them . — Preface to Nicholas Nickleby. EDU CATION— Practical. “No man of sense who has been generally im- proved, and has improved himself, can be called quite uneducated as to anything. I don’t par- ticularly favor mysteries. I would as soon, on a fair and clear explanation, be judged by one class of man as another, provided he had the qualification I have named.” Little Dorrit, Book II., Chap. 8. EDUCATION— The Gradgrind school of. Let us strike the key-note again, before pur- suing the tune. When she was half a dozen years younger, Louisa had been overheard to begin a conversa- tion with her brother one day, by saying, “ Tom, I wonder” — upon which Mr. Gradgrind, who was the person overhearing, stepped forth into the light, and said, “ Louisa, never wonder ! ” Herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mystery of educating the reason without .stooping to the cultivation of the sentiments and affections. Never wonder. By means of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and divi- sion, settle everything somehow, and never won- der. Bring to me, said M’Choakumchild, yon- der baby just able to walk, and I will engage that it shall never wonder. Now, besides very many babies just able to walk, there happened to be in Coketown a con- siderable population of babies who had been walking against time towards the infinite world, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years and more. Thgse portentous infants being alarming crea- tures to stalk about in any human society, the eighteen denominations incessantly scratched one another’s faces, and pulled one another’s hair, by way of agreeing on the steps to be taken for their improvement — which they never did ; a surprising circumstance, when the happy adap- tation of the means to the end is considered. Still, although they differed in every other par- ticular, conceivable and inconceivable (espe- cially inconceivable), they were pretty well united on the point that these unlucky infants were never to wonder. Body number one said, they must take everything on trust. Body number two said, they must take everything on political economy. Body number three wrote leaden little books for them, showing how the good grown-up baby invariably got to the Savings-bank, and the bad grown-up baby invariably got transported. Body number four, under dreary pretences of being droll (when it was very melancholy indeed), made the shallowest pretences of concealing pitfalls of knowledge, into which it was the duty of these babies to be smuggled and inveigled. But all the bodies agreed that they were never to wonder . — Hard Times , Book /., Chap. 8. EDUCATION— The misfortune of. It seemed that Tozer had a dreadful uncle, who not only volunteered examinations of him, in the holidays, on abstruse points, but twisted innocent events and things, and wrenched them to the same fell purpose. So that if this uncle took him to the Play, or, on a similar pretence of kindness, carried him to see a Giant, or a Dwarf, or a Conjuror, or anything, Tozer knew he had read up some classical allusion to the subject beforehand, and was thrown into a state of mortal apprehension : not foreseeing where he might break out, or what authority he might not quote against him. * % * * * Mr. Tozer, now a young man of lofty stature, in Wellington boots, was so extremely full of antiquity as to be nearly on a par with a genu- ine ancient Roman in his knowledge of En- glish : a triumph that affected his good parents with the tenderest emotions, and caused the father and mother of Mr. Briggs (whose learn- ing, like ill-arranged luggage, was so tightly packed that he couldn’t get at anything he wanted) to hide their diminished heads. The fruit laboriously gathered from the tree of knowledge by this latter young gentleman, in fact, had been subjected to so much pressure, that it had become a kind of intellectual Nor- folk Biffin, and had nothing oi its original form or flavor remaining . — Dombey Son, Chap. 6o. EDUCATION— Josiah Bounderby’s practi- cal. “ I was to pull through it, I suppose, Mrs. Gradgrind. Whether I was to do it or not, ma’am, I did it. I pulled through it, though nobody threw me out a rope. Vagabond, er- rand boy, vagabond, laborer, porter, clerk, chief manager, small partner, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Those are the antecedents and the culmination. Josiah Bounderby of Coketown learned his letters from the outsides of the shops, Mrs. Gradgrind, and was first able to tell the time upon a dial-plate, from studying the steeple- clock of St. Giles’s Church, London, under the direction of a drunken cripple, who was a con- victed thief, and an incorrigible vagrant. Tell Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, of your district schools, and your model schools, and your train- ing schools, and your whole kettle of-fish of schools ; and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown tells you plainly, all right, all correct — he hadn’t such advantages — but let us have hard-headed, solid-fisted people — the education that made him won’t do for everybody, he knows well — such and such his education was, however, and you EDUCATION 170 ELECTION may force him to swallow boiling fat, but you shall never force him to suppress the facts of his life.” — Hard Times , Book /., Chap. 4 EDUCATION— A perverted. For the same reason, that young man’s coarse allusions, even to himself, filled him with a stealthy glee ; causing him to rub his hands and chuckle covertly, as if he said in his sleeve, “/ taught him. I trained him. This is the heir of my bringing-up. Sly, cunning, and covetous, he’ll not squander my money. I worked for this ; .1 hoped for this ; it has been the great end and aim of my life.” What a noble end and aim it was to contem- plate in the attainment, truly ! But there be some who manufacture idols after the fashion of themselves, and fail to worship them when they are made ; charging their deformity on outraged nature. Anthony was better than these at any rate . — AI art in Chuzzlewit , Chap. 11. EDUCATION— Early —The alphabet. I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been a bramble-bush ; getting considerably wor- ried and scratched by every letter. After that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition. But, at last I began, in a purblind, groping way, to read, write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale. ***** I leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger, read him the whole letter. “ Astonishing 1 ” said Joe, when I had finished. “ You are a scholar.” “ How do you spell Gargery, Joe? ” I asked him, with modest patronage. “ I don’t spell it at all,” said Joe. “ But supposing you did ? ” “ It can' t be supposed,” said Joe. “ Tho’ I’m oncommon fond of reading, too.” “ Are you, Joe ? ” “ On-common. Give me,” said Joe, “ a good book, or a good newspaper, and sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord ! ” he continued, after rubbing his knees a little, “ when you do come to a J and a O, and says you, ‘ Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,’ how interest- ing reading is ! ” I derived from this, that Joe’s education, like steam, was yet in its infancy. Great Expectations , Chap. 7. EDUCATION- From A to Z. “ You aie oncommon in some things. You’re oncommon small. Likewise, you’re a oncom- mon scholar.” “ No ; I am ignorant and backward, Joe.” “ Well, Pip,” said Joe, “ be it so or be it son’t,' you must be a common scholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I should hope ! The king upon his throne, with his crown upon his ’ed, can’t sit and write his acts of Parliament in print, without having begun, when he were a unpro- moted prince, with the alphabet — ah!” added Joe, with a shake of the head that was full of meaning, “and begun at A too, and worked his way to Z. And / know what that is to do, though I can’t say I’ve exactly done it. Great Expectations , Chap. 7. EGOTISM. And again he said “ I)om bey and Son,” in exactly the same tone as before. Those three words conveyed the one idea of Mr. Dombey’s life. The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon were made to give them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float their ships ; rain- bows gave them promise of fair weather ; winds blew for or against their enterprises ; stars and planets circled in their orbits, to preserve in- violate a system of which they were the centre. Common abbreviations took new meanings in his eyes, and had sole reference to them : A. I), had no concern with Anno Domini, but stood for Anno Dombei — and Son. Dombey (Sr* Son , Chap. 1. ELECTION Mr. Weller at an. “ ‘ Oh, I know you,’ says the gen’l’m’n ; ‘ know’d you when you was a boy,’ says he. — ‘ Well, I don’t remember you,’ says my father — ‘ That’s very odd,’ says the genTm’n — ‘ Werry,’ says my father — 4 You must have a bad mem’ry, Mr. Weller,’ says the genTm’n — ‘Well, it is a werry bad ’un,’ says my father — 4 1 thought so,’ says the genTm’n. So then they pours him out a glass of wine, and gammons him about his driving, and gets him into a reg’lar good humor, and at last shoves a twenty-pound note in his hand. 4 It’s a werry bad road between this and London,’ says the genTm’n — 4 Here and there' it is a heavy road,’ says my father — 4 Specially near the canal, I think,’ says the genTm’n — 4 Nasty bit that ’ere,’ says my father — 4 Well, Mr. Weller,’ says the genTm’n, ‘you’re a wery good whip, and can do what you like with your horses, we know. We’re all wery fond o’ you, Mr. Weller, so in case you should have an accident when you’re a bringing these here woters down, and should tip ’em over into the canal vithout hurtin’ of ’em, this is for yourself,’ says he — 4 GenTm’n, you’re wery kind,’ says my father, 4 and I’ll drink your health in another glass of wine,’ says he ; which he did, and then buttons up the money, and bows himself out. You wouldn’t believe, sir,” continued Sam, with a look of inexpressible impudence at his master, 44 that on the wery day as he came down with them woters, his coach was upset on that ’ere wery spot, and ev’ry man on ’em was turned into the canal.” 44 And got out again ?” inquired Mr. Pickwick, hastily. 44 Why,” replied Sam, very slowly, 44 1 rather think one old genTm’n was missin’ ; I know his hat was found, but I a’n’t quite certain whether his head was in it or not. But what I look at, is the hex-traordinary and wonderful coinci- dence, that arter what that genTm’n said, my father’s coach should be upset in that wery place, and on that wery day ! ” Pickwick , Chap. 13. ELECTION A public ; the devotion of par- ty. “ Ah,” said Mr. Pickwick, 44 do they seem de- voted to their party, Sam?” “ Never see such dewotion in my life, sir.” 44 Energetic, eh?” said Mr. Pickwick. “Uncommon,” replied Sam; “I never see men eat and drink so much afore. I wonder they a’n’t afeer’d o’ bustin.” ELECTION 171 EMIGHANT SHIP “ That's the mistaken kindness of the gentry here,” said Mr. Pickwick. “ Wery likely,” replied Sam, briefly. “ Fine, fresh, hearty fellows they seem,” said Mr. Pickwick, glancing from the window. “Wery fresh,” replied Sam; “me, and the two waiters at the Peacock, has been a pumpin’ over the independent woters as supped there last night.” “ Pumping over independent voters ! ” ex- claimed Mr. Pickwick. “Yes,” said his attendant, “every man slept vere he fell down ; we dragged ’em out, one by one, this morn in’, and put ’em under the pump, and they’re in reg’lar fine order, now. Shillin’ a head the committee paid for that ’ere job.” “Can such things be !” exclaimed the aston- ished Mr. Pickwick. “ Lord bless your heart, sir,” said Sam, “ why, where was you half baptized? — that’s nothin’, that a’nt.” “Nothing?” said Mr. Pickwick. “Nothin’ at all, sir,” replied his attendant. “ The night afore the last day o’ the last election here, the opposite party bribed the bar maid at the Town Arms, to hocus the brandy and water of fourteen unpolled electors as was a stoppin’ in the house.” “What do you mean by ‘hocussing’ brandy and water?” inquired Mr. Pickwick. “ Puttin’ laud’num in it,” replied Sam. “Blessed if she didn’t send ’em all to sleep till twelve hours arter the election was over. They took one man up to the booth, in a truck, fast asleep, by way of experiment, but it was no go — they wouldn’t poll him ; so they brought him back, and put him to bed again.” Pickwick , Chap. 13. ELECTION— A spirited. “And what are the probabilities as to the result of the contest ? w inquired Mr. Pickwick. “ Why, doubtful, my dear sir ; rather doubtful as yet,” replied the little man. “ Fizkin’s peo- ple have got three-and-thirty voters in the lock- up coach-house at the White Hart.” “In the coach-house ! ” said Mr. Pickwick, considerably astonished by this second stroke of policy. “ They keep ’em locked up there till they want ’em,” resumed the little man. “ The effect ol that is, you see, to prevent our getting at them ; and even if we could, it would be of no use, for they keep them very drunk on pur- pose. Smart fellow Fizkin’s agent — very smart fellow indeed.” Mr. Pickwick stared, but said nothing. “We are pretty confident, though,” said Mr. Perker, sinking his voice almost to a whisper. “ We had a little tea-party here, last night — five- and-forty women, my dear sir — and gave every one of ’em a green parasol when she went away.” “ A parasol ! ” said Mr. Pickwick. “Fact, my dear sir, fact. Five-and-forty green parasols, at seven and sixpence a-piece. All women like finery, — extraordinary the effect of those parasols. Secured all their husbands, and half their brothers — beats stockings and flannel, and all that sort of thing hollow. My idea, my dear sir, entirely. Hail, rain, or sun- shine, you can’t walk half a dozen yards up the street, without encountering half a dozen green parasols.” — Pickwick , Chap. 13. ELECTION CANDIDATES. Mr. Horatio Fizkin, and the honorable Sam- uel Slumkey, with their hands upon their hearts, were bowing with the utmost affability to the troubled sea of heads that inundated the open space in front ; and from whence arose a storm of groans, and shouts, and yells, and hootings, that would have done honor to an earthquake. Pickvjick y Chap. 13. EMIGRANT SHIP. Gigantic in the basin just beyond the church looms my Emigrant Ship, her name, the Ama- zon. Her figure-head is not ffwfigured, as those beauteous founders of the race of strong-minded women are fabled to have been, for the conve- nience of drawing the bow ; but I sympathize with the carver : — “ A flattering carver, who made it his care To carve busts as they ought to be,— not as they were.” My Emigrant Ship lies broadside on-to the wharf* Two great gangvvays made of spars and planks connect her with the wharf ; and up and down these gangways; perpetually crowding to and fro and in and out, like ants, are the Emigrants who are going to sail in my Emigrant Ship. Some with cabbages, some with loaves of bread, some with cheese and butter, some with milk and beer, some with boxes, beds, and bundles, some with babies — nearly all with children — nearly all with bran-new tin cans for their daily allowance of water, uncomfortably suggestive of a tin flavor in the drink. To and fro, up and down, aboard and ashore, swarming here and there and everywhere, my Emigrants. And still, as the Dock Gate swings upon its hinges, cabs appear, and carts appear, and vans appear, bringing more of my Emigrants, with more cabbages, more loaves, more cheese and butter, more milk and beer, more boxes, beds, and bundles, more tin cans, and on those shipping investments accumulated compound interest of children. I go aboard my Emigrant Ship. I go first to the great cabin, and find it in the usual condi- tion of a cabin at that pass. Perspiring lands- men, with loose papers, and with pens and ink- stands, pervade it ; and the general appearance of things is as if the late Mr. Amazon’s funeral had just come home from the cemetery, and the disconsolate Mrs. Amazon’s trustees found the affairs in great disorder, and were looking high and low for the will. I go out on the poop- deck for air, and, surveying the emigrants on the deck below (indeed they are crowded all about me, up there too), find more pens and inkstands in action, and more papers, and inter- minable complications respecting accounts with individuals for tin cans and what not. But no- body is in an ill-temper, nobody is the worse for drink, nobody swears an oath or uses a coarse word, nobody appears depressed, nobody is weeping ; and down upon the deck, in every corner where it is possible to find a few square feet to kneel, crouch, or lie in, people in every unsuitable attitude for writing are writing letters. Now, I have seen emigrant ships before this day in June. And these people are so strikingly different from all other people in like circum- stances whom I have ever seen, that I wonder aloud, “What would a stranger suppose these emigrants to be !” EMIGRANTS 172 ENERGY The vigilant, bright face of the weather- browned captain of the Amazon is at my shoul- der, and he says: “What, indeed ! The most of these came aboard yesterday evening. They came from various parts of England in small parties that had never seen one another before. Yet they had not been a couple of hours on board when they established their own police, made their own regulations, and set their own watches at all the hatchways. Before nine o’clock the ship was as orderly and- as quiet as * a man-of-war.” I looked about me again, and saw the letter- writing going on with the most curious com- posure. Perfectly abstracted in the midst of the crowd ; while great casks were swinging aloft, and being lowered into the hold ; while hot agents were hurrying up and down, adjust- ing the interminable accounts ; while two hun- dred strangers were searching everywhere for two hundred other strangers, and were asking questions about them of two hundred more ; while the children played up and down all the steps, and in and out among all the people’s legs, and were beheld, to the general dismay, toppling over all the dangerous places, — the letter-writers wrote on calmly. On the star- board side of the ship a grizzled man dictated a long letter to another grizzled man in an im- mense fur cap ; which letter was of so profound a quality, that it became necessary for the amanuensis at intervals to take off his fur cap in both his hands, for the ventilation of his brain, and stare at him who dictated, as a man of many mysteries, who was worth looking at. On the larboard side a woman had covered a belaying-pin with a white cloth, to make a neat desk of it, and was sitting on a little box, writ- ing with the deliberation of a bookkeeper. Down upon her breast on the planks of the deck at this woman's feet, with her head diving in under a beam of the bulwarks on that side, as an eligible place of refuge for her sheet of paper, a neat and pretty girl wrote for a good hour (she fainted at last), only rising to the sur- face occasionally for a dip of ink. Alongside the boat, close to me on the poop-deck, another girl, a fresh," well-grown country girl, was writ- ing another letter on the bare deck. Later in the day, when this self-same boat was filled with a choir who sang glees and catches for a long time, one of the singers, a girl, sang her part mechanically all the while, and wrote a letter in the bottom of the boat while doing so. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. ig. EMIGRANTS— On ship-board. There were English people, Irish people, Welsh people, and Scotch people there ; all with their little store of coarse food and shabby clothes ; and nearly all, with their families of children. There were children of all ages ; from the baby at the breast to the slattern-girl who was as much a grown woman as her mother. Every kind of domestic suffering that is bred in poverty, illness, banishment, sorrow, and long travel in bad weather, was crammed into the lit lie space ; and yet was there infinitely less of complaint and querulousness, and infinitely more of mutual assistance and general kindness to be found in that unwholesome ark, than in many brilliant ball-rooms. Mark looked about him wistfully, and his face brightened as he looked. Here an old grand- mother was crooning over a sick child, and rock- ing it to and fro, in arms hardly more wasted than its own young limbs ; here a poor woman with an infant in her lap, mended another little creature’s clothes, and quieted another who was creeping up about her from their scanty bed upon the floor. Here were old men awkwardly engaged in little household offices, wherein they would have been ridiculous but for their good- will and kind purpose ; and here were swarthy fellows— giants in their way — doing such little acts of tenderness for those about them, as might have belonged to gentlest-hearted dwarfs. The very idiot in the corner who sat mowing there all day, had his faculty of imitation roused by what he saw about him ; and snapped his fin- gers, to amuse a crying child. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 15. EMBRACE— An earnest. You never will derive so much delight from seeing a glorious little woman in the arms of a third party, as you would have felt if you had seen Dot run into the Carrier’s embrace. It was the most complete, unmitigated, soul-fraught little piece of earnestness that ever you beheld in all your days. Cricket on the Hearth , Chap. 3. EMBRACE— An; likened to the path of virtue. By-and-by, I noticed Wemmick’s arm begin- ning to disappear again, and gradually fading out of view. Shortly afterward, his mouth be- gan to widen again. After an interval of sus- pense on my part that was quite enthralling and almost painful, I saw his hand appear on the other side of Miss Skiffins. Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped it with the neatness of a placid boxer, took off that girdle or cestus as before, and laid it on the table. Taking the table to represent the path of virtue, I am justified in stating that during the whole time of the Aged’s reading, Wemmick’s arm was straying from the path of virtue and being recalled to it by Miss Skiffins. — Great Expectations, Chap. 37. EMBRACE- An. “ A fraternal railing.” Little Dorrit , Book II., Chap. 14. ENTHUSIASM. “ We are all enthusiastic, are we not, Mam- ma? ” said Edith, wuth a cold smile. “ Too much so for our peace, perhaps, my dear,” returned her mother; “but we won’t complain. Our own emotions are our recom- pense. If, as your cousin Feenix says, the sword wears out the what’s-its-name — ” “ The scabbard, perhaps,” -said Edith. “ Exactly— a little too fast, it is because it is bright and glowing, you know, my dearest love.” Dombey & Ion, Chap. 27. ENERGY. “ Then idiots talk,” said Eugene, leaning back, folding his arms, smoking with his eyes shut, and speaking slightly through his nose, “ of Energy. If there is a word in the dictionary under any letter from A to Z that I abominate, it is energy. It is such a conventional supersti- tion, such parrot gabble ! What the deuce ! Am ENGLISHMEN 173 EVENING I to rush out into the street, collar the first man of a wealthy appearance that I meet, shake him, and say, ‘ Go to law upon the spot, you dog, and retain me, or I’ll be the death of you ? ’ Yet that would be energy.” Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap. 3. ENGLISHMEN— As travellers. We left Philadelphia by steamboat at six o’clock one very cold morning* and turned our faces towards Washington. In the course of this day’s journey, as on sub- sequent occasions, we encountered some Eng- lishmen (small farmers, perhaps, or country publicans at home) who were settled in America, and were travelling on their own affairs. Of all grades and kinds of men that jostle one in the public conveyances of the States, these are often the most intolerable and the most insufferable companions. United to every disagreeable characteristic that the worst kind of American travellers possess, these countrymen of ours dis- play an amount of insolent conceit and cool as- sumption of superiority quite monstrous to behold. In the coarse familiarity of their ap- proach, and the effrontery of their inquisitive- ness (which they are in great haste to assert, as if they panted to revenge themselves upon the decent old restraints of home), they surpass any native specimens that came within my range of observation ; and I often grew so patriotic, w r hen I saw and heard them, that I would cheer- fully have submitted to a reasonable fine, if I could have given any other country in the whole world the honor of claiming them for its chil- dren. — American Notes , Chap. 8. EPIDEMICS— Moral. That it is at least as difficult to stay a moral infection as a physical one ; that such a disease will spread with the malignity and rapidity of the Plague ; that the contagion, when it has once made head, will spare no pursuit or condi- tion, but will lay hold on people in the soundest health, and become developed in the most un- likely constitutions, is a fact as firmly established by experience as that we human creatures breathe an atmosphere. A blessing beyond ap- preciation would be conferred upon mankind, if the tainted, in whose weakness or wickedness these virulent disorders are bred, could be in- stantly seized and placed in close confinement (not to say summarily smothered) before the poison is communicable. * * * * * Bred at first, as many physical diseases are, in the wickedness of men, and then disseminated in their ignorance, these epidemics, after a period, get communicated to many sufferers who are neither ignorant nor wicked. Mr. Pancks might or might not have caught the illness him- self from a subject of this class ; but, in this category he appeared before Clennam, and the infection he threw off was all the more virulent. Little Dorr it, Book II., Chap. 13. EPITHET— Definition of an. A very common imprecation concerning the most beautiful of human features : which, if it were heard above, only once out of every fifty thousand times that it is uttered below, would render blindness as common a disorder as measles. — Oliver Twist, Chap. 16. ESSAY— Pott’s mode of preparing- an. “ They appeared in the form of a copious re- view of a work on Chinese metaphysics, sir,” said Pott. “ Oh,” observed Mr. Pickwick ; “ from your pen, I hope?” “From the pen of my critic, sir,” rejoined Pott, with dignity. “ An abstruse subject, I should conceive,” said Mr. Pickwick. “Very, sir,” responded Pott, looking in- tensely sage. “ He crammed for it, to use a technical but expressive term ; he read up for the subject, at my desire, in the Encyclopcedia Bi itannica.” “ Indeed ! ” said Mr. Pickwick ; “ I was not aware that that valuable work contained any information respecting Chinese metaphysics.” “ He read, sir,” rejoined Pott, laying his hand on Mr. Pickwick’s knee, and looking around with a smile of intellectual superiority, “ he read for metaphysics under the letter M, and for China under the letter C, and combined his information, sir ! ” — Pickwick, Chap. 51. ETERNITY. Alas, alas ! that the few bubbles on the sur- face of eternity — all that Heaven wills we should see of that dark, deep Stream — should be so lightly scattered ! — Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 6. EVIDENCE-Of a witness. I remember, too, how hard her mistress was upon her (she was a servant of all work), and with what a cruel pertinacity that piece of Vir- tue spun her thread of evidence double by in- tertwisting it with the sternest thread of con- struction. — Uncommercial Traveller, Chap. 18. EVIDENCE— Circumstantial. In his lay capacity, he persisted in sitting down in the' damp to such an insane extent, that when his coat was taken off to be dried at the kitchen fire, the circumstantial evidence on his trousers would have hanged him if it had been a capital offence. — Great Expectations, Chap. 6. EVENING— The influences of a summer. No doubt there are a great many things to be said appropriate to a summer evening, and no doubt they are best said in a low voice, as being most suitable to the peace and serenity of the hour ; long pauses, too, at times, and then an earnest word or so, and then another interval of silence, which, somehow, does not seem like silence, either ; and perhaps now and then a hasty turning away of the head, or droop- ing of the eyes towards the ground, all these minor circumstances, with a disinclination to have candles introduced and a tendency to con- fuse hours with minutes, are doubtless mere in- fluences of the time, as many lovely lips can clearly testify. — Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 49. EVENING— A summer Sunday. It was a hot summer Sunday evening. The residence in the centre of the habitable globe, at all times stuffed and close as if it had an in- curable cold in its head, was that evening par- ticularly stifling. The bells of the churches had done their worst in the way of clanging among the unmelodious echoes of the streets, and the lighted windows of the churches had EVENING 174 EXAGGERATION ceased to be yellow in the gray dusk, and had died out opaque black. Little Dorrit , Book //., Chap. 24. EVENING -In the city. The City looked unpromising enough, as Bella made her way along its gritty streets. Most of its money-mills were slackening sail, or had left off grinding for the day. The mas- ter-millers had already departed, and the jour- neymen were departing. There was a jaded aspect on the business lanes and courts, and the very pavements had a weary appearance, confused by the tread of a million of feet. There must be hours of night to temper down the day’s distraction of so feverish a place. As yet the worry of the newlv-stopped whirling and grinding on the part of the money -mills seemed to linger in the air, and the quiet was more like the prostration of a spent giant than the repose of one who was renewing his strength. Our Mutual Friend , Book III. , Chap. 16. EVENING -in London— A dusty. A gray, dusty, withered evening in London city has not a hopeful aspect. The closed warehouses and offices have an air of death about them, and the national dread of color has an air of mourning. The towers and steeples of the many house-encompassed churches, dark and dingy as the sky that seems descending on them, are no relief to the general gloom ; a sun-dial on a church wall has the look, in its useless black shade, of hav- ing failed in its business enterprise and stopped payment forever ; melancholy waifs and strays of housekeepers and porters sweep melancholy waifs and strays of papers and pins into the kennels, and other more melancholy waifs and strays explore them, searching and stooping and poking for anything to sell. Our Mutual Friend , Book //., Chap. 15. EVENING— In the spring-time. It was a lovely evening, in the spring-time of the year ; and in the soft stillness of the twi- light, all nature was very calm and beautiful. The day had been fine and warm ; but at the coming on of night the air grew cool, and in the mellowing distance, smoke was rising gently from the cottage chimneys. There were a thou- sand pleasant scents diffused around, from young leaves and fresh buds ; the cuckoo had been singing all day long, and was but just now hushed ; the smell of earth newly upturned, first breath of hope to the first laborer, after his gar- den withered, was fragrant in the evening breeze. It was a time when most men cherish good re- solves, and sorrow for the wasted past ; when most men, looking on the shadows, as they gather, think of that evening which must close on all, and that to-morrow which has none be- yond. — Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 20. EVENING-An autumn. A moment, and its glory was no more. The sun went down beneath the long dark lines, of hill and cloud which piled up in the west an airy city, wall heaped on wall, and battlement on battlement ; the light was all withdrawn ; the shining church turned cold and dark ; the stream forgot to smile ; the birds were silent ; and the gloom of winter dwelt on everything An evening wind uprose too, and the slighter branches cracked and rattled as they moved, in skeleton dances, to its moaning music. The withering leaves, no longer quiet, hurried to and fro, in search of shelter from its chill pursuit ; the laborer unyoked his horses, and with head bent down, trudged briskly home beside them ; and from the cottage windows lights began to glance and wink upon the darkening fields. Then the village forge came out in all its bright importance. The lusty bellows roared Ha, ha ! to the clear fire, which roared in turn, and bade the shining sparks dance gaily to the merry«clinking of the hammers on the anvil. The gleaming iron, in its emulation, sparkled too, and shed its red-hot gems around profusely. The strong smith and his men dealt such strokes upon iheir work as made even the melancholy night rejoice, and brought a glow into its dark face as it hovered about the door and windows, peeping curiously in above the shoulders of a dozen loungers. As to this idle company, there they stood, spell-bound by the place, and, cast- ing now and then a glance upon the darkness in their rear, settled their lazy elbows more at ease upon the sill, and leaned a little further in : no more disposed to tear themselves away, than if they had been born to cluster round the blaz- ing hearth like so many crickets. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 2. EXAGGERATION -Of Caleb Plummer. “ So you were out in the rain last night, father, in your beautiful new great-coat,” said Caleb’s daughter. “ In my beautiful new great-coat,” answered Caleb, glancing towards a clothes-line in the room, on which the sackcloth garment, previous- ly described, was carefully hung up to dry. “ How glad I am you bought it, father!” “ And of such a tailor, too,” said Caleb. “ Quite a fashionable tailor. It’s too good for me.” The Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed with delight. “Too good, father! What can be too good for you?” “ I’m half ashamed to wear it though,” said Caleb, watching the effect of what he said, upon her brightening face, “upon my word ! When I hear the boys and people say behind me, ‘ Hal-loa ! Here’s a swell ! ’ I don’t know which way to look. And when the beggar wouldn’t go away last night ; and, when I said I was a very common man, said ‘No, your Honor! Bless your Honor, don’t say that !’ I was quite ashamed. I really felt as if I hadn’t a right to wear it.” Happy Blind Girl ! How merry she was in her exultation ! “ I see you, father,” she said, clasping her hands, “ as plainly, as if I had the eyes I never want when you are with me. A blue coat — ” “ Bright blue,” said Caleb. “ Yes, yes ! Bright blue ! ” exclaimed the girl, turning up her radiant face ; “ the color I can just remember in the blessed sky ! You told me it was blue before ! A bright blue coat — ” “ Made loose to the figure,” suggested Caleb. “Yes! loose to the figure!” cried the Blind Girl, laughing heartily; “and in it, you, dear father, with your merry eye, your smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair — looking so young and handsome 1” EXECUTION 175 EXECUTION “ Halloa ! Halloa ! ” said Caleb. “ I shall be vain, presently.” “/ think you are, already,” cried the Blind Girl, pointing at him, in her glee. “ I know you, father] Ha, ha, ha! I’ve found you out, you see ! ” H ow different the picture in her mind, from Caleb, as he sat observing her ! She had spoken of his free step. She was right in that. For years and years, he had never once crossed that threshold at his own slow pace, but with a foot- fall counterfeited for her ear ; and never had he, when his heart was heaviest, forgotten the light tread that was to render hers so cheerful and courageous ! Heaven knows ! But I think Caleb’s vague bewilderment of manner may have half origin- ated in his having confused himself about him- self and everything around him, for the love of his Blind Daughter. How could the little man be otherwise than bewildered, after laboring for so many years to destroy his own identity, and that of all the objects that had any bearing on it? “ There we are,” said Caleb, falling back a pace or two to form the better judgment of his work ; “ as near the real thing as sixpenn’orth of halfpence is to sixpence. What a pity that the whole front of the house opens at once ! If there was only a staircase in it, now, and regu- lar doors to the rooms to go in at ! But that’s the worst of my calling, I’m always deluding myself, and swindling myself.” “You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired, father?” “ Tired,” echoed Caleb, with a great burst of animation, “what should tire me, Bertha? /was never tired. What does it mean?” To give the greater force to his words, he checked himself in an involuntary imitation of two half-length stretching and yawning figures on the mantel-shelf, who were represented as in one eternal State of weariness from the waist upwards ; and hummed a fragment of a song. It was a Bacchanalian song, something about a Sparkling Bowl. He sang it with an assump- tion of a Devil-may-care voice, that made his face a thousand times more meagre and more thoughtful than ever. Cricket on the Hearth , Chap. 2. EXECUTION— The gallows. The time wore on. The noises in the streets became less frequent by degrees, until silence was scarcely broken save by the bells in church towers, marking the progress — softer and more stealthy while the city slumbered — of that Great Watcher with the hoary head, who never sleeps or rests. In the brief interval of darkness and repose which feverish towns enjoy, all busy sounds were hushed ; and those who awoke from dreams lay listening in their beds, and longed for dawn, and wished the dead of the night were past. Into the street outside the jail’s main wall, workmen came straggling at this solemn hour, in groups of two or three, and meeting in the centre, cast their tools upon the ground and spoke in whispers. Others soon issued from the jail itself, bearing on their shoulders planks and beams ; these materials being all brought forth, the rest bestirred themselves, and the dull sound of hammers began to echo through the still- ness. Here and there among this knot of laborers, one, with a lantern or a smoky link, stood by to light his fellows at their work ; and by its doubt- ful aid, some might be dimly seen taking up the pavement of the road, while others held great upright posts, or fixed them in the holes thus made for their reception. Some dragged slowly on towards the rest an empty cart, which they brought rumbling from the prison yard ; while others erected strong barriers across the street. All were busily engaged. Their dusky figures moving to and fro, at that unusual hour, so active and so silent, might have been taken for those of shadowy creatures toiling at midnight on some ghostly, unsubstantial work, which, like themselves, would vanish with the first gleam of day, and leave but morning mist and vapor. While it was yet dark, a few lookers-on col- lected, who had plainly come there for the pur- pose and intended to remain : even those who had to pass the spot on their way to some other place, lingered yet, as though the attraction of that were irresistible. Meanwhile the noise of saw and mallet went on briskly, mingled with the clattering of boards on the stone pavement of the road; and sometimes with the workmen's voices as they called to one another. Whenever the chimes of the neighboring church were heard — and that was every quarter of an hour — a strange sensation, instantaneous and indescrib- able, but perfectly obvious, seemed to pervade them all. Gradually a faint brightness appealed in the east, and the air, which had been very warm all through the night, felt cool and chilly. Though there was no daylight yet, the darkness was diminished, and the stars looked pale. The prison, which had been a mere black mass with little shape or form, put on its usual aspect ; and ever and anon a solitary watchman could be seen upon its roof, stopping to look down upon the preparations in the street. This man, from formifig, as it were, a part of the jail, and know- ing, or being supposed to know, all that was passing within, became an object of as much interest, and was as eagerly looked for, and as awfully pointed out, as if he had been a spirit. By-and-bye, the feeble light grew stronger, and the houses, with their sign boards and inscrip- tions, stood plainly out, in the dull gray morning. Heavy stage wagons crawled from the inn-yard opposite, and travellers peeped out ; and as they rolled sluggishly away, cast many a back- ward look towards the jail. And now the sun’s first beams came glancing into the street ; and the night’s work, which, in its various stages and in the varied fancies of the lookers-on had taken a hundred shapes, wore its own proper form — a scaffold and a gibbet. As the warmth of cheerful day began to shed itself upon the scanty crowd, the murmur of tongues was heard, shutters were thrown open and blinds drawn up, and those who had slept in rooms over against the prison, where places to see the execution were let at high prices, rose hastily from their beds. In some of the houses, people were busy taking out the window sashes for the better accommodation of spectators ; in others, the spectators were already seated, and beguiling the time with cards, or drinks, or jokes among themselves. Some had purchased seats upon the house-tops, and were already crawling EXECUTION 170 EXECUTION to their stations from parapet and garret win- dow. Some were yet bargaining for good places, and stood in them in a slate of indecision ; gazing at the slowly-swelling crowd, and at the workmen as they rested listlessly against the scaffold — affecting to listen with indifference to the proprietor’s eulogy of the commanding view his house afforded, and the surpassing cheapness of his terms. A fairer morning never shone. From the roofs and upper storie.s of these buildings, the spires of city churches and the great cathedral dome were visible, rising up beyond the prison, into the blue sky, and clad in the color of light summer clouds, and showing in the clear atmos- phere their every scrap of tracery and fret-work, and every niche and -loophole. All was bright- ness and promise, excepting in the street below, into which (for it yet lay in shadow) the eye looked down as into a dark trench, where, in the midst of so much life, and hope, and re- newal of existence, stood the terrible instrument of death. It seemed as if the very sun forebore to look upon it. But it was better, grim and sombre in the shade, than when, the day being more advanced, it stood confessed in the full glare and glory of the sun, with its black paint blistering, and its nooses dangling in the light like loathsome gar- lands. It was better in the solitude and gloom of midnight, with a few forms clustering about it, than in the freshness and the stir of morning, the centre of an eager crowd. It was better haunting the street like a spectre, when men were in their beds, and influencing perchance the city’s dreams, than braving the broad day, and thrusting its obscene presence upon their waking senses. Five o’clock had struck — six — seven — and eight. Along the two main streets at either end of the cross-way, a living stream had now set in, rolling towards the marts of gain and business. Carts, coaches, wagons, trucks, and barrows, forced a passage through the outskirts of the throng, and clattered onward in the same direc- tion. Some of these, which were public convey- ances and had come from a short distance in the country, stopped ; and the driver pointed to the gibbet with his whip, though he might have spared himself the pains, for the heads of all the passengers were turned that way without his help, and the coach windows were stuck full of staring eyes. In some of the carts and wagons, women might be seen, glancing fearfully at the same unsightly thing ; and even little children were held up above the people’s heads to see what kind of toy a gallows was, and learn how men were hanged. Two rioters were to die before the prison, who had been concerned in the attack upon it ; and one directly afterwards in Bloomsbury Square. * -x- -x- * -x- As the hour approached, a buzz and hum arose, which, deepening every moment, soon swelled into a roar, and seemed to fill the air. No words or even voices could be distinguished in this clamor, nor did they speak much to each other ; though such as were better informed upon the topic than the rest, would tell their neighbors, perhaps, that they might know the hangman when he came out, by his being the shorter one: and that the man who was to suffer with him was named Hugh: and that it was Barnaby Kudge who would be hanged in Bloomsbury Square. The hum grew, as the time drew near, so loud, that those who were at the windows could not hear the church-clock strike, though it was close at, hand. Nor had they any need to hear it, either, for they could see it in the people’s faces. So surely as another quarter chimed, there was a movement in the crowd — as if something had passed over it — as if the light upon them had been changed — in which the fact was readable as on a brazen dial, figured by a giant’s hand. Three quarters past eleven ! The murmur now was deafening, yet every man seemed mute. Look where you would among the crowd, you saw strained eyes and lips compressed ; it would have been difficult for the most vigilant observer to point this way or that, and say that yonder man had cried out. It were as easy to detect the motion of lips in a sea-shell. Three quarters past eleven! Many specta- tors who had retired from the windows came back refreshed, as though their watch had just begun. Those who had fallen asleep roused themselves ; and every person in the crowd made one last effort to better his position — which caused a press against the sturdy barriers that made them bend and yield like twigs. The officers, who until now had kept together, fell into their several positions, and gave the words of command. Swords were drawn, mus- kets shouldered, and the bright steel, winding its way among the crowd, gleamed and glittered in the sun like a river. Along this shining path two men came hurrying on, leading a horse, which was speedily harnessed to the cart at the prison door. Then, a profound silence replaced the tumult that had so long been gathering, and a breathless pause ensued. Every window was now choked up with heads ; the house-tops teem- ed with people — clinging to chimneys, peering over gable-ends, and holding on where the sud- den loosening of any brick or stone would dash them down into the street. The church-tower, the church-roof, the church-yard, the prison- leads, the very water-spouts and lamp-posts — every inch of room — swarmed with human life. At the first stroke of twelve the prison-bell began to toll. Then the roar — mingled now with cries of “ Hats off ! ” and “ Poor fellows ! ” and, from some specks in the great concourse, with a shriek or groan— burst forth again. It was terrible to see — if any one in that distrac- tion of excitement could have seen — the world of eager eyes, all strained upon the scaffold and the beam. — Barnaby Rudge , Chap. 77. EXECUTION OF FAGIN— Hours preced- ing- the. Pie sat down on a stone bench opposite the door, which served for scat and bedstead ; and casting his bloodshot eyes upon the ground, tried to collect his thoughts. After a while, he began to remember a few disjointed fragments of what the judge had said : though it had seemed to him, at the time, that he could not hear a word. These gradually fell into their proper places, and by degrees suggested more : so that in a little time he had the whole, almost as it was delivered. To be hanged by the neck, till he was dead — that w'as the end. To be hanged by the neck till he was dead. EXECUTION 177 EXPRESSION As it came on very dark, he began to tfrink of all the men he had known who had died upon the scaffold ; some of them through his means. They rose up in such quick succession, that he could hardly count them. He had seen some of them die — and had joked, too, because they died with prayers upon their lips. With what a rattling noise the drop went down ; and how suddenly they changed, from strong and vigorous men to dangling heaps of clothes ! Some of them might have inhabited that very cell — sat upon that very spot. It was very dark; why didn’t they bring a light? The cell had been built for many years. Scores of men must have passed their last hours there. It was like sitting in a vault strewn with dead bodies — the cap, the noose, the pinioned arms, the faces that he knew, even beneath that hid- eous veil. — Light, light ! At length, when- his hands were raw with beating against the heavy door and walls, two men appeared : one bearing a candle, which he thrust into an iron candlestick fixed against the wall : the other dragging in a mattress on which to pass the night ; for the pfrisoner was to be left alone no more. Then came night — dark, dismal, silent night. Other watchers are glad to hear the church- clocks strike, for they tell of life and coming day. To the Jew they brought despair. The boom of every iron bell came laden with the one, deep, hollow sound — Death. What availed the noise and bustle of cheerful morning, which penetrated even there, to him ? It was another form of knell, with mockery added to the warn- ing. The day passed off — day ! — there was no day ; it was gone as soon as come — and night came on again ; night so long, and yet so short ; long in its dreadful silence, and short in its fleet- ing hours. At one time he raved and blas- phemed, and at another howled and tore his hair. Venerable men of his own persuasion had come to pray beside him, but he had driven them away with curses. They renewed their charitable efforts, and he beat them off. Saturday night. He had only one night more to live. And as he thought of this, the day broke — Sunday. It was not until the night of this last awful day, that a withering sense of his helpless, des- perate state came in its full intensity upon his blighted soul'; not that he had ever held any defined or positive hope of mercy, but that he had never been able to consider more than the dim probability of dying so soon. He had spoken little to either of the tw r o men who re- lieved each other in their attendance upon him , and they, for their parts, made no effort to rouse his attention. He had sat there, awake, but dreaming. Now, he started up, every min- ute, and with gasping mouth and burning skin, hurried to and fro, in such a paroxysm of fear and wrath that even they — used to such sights — recoiled from him with horror. He grew so terrible, at last, in all the tortures of his evil conscience, that one man could not bear to sit there, eying him alone ; and so the two kept watch together. He cowered down upon his stone bed, and thought of the past. He had been wounded with some missiles from the crowd on the day of his capture, and his head was bandaged with a linen cloth. His red hair hung down upon his bloodless face ; his beard was torn, and twisted into knots ; his eyes shone with a terrible light ; his unwashed flesh crackled with the fever that burnt him up. Eight — nine — ten. If it was not a trick to frighten him, and those were the real hours treading on each other’s heels, where would he be when they came round again ? Eleven ! Another struck before the voice of the previous hour had ceased to vibrate. At eight, he would be the only mourner in his own funeral train ; at eleven — Those dreadful walls of Newgate, which have hidden so much misery and such unspeakable anguish, not only from the eyes, but, too often, and too long, from the thoughts, of men, never held so dread a spectacle as that. The few who lingered as they passed, and wondered what the man was doing who was to be hung to-morrow, would have slept but ill that night, if they could have seen him. $ $ $ ^ $ A great multitude had already assembled ; the windows were-filled with people, smoking and playing cards to beguile the time ; the crowd were pushing, quarrelling, and joking. Everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects in the very centre of all — the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all the hideous apparatus of death. Oliver Twist, Chap. 52. EXCITEMENT— Mental. His little black eyes sparkled electrically. His very hair seemed to sparkle, as he rough- ened it. He was in that highly- charged state that one might have expected to draw sparks and snaps from him by presenting a knuckle to any part of his figure. Little Dorrit, Book /., Chap. 32. EXPECTORATION- In America. Chollop sat smoking and improving the cir- cle, without making any attempts either to con- verse, or to take leave ; apparently laboring un- der the not uncommon delusion, that for a free and enlightened citizen of the United States to convert another man’s house into a spittoon for two or three hours together, was a delicate at- tention, full of interest and politeness, of which nobody could ever tire. Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 33. EXPRESSION— A triumphant. The hard-headed man looked triumphantly round, as if he had been very much contradicted by somebody, but had got the better of him at last. — Pickwick , Chap. 6. EXPRESSION— A fierce. The old lady, quite unconscious that she had spoken above a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives at the hard-headed delin- quent. — Pickwick , Chap. 6. EXPRESSION— Of feature (Joe). “ Supper’s ready, sir,” was the prompt reply. “Have you just come here, sir?” inquired Mr. Tupman, with a piercing look. “Just,” replied the fat boy. Mr. Tupman looked at him very hard again ; but there was not a wink in his eye, or a curve EXPRESSION 178 EYE3 in liis face ; there was not a gleam of mirth, or anything but (ceding in his whole visage. Pickwick , Chap. 8. EXPRESSION- An unhappy. Mr. Winkle responded with a forced smile, and took up the spare gun with an expression of countenance which a metaphysical rook, im- pressed .with a foreboding of his approaching death by violence, may be supposed to assume. It might have been keenness, but it looked re- markably like misery. — Pickwick , Chap. 7. EXPRESSION- A weighty. Amidst the general hum of mirth and conver- sation that ensued, there was a little man with a puffy Say-nothing-to-me, or-I’ll-contradict-you sort of countenance, who remained very quiet ; occasionally looking round him when the con- versation slackened, as if he contemplated put- ting in something very weighty ; and now and then bursting into a short cough of inexpressible grandeur. — Pickwick , Chap. 7. EXPRESSION. Mr. Craggs seemed positively to grate upon his own hinges, as he delivered this opinion. Battle of Life, Chap. 1. EXPRESSION— A convivial. As they drank with a great relish, and were naturally of a red-nosed, pimple-faced, convivial look, their presence rather increased than de- tracted from that decided appearance of com- fort which was the great characteristic of the party. — Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 49. EXPRESSION— After sleep. Here Bazzard awoke himself by his own snoring ; and, as is usual in such cases, sat apoplectically staring at vacancy, as defying vacancy to accuse him of having been asleep. Edwin Drood, Chap. 11. EXPRESSION— The imitation of. Any strongly marked expression of face on the part of a chief actor in a scene of great in- terest, to whom many eyes are directed, will be unconsciously imitated by the spectators. Tale of Two Cities , Book II., Chap. 3. EXPRESSION— Of dress. “ He is the most friendly and amenable crea- ture in existence ; and as for advice ! — But no- body knows what that man’s mind is, except myself.” My aunt smoothed her dress and shook her head, as if she smoothed defiance of the whole world out of the one, and shook it out of the other. — David Copperfield, Chap. 14. EXPRESSION— Of benevolence. As to the General, he observed, with his usual benevolence, that being one of the company, he wouldn’t interfere in the transaction on any account ; so he appropriated the rocking-chair to himself, and looked at the prospect, like a good Samaritan waiting for a traveller. Martin Chuzzlcwit , Chap. 21. EXPRESSION A concentrated. With the quick observation of his class, Ste- phen Blackpool bent his attentive face — his face, which, like the faces of many of his order, by dint of long working with eyes and hands in the midst of a prodigious noise, had acquired the concentrated look with which we are familiar in the countenances of the deaf — the better to hear what she asked him. Hard Times , Book /., Chap. 12. EYES. But his eyes, too close together, were not so nobly set in his head as those of the king of beasts are in his, and they were sharp rather than bright — pointed weapons with little surface to betray them. They had no depth or change ; they glittered, and they opened and shut. So far, and waiving their use to himself, a clock-, maker could have made a better pair. Little Dorr it, Book I., Chap. 1. EYES-Sinister. He had eyes of a surface black, with no depth in the color or form, and much too near together — as if they were afraid of being found out in something, singly, if they kept too far apart. They had a sinister expression, under an old cocked-hat like a three-cornered spittoon, and over a great muffler for the chin and throat, which descended nearly to the wearer’s knees. Tale of Two Cities , Chap. 3. EYE— A solemn. It made him hot to think what the Chief But- ler’s opinion of him would have been, if that illustrious personage could have plumbed with that heavy eye of his the stream of his medita- tions. — Little Dorrit , Book II., Chap. 18. EYES— Of Mr. Crisparkle. He had the eyes of a microscope and a tele- scope combined, when they were unassisted. Edzvin Drood, Chap. 6. EYES— Inexpressive. Mr. Charles Kitterbell was a small, sharp, spare man, with a very large head, and a broad, good-humored countenance. He looked like a faded giant, with the head and face partially re- stored ; and he had a cast in his eye which ren- dered it quite impossible for anyone with whom he conversed to know where he was looking. His eyes appeared fixed on the wall, and he was staring you out of countenance : in short, there was no catching his eye, and perhaps it is a mer- ciful dispensation of Providence that such eyes are not catching, — Tales, Chap. 11. EYES— Inquisitive. A tall, thin, bony man, with an interrogative nose, and little restless perking eyes, which ap- pear to. have been given him for the sole pur- pose of peeping into other people’s aftairs with. Sketches ( Scenes ), Chap. 4. EYES-Of Ruth. They walked up and down three or four times, speaking about Tom and his mysterious employ- ment. Now that was a very natural and in- nocent subject, surely. Then why, whenever j Ruth lifted up her eyes, did she let them fall again immediately, and seek the uncongenial pave- ment of the court? They were not such eyes as shun the light : they were not such eyes as require to be hoarded to enhance their value. EYES 179 FACES They were much too precious and too genuine to stand in need of arts like those. Somebody must have been looking at them ! Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 45. There was no flour on Ruth’s hands when she received them in the triangular parlor, but there were pleasant smiles upon her face, and a crowd of welcomes shining out of every smile, and gleaming in her bright eyes. By-the-bye, how bright they were ! Looking into them for but a moment, when you took her hand, you saw, in each, such a capital miniature of yourself, repre- senting you as such a restless, flashing, eager, brilliant littie fellow — Ah ! if you could only have kept them for your own miniature ! But, wicked, roving, rest- less, too impartial eyes, it was enough for any one to Stand before them, and straightway, there he danced and sparkled quite as merrily as you ! Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 39. EYE— Its expression. He gave me only a look with his aiming eye — no, not a look, for he shut it up, but wonders may be done with an eye by hiding it. Great Expectations, Chap. 10. EYES— Bright. Bright eyes they were. Eyes that would bear a world of looking in, before their depth was fathomed. Dark eyes, that reflected back the eyes which searched them ; not flashingly, or at the owner’s will, but with a clear, calm, honest, patient radiance, claiming kindred with that light which Heaven called into being. Eyes that were beautiful and true, and beaming with Hope. With Hope so young and fresh ; with Hope so buoyant, vigorous, and bright, despite the twenty years of work and poverty on which they had looked, that they became a voice to Trotty Veck, and said : “ I think we have some busi- ness here — a little ! ” Christmas Chimes, 1 st quarter. EYE— Its devilish expression. Witch Two laughs at us. Witch Three scowls at us. Witch sisterhood all stitch, stitch. First Witch has a red circle round each eye. I fancy it like the beginning of the development of a perverted diabolical halo, and that, when it spreads all round her head, she will die in the odor of devilry. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 5. EYE— A learned. As Mr. Pickwick said this, he looked ency- clopaedias at Mr. Peter Magnus. Pickwick, Chap. 24. EYE— An expressive. He had always one eye wide open, and one eye nearly shut ; and the one eye nearly shut was always the expressive eye. Cricket on the Hearth , Chap. 1. F FACES— Their expression. He had that rather wild, strained, seared marking about the eyes, which may be observed in all free livers of his class, from the portrait of Jeffries downward, and which can be traced, under various disguises of Art, through the portraits of every Drinking Age. * * ❖ * * Shouldering itself towards the visage of the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of King’s Bench, the florid countenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen, bursting out of the bed of wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its way at the sun from among a rank garden-full of flar- ing companions. Stryver, in Tale of Two Cities, Chap. 5. Mr. Pancks was making a very porcupine of himself by sticking his hair up, in the contem- plation of this state of accounts. Little Dorrit, Book II., Chap. 13. Mrs. General stopped, and added internally, for the setting of her face, “ Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism.” Little Dorrit, Book II., Chap. 16. Mr. Pancks listened with such interest that regardless of the charms of the Eastern pipe, he put it in the grate among the fire-irons, and occupied his hands during the whole recital in so erecting the loops and hooks of hair all over his head, that he looked, when it came to a con- clusion, like a journeyman Hamlet in conversa- tion with his father’s spirit. Little Dorrit, Book II., Chap. 13. His villainous countenance was a regular stamped receipt for cruelty. Oliver Twist, Chap. 3. With a face that might have been carved out of lignum vita, for anything that appeared to the contrary. — Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 14. At the word Suspect, she turned her eyes momentarily upon her son, with a dark frown, as if the sculptor of old Egypt had indented it in the hard granite face, to frown for ages. Mrs. Clennam, in Little Dorrit, Book I., Chap. 5. A pale, puffy-faced, dark-haired person of thirty, with big dark eyes that wholly wanted lustre, and a dissatisfied, doughy complexion, that seemed to ask to be sent to the baker’s. A gloomy person, with tangled locks, and a general air of having been reared under the shadow of that baleful tree of Java which has given shelter to more lies than the whole botan- ical kingdom. — Edwin Drood, Chap. 11. His color has turned to a livid white, and ominous marks have come to light about his nose, as if the finger of the very devil himself had, within the last few moments, touched it here and there. * * * * *. Here, too, the bride’s aunt and next relation ; a widowed female of a Medusa sort, in a stony cap, glaring petrifaction at her fellow-creatures.. FACES 180 FACES Here, too, the bride’s trustee ; an oilcake-fed style of business-gentleman with mooney spec- tacles, and an object of much interest. Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap. io. Mrs. Varden slightly raised her hands, shook her head, and looked at the ground, as though she saw straight through the globe, out at the other end, and into the immensity of space be- yond. — Barnaby Fudge , Chap. 27. “To be plain with you, friend, you don’t carry in your countenance a letter of recom- mendation.’’ “ It’s not my wish,” said the traveller. “ My humor is to be avoided.” Barnaby Fudge, Chap. 2. Mr. Willet drew back from his guest’s ear, and without any visible alteration of features, chuckled thrice audibly. This nearest approach to a laugh in which he ever indulged (and that but seldom, and only on extreme occasions) never even curled his lip or effected the small- est change in — no, not so much as a slight wag- ging of — his great fat, double chin, which at these times, as at all others, remained a perfect desert in the broad map of his face ; one change- less, dull, tremendous blank. Barnaby Fudge , Chap. 29. His imperturbable face has been as inexpres- sive as his rusty clothes. One could not even say he has been thinking all this while. He has shown neither patience nor impatience, nor attention nor abstraction. He has shown noth- ing but his shell. As easily might the tone of a delicate musical instrument be inferred from its case, as the tone of Mr. Tulkinghorn from his case. — Bleak House, Chap. 11. “ Here, sir,” replied Job, presenting himself on the staircase. We have described him, by- the-bye, as having deeply sunken eyes, in the best of times. In his present state of want and distress, he looked as if those features had gone out of town altogether. — Pickwick, Chap. 42. Marley’s face. It was not in impenetrable shadow, as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lob- ster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or fero- cious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look, with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stir- red, as if by breath or hot air ; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motion- less. That, and its livid color, made it horrible ; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face, and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression. — Christmas Carol, Stave 1. Ag racious change had come over Benjamin from head to foot. lie was much broader, much redder, much more cheerful, and much jollier in all respects. It seemed as if his face had been tied up in a knot before, and was now untwisted and smoothed out. — Battle of Life, Chap. 2. He was tall, thin, and pale ; he always fancied he had a severe pain somewhere or other, and his face invariably wore a pinched, screwed-up expression ; he looked, indeed, like a man who had got his feet in a tub of exceedingly hot water, against his will. — 7 'ales , Chap. 1. “ I told you not to bang the door so ! ” repeat- ed Dumps, with an expression of countenance like the knave of clubs, in convulsions. Tales, Chap. 11. Such a thoroughly Irish face, that it seemed as if he ought, as a matter of right and principle, to be in rags, and could have no sort of business to be looking cheerfully at anybody out of a whole suit of cloth js. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 17. Miss Sarah Pocket, whom I now saw to be a little, dry, brown, corrugated old woman, with a small face, that might have been made of walnut- shells, and a large mouth, like a cat’s without the whiskers. — Greet Expectations, Chap. 11. All his features seemed, with delight, to be going up into his forehead, and never coming back again any more. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 13. Her severe 'face had no thread of relaxation in it, by which any explorer could have been guided to the gloomy labyrinth of her thoughts. Little DoiTit, Book I., Chap. 5. Mrs. Meagles was like Mr. Meagles, comely and healthy, with a pleasant English face which had been looking at homely things for five-and- fifty years or more, and shone with a bright re- flection of them. Little Dorrit, Book /., Chap. 2. There is no sort of whiteness in all the hues under the sun, at all like the whiteness of Mon- sieur Rigaud’s face as it was then. Neither is there any expression of the human countenance at all like that; expression, in every little line of which the frightened heart is seen to beat. Both are conventionally compared with death ; but the difference is the whole deep gulf between the struggle done, and the light at its most desper- ate extremity. — Little Dorrit, Book /., Chap. 1. “ Persons don’t make their own faces, and it’s no more my fault if mine is a good one than it is other people’s fault if theirs is a bad one.” Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 12. The expression of a man’s face is commonly a help to his thoughts, or glossary on his speech ; but the countenance of Newman Noggs, in his ordinary moods, was a problem which no stretch of ingenuity could solve. Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 3. MVIr. Fang was a lean, long-backed, stiff-neck- ed, middle-sized man, with no great quantity of hair, and what he had, growing on the back and sides of his head. His face was stern, and much flushed. If he were really not in the habit of drinking rather more than was exactly good for him, he might have biought an action against his countenance for libel, and have re- covered heavy damages. — Oliver Twist, Chap. 11. Squeers scowled at him with the worst and FACE 181 FACE most malicious expression of which his face was capable — it was a face of remarkable capability, too, in that way — and shook his fist stealthily. “ Coom, coom, schoolmeasther,” said John, “ dinnot make a fool o’ thyself ; for if I was to sheake mine — only once — thou’d fa’ doon wi’ the wind o’ it.” — Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 42. “ I will not look for blushes in such a quar- ter,” said Miss Squeers, haughtily, “ for that countenance is a stranger to everything but hig- nominiousness and red-faced boldness.” Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 42. He had the special peculiarity of some birds of prey, that when he knitted his brow, his ruf- fled crest stood highest. Our Mutual Friend , Book I., Chap. 3. What my aunt saw, or did not see, I defy the science of physiognomy to have made out, without her own consent. I believe there never was anybody with such an imperturbable coun- tenance when she chose. Her face might have been a dead wall on the occasion in question, for any light it threw upon her thoughts. David Copper field , Chap. 35. Having done the honors of his house in this hospitable manner, Mr. Peggotty went out to wash himself in a kettleful of hot water, re- marking that “ cold would never get his muck off.” He soon returned, greatly improved in appearance ; but so rubicund, that I couldn’t help thinking his face had this in common with the lobsters, crabs, and crawfish — that it went into the hot water very black and came out very red. — David Copperfeld , Chap. 3. Tom stopping in the street to look at him, Mr. Tapley for a moment presented to his view an utterly stolid and expressionless face : a per- fect dead wall of countenance. But opening window after window in it, with astonishing rapidity, and lighting them all up as for a gen- eral illumination, he repeated. Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 48. With these parting words, and with a gi*in upon his features altogether indescribable, but which seemed to be compounded of every mon- strous grimace of which men or monkeys are Capable, the dwarf slowly retreated and closed the door behind him. Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 48. He was something the worse for it, undenia- bly. The thick mist hung in clots upon his eyelashes like candied thaw ; and, between the fog a&d fire together, there were rainbows in his very whiskers. Cricket on the Hearth , Chap. 1. . The features of her companion were less easy •'■'to him. The great broad chin, with creases in it large enough to hide a finger in ; the aston- ished eyes, that seemed to expostulate with themselves for sinking deeper and deeper into the yielding fat of the soft face ; the nose, af- flicted with that disordered action of its func- tions which is generally termed The Snuffles ; the short thick throat and laboring chest, with other beauties of the like description, though calculated to impress the memory, Trotty could at first allot to nobody he had ever known ; and yet he had some recollection of them too. Chimes , 4 th quarter. With that, and with an expression of face in which a great number of opposite ingredients, such as mischief, cunning, malice, triumph, and patient expectation, were all mixed up together in a kind of physiognomical punch, Miss Miggs composed herself to wait and listen, like some fair ogress who had set a trap and was watching for a nibble from a plump young traveller. Miss Miggs, in Barnaby Budge , Chap. 9. Happening to look down into the pit, I saw Mr. Guppy, with his hair flattened down upon his head, and woe depicted in his face, looking up at me. I felt, all through the performance, that he never looked at the actors, but con- stantly looked at me, and always with a care- fully prepared expression of the deepest misery and the profoundest dejection. Bleak House , Chap. 13. With Mr. Gusher, appeared Mr. Quale again. Mr. Gusher, being a flabby gentleman with a moist surface, and eyes so much too small for his moon of a face that they seemed to have been originally made for somebody else, was not at first sight prepossessing. Bleak House, Chap. 15. “ By my soul, the countenance of that fellow, when he was a boy, was the blackest image of perfidy, cowardice, and cruelty ever set up as a scarecrow in a field of scoundrels. If I were to meet that most unparalleled despot in the streets to-morrow, I would fell him like a rotten tree ! ” Bleak House, Chap. 9. The dear little fellow, having recovered his animal spirits, was standing upon her most ten- der foot, by way of getting his face (which looked like a capital O in a red-lettered play-bill) on a level with the writing-table. — Tales, Chap. 3. The Major, with his complexion like a Stil- ton cheese, and his eyes like a prawn’s, went roving about, perfectly indifferent. Every knob in the Captain’s face turned white with astonishment and indignation ; even the red rim on his forehead faded* like a rain- bow among the gathering clouds. Was Mr. Dombey pleased to see this? He testified no pleasure by the relaxation of a nerve ; but outward tokens of any kind of feel- ing were unusual with him. If any sunbeam stole into the room to light the children at their play, it never reached his face. He looked on so fixedly and coldly, that the warm light van- ished even from the laughing eyes of little Flor- ence, when, at last, they happened to meet his. There was an entire change in the Captain’s face, as he went up stairs. He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief, and he polished the bridge of his nose with his sleeve as he had done already that morning, but his face was absolutely changed. Now, he might have been thought supremely happy ; now, he might have FACE 182 FACE been thought sad ; but the kind of gravity that sat upon his features was quite new to them, and was as great an improvement to them as if they had undergone some sublimating process. * sfc * $ sH But never in all his life had the Captain’s face so shone and glistened, as when, at last, he sat stationary at the tea-board, looking from Florence to Walter, and from Walter to Flor- ence. Nor was this effect produced or at all heightened by the immense quantity of polish- ing he had administered to his face with his coat-sleeve during the last half-hour. It was solely the effect of his internal emotions. There was a glory and delight within the Captain that spread itself over his whole visage, and made a perfect illumination there. * * * The yellow face with its grotesque action, and the ferret eyes with their keen, cold, wintry gaze. — Dombey & Son. FACE— Of Mr. Grrewgious. “ Death is not pounds, shillings, and pence.” His voice was as hard and dry as himself, and Fancy might have ground it straight, like him- self, into high-dried snuff. And* yet, through the very limited means of expression that he possessed, he seemed to express kindness. If Nature had but finished him off, kindness might have been recognizable in his face at this mo- ment. But if the notches in his forehead wouldn’t fuse together, and if his face would Work and couldn’t play, what could he do, poor man ? — Edwin Drood , Chap. 9. FACE— Of Job Trotter. Nature’s handiwork never was disguised with such extraordinary artificial carving as the man had overlaid his countenance with, in one mo- ment. “ It won’t do, Job Trotter,” said Sam. “ Come ! None o’ that ’ere nonsense. You ain’t so wery 'andsome that you can afford to throw avay many o’ your good looks. Bring them ’ere eyes o’ your’n back into their proper places, or I’ll knock ’em out of your head. Dy’e hear? ” * * * Mr. Trotter burst into a regular in- undation of tears, and flinging his arms around those of Mr. Weller, embraced him closely, in an ecstasy of joy. “Get off!” cried Sam, indignant at this pro- cess, and vainly endeavoring to extricate him- self from the grasp of his enthusiastic acquaint- ance. “ Get off, I tell you. What are you crying over me for, you portable ingine ? ” Pickwick , Chap. 23. FACE— Of a hypocrite. His smooth face had a bloom upon it, like ripe wall-fruit. What with his blooming face, and that head, and his blue eyes, he seemed to be delivering sentiments of rare wisdom and virtue. In like manger, his physiognomical ex- pression seemed to teem with benignity. No- body could have said where the wisdom was, or where the virtue was, or where the benignity was ; but they all seemed to be somewhere about him. — Little Doivit , Book /., Chap. 13. FACE A frosty. It was morning ; and the beautiful Aurora, of whom so much hath been written, said, and sung, did, with her rosy fingers, nip and tweak Miss Pecksniff’s nose. It was the frolicsome custom of the Goddess, in her intercourse with the fair Cherry, so to do ; or, in more prosaic phrase, the tip of that feature in the sweet girl’s countenance was always very red at breakfast- time. For the most part, indeed, it wore, at that season of the day, a scraped and frosty look, as if it had been rasped ; while a similar phenomenon developed itself in her humor, which was then observed to be of a sharp and acid quality, as though an extra lemon (figura- tively speaking) had been squeezed into the nectar of her disposition, and had rather dam- aged its flavor. — Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 6. FACE— Of a proud and scornful woman. The shadow in which she sat, falling like a gloomy veil across her forehead, accorded very well with the character of her beauty. One could hardly see the face, so still and scornful, set off by the arched dark eyebrows, and the folds of dark hair, without wondering what its expression would be if a change came over it. That it could soften or relent, appeared next to impossible. That it could deepen into anger or any extreme of defiance, and that it must change in that direction when it changed at all, would have been, its peculiar impression upon most observers. It was dressed and trimmed into no ceremony of expression. Although not an open face, there was no pretence in it. I am self- contained and self-reliant ; your opinion is nothing to me ; I have no interest in you, care nothing for you, and see and hear you with in- difference — this it said plainly. It said so in the proud eyes, in the lifted nostril, in the hand- some, but compressed and even cruel mouth. Cover either two of those channels of expres- sion, and the third would have said so still. Mask them all, and the mere turn of the head would have shown an unsubduable nature. Lady Dedlock, in Little Dorr it. Book I., Chap. 2. FACE— Shadowed by a memory. She was about forty — perhaps two or three years older — with a cheerful aspect, and a face that had once been pretty. It bore traces of affliction and care, but they were of an old date, and Time had smoothed them. Any one who had bestowed but a casual glance on Barnaby might have known that this was his mother, from the strong resemblance between them ; but where in his face there was wildness and vacan- cy, in hers there was the patient composure of long effort and quiet resignation. One thing about this face was very strange and startling. You could not look upon it in its most cheerful mood without feeling that it had some extraordinary capacity of expressing ter- ror. It was not on the surface. It was in no one feature that it lingered. You could not take the eyes, or mouth, or lines upon the cheek, and say if this or that were otherwise, it would not be so. Yet there it always lurked — something forever dimly seen, but ever there, and never absent for a moment. It was the faintest, palest shadow of some look, to which an instant of in- tense and most unutterable horror only could have given birth ; but indistinct and feeble as it was, it did suggest what that look must have been, and fixed it in the mind as if it had had existence in a dream. FACTORY-TOWN 183 FACTORY-TOWN More faintly imaged, and wanting force and purpose, as it were, because of his darkened in- tellect, there was this same stamp upon the son. Seen in a picture, it must have had some legend with it, and would have haunted those who looked upon the canvas. They who knew the Maypole story, and could remember what the widow was, before her husband’s and his mas- ter’s murder, understood it well. They recol- lected how the change had come, and could call to mind that when her son was born, upon the very day the deed was known, he bore upon his wrist what seemed a smear of blood but half washed out . — Barnaby Rudge , Chap . 5. FACTORY-TOWN-A triumph of fact. Coketown, to which Messrs. Bounderby and Gradgrind now walked, was a triumph of fact ; it had no greater taint of fancy in it than Mrs. Gradgrind herself. Let us strike the key-note, Coketown, before pursuing our tune. It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it ; but as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black, like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable ser- pents of smoke trailed themselves forever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill- smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows, where there was a rattling and a trem- bling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several .large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhab- ited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom everyday was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next. These attributes of Coketown were in the main inseparable from the work by which it was sustained ; against them were to be set off, com- forts of life which found their way all over the world, and elegancies of life which made, we will not ask how much of the fine lady, who could scarcely bear to hear the place mentioned. The rest of its features were voluntary, and they were these. You saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely workful. If the members of a religious persuasion built a chapel there — as the members of eighteen religious persuasions had done — they made it a pious warehouse of red brick, with sometimes (but this is only in highly ornamented examples) a bell in a bird-cage on the top of it. The solitary exception was the New Church ; a stuccoed edifice with a square steeple over the door, terminating in four short pinnacles like florid wooden legs. All the public inscriptions in the town were painted alike, in severe char- acters of black and white. The jail might have been the infirmary, the infirmary might have been the jail, the town-hall might have been either, or both, or anything else, for anything that appeared to the contrary in the graces of their construction. Fact, fact, fact, every- where in the material aspect of the town ; fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the immaterial. The M’Choakumchild school was all fact, and the school of design was all fact, and the rela- tions between master and man were all fact, and everything was fact between the lying-in- hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn’t state in figures, or show to be purchasable in the cheapest market and salable in the dearest, was not, and never should be, world without end, Amen . — Hard Times , Book /., Chap. 5. FACTORY-TOWN— Its peculiarities. A sunny midsummer day. There was such a thing sometimes, even in Coketown. Seen from a distance in such weather, Coke- town lay shrouded in a haze of its own, which appeared impervious to the sun’s rays. You only knew the town was theVe, because you knew there could have been no such sulky blotch upon the prcfcpect without a town. A blur of soot and smoke, now confusedly tending this way, now that way, now aspiring to the vault of Hea- ven, now murkily creeping along the earth, as the wind rose and fell, or changed its quarter : a dense, formless jumble, with sheets of cross light in it, that showed nothing but masses of darkness : — Coketown in the distance was sug- gestive of itself, though not a brick of it could be seen. The wonder was, it was there- at all. It had been ruined so often, that it was amazing how it had borne so many shocks. Surely there never was such fragile china-ware as that of which the millers of Coketown were made. Handle them never so lightly, and they fell to pieces with such ease that you might suspect them of having been flawed before. They were ruined when they were required to send laboring children to school ; they Aere ruined when inspectors were appointed to look into their works ; they were ruined when such inspectors considered it doubt- ful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery ; they were ut- terly undone, when it was hinted that perhaps they need not always make quite so much smoke. Besides Mr. Bounderby’s gold spoon, which was generally received in Coketown, another preva- lent fiction was very popular there. It took the form of a threat. Whenever a Colcetowner felt he was ill-used — that is to say, whenever he was not left entirely alone, and it was proposed to hold him accountable for the consequences of any of his acts — he was sure to come out with the awful menace, that he would “ sooner pitch his property into the Atlantic.” This had terri- fied the Home Secretary within an inch of his life, on several occasions. However, the Coketowners were so patriotic, after all, that they never had pitched their prop- erty into the Atlantic yet, but on the contrary, had been kind enough to take mighty good care of it. So there it was, in the haze yonder ; and it increased and multiplied. The streets were hot and dusty on the sum- mer day, and the sun was so bright that it even shone through the heavy vapor drooping over Coketown, and could not be looked at steadily. .Stokers emerged from low underground door- ways into factory yards, and sat on steps, and posts, and palings, wiping their swarthy visages, and contemplating coals. The whole town seemed to be frying in oil. There was a sti- fling smell of hot oil everywhere. The steam- FACTORY-TOWN 184 FACTORIES engines shone with it, the dresses of the Hands were soiled with it, the mills throughout their many stories oozed and trickled it. The atmos- phere of those Fairy palaces was like the breath of the simoon ; and their inhabitants, wasting with heat, toiled languidly in the desert. But no temperature made the melancholy - mad elephants more mad or more sane. Their weari- some heads went up and down at the same rate, in hot weather and cold, wet weather and dry, fair weather and foul. The measured motion of their shadows on the walls, was the substitute Coketown had to show for the shadows of rus- tling woods ; while, for the summer hum of in- sects, it could offer, all the year round, from the dawn of Monday to the night of Saturday, the whirr of shafts and wheels. Drowsily they whirred all through this sunny day, making the passenger more sleepy and more hot as he passed the humming walls of the mills. Sun-blinds, and sprinklings of water, a little cooled the main streets and the shops ; but the mills, and the courts and alleys, baked at a fierce heat. Down upon the river, that was black and thick with dye, some Coketown boys who were at large — a rare sight there — rowed a crazy boat, which made a spumous track upon the water as it jogged along, while every dip of an oar stirred up vile smells. But the sun itself, however beneficent generally, was less kind to Coketown than hard frost, and rarely looked in- tently into any of its closer regions without engendering more death than life. So does the eye of Heaven itself become an evil eye, when incapable or sordid hands are interposed between it and the things it looks upon to bless. Hard Times , Book //., Chap. i. FACTORY-TOWN— The working-men. I entertain a weak idea that the English peo- ple are as hard-worked as any people upon whom the sun shines. I acknowledge to this ridiculous idiosyncrasy, as a reason why I would give them a little more play. In the hardest working part of Coketown ; in the innermost fortifications of that ugly citadel, where Nature was as strongly bricked out as killing airs and gases were bricked in ; at the heart of the labyrinth of narrow courts upon courts, and close streets upon streets, which had come into existence piecemeal, every piece in a violent hurry for some one man’s purpose, and the whole an unnatural family, shouldering, and trampling, ancl pressing one another to death ; in the last close nook of this great exhausted receiver, where the chimneys, for want of air to make a draught, were built in an immense vari- ety of stunted and crooked shapes, as though every house put out a sign of the kind of peo- ple who might be expected to be born in it ; among the multitude of Coketown, generically called “ the Ilands,” — a race who would have found more favor with some people, if Provi- dence had seen fit to make them only hands, or like the lower creatures of the sea-shore, only hands and stomachs— lived a certain Stephen Blackpool, forty years of age. Stephen looked older, but he had had a hard life. It is said that every life has its roses and thorns ; there seemed, however, to have been a misadventure or mistake in Stephen’s case, whereby somebody else had become possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed of the same somebody else’s thorns in addition to his own. lie had known, to use his words, a peck of trouble. He was usually called Old Stephen, in a kind of rough homage to the fact. A rather stooping man, with a knitted brow, a pondering expression of face, and a hard-look- ing head sufficiently capacious, on which his iron- grey hair lay long and thin, Old Stephen might have passed for a particularly intelligent man in his condition. Yet he was not. He took no place among those remarkable “ Ilands,” who, piecing together their broken intervals of leisure through many years, had mastered difficult sciences, and acquired a knowledge of most unlikely things. Pie held no station among the Ilands who could make speeches and carry on debates. Thousands of his compeers could talk much better than he, at any time. He was a good power-loom weaver, and a man of perfect integrity. What more he was, or what else he had in him, if anything, let him show for him- self. The lights in the great factories, which looked, when they were illuminated, like Fairy palaces — or the travellers by express-train said so — were all extinguished ; and the bells had rung for knocking off for the night, and had ceased again ; and the Hands, men and women, boy and girl, were clattering home. Old Stephen was stand- ing in the street, with the odd sensation upon him which the stoppage of the machinery always produced — the sensation of its having worked and stopped in his own head. Hard Times , Book /., Chap. io. FACTORY— Iron-Works. He comes to agateway in the brick wall, looks in, and sees a great perplexity of iron lying about, in every stage, and in a vast variety of shapes ; in bars, in wedges, in sheets ; in tanks, in boilers, in axles, in wheels, in cogs, in cranks, in rails ; twisted and wrenched into eccentric and perverse forms, as separate parts of machin- ery ; mountains of it broken-up, and rusty in its age ; distant furnaces of it glowing and bub- bling in its youth ; bright fireworks of it shower- ing about, under the blows of the steam ham- mer ; red-hot iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron ; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a Babel of iron sounds. * * -X ❖ There is iron-dust on everything ; and the smoke is seen, through the windows, rolling heavily out of the tall chimneys, to mingle with the smoke from a vaporous Babylon of other chimneys. — Bleak House , Chap. 63. FACTORIES. Machinery slackened ; throbbing feebly like a fainting pulse ; stopped. The bell again ; the glare of light and heat dispelled ; the factories, looming heavy in the black wet night — their tall chimneys rising up into the air like competing Towers of Babel. Hat'd Times , Book /., Chap. 12. FACTORIES— The hands. The Fairy palaces burst into illumination, before pale morning showed the monstrous ser- pents of smoke trailing themselves over Coke- town. A clattering of clogs upon the pave- ment ; a rapid ringing of bells ; and all the melancholy-mad elephants, polished and oiled FACTS 185 FACTS up for the day’s monotony, were at their heavy exercise again. Stephen bent over his loom, quiet, watchful, and steady. A special contrast, as every man was in the forest of looms where Stephen worked, to the crashing, smashing, tearing piece of mechanism at which he labored. Never fear, good people of an anxious turn of mind, that Art will consign Nature to oblivion. Set anywhere, side by side, the work of God and the work of man ; and the former, even though it be a troop of Hands of very small ac- count, will gain in dignity from the comparison. So many hundred Hands in this Mill ; so many hundred horse Steam Power. It is known, to the force of a single pound weight, what the engine will do ; but not all the calcu- lators of the National Debt can tell me the ca- pacity for good or evil, for love or hatred, for patriotism or discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into vice, or the reverse, at any single moment in the soul of one of these, its quiet servants, with the composed faces and the reg- ulated actions. There is no mystery in it ; there is an unfathomable mystery in the mean- est of them, forever. — Supposing we were to reserve our arithmetic for material objects, and to govern these awful unknown quantities by other means ! The day grew strong, and showed itself out- side, even against the flaming lights within. The lights were turned out, and the work went on. The rain fell, and the Smoke-serpents, submissive to the curse of all that tribe, trailed themselves upon the earth. In the waste-yard outside, the steam from the escape pipe, the litter of barrels and old iron, the shining heaps of coals, the ashes everywhere, were shrouded in a veil of mist and rain. The work went on until the noon-bell rang. More clattering upon the pavements. The looms, and wheels, and Hands all out of gear for an hour . — Hard Times , Book /., Chap. n. FACTS— Gradgrind the man of. Thomas Gradgrind, sir. A man or realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir — peremptorily Thomas — -Thomas Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you ex- actly what it comes to. It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get some other nonsensical be- lief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Au- gustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Jo- seph Gradgrind (all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of Thomas Grad- grind — no, sir. In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always men- tally introduced himself, whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general. In such terms, no doubt, substituting the words “ boys and girls,” for “ sir,” Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full of facts. Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage before mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the ten- der young imaginations that were to be stormed away. — Hard Times , Book /., Chap. 2. FACTS— Gradgrind’s lessons of. Mr. Gradgrind walked homeward from the school, in a state of considerable satisfaction. It was his school, and he intended it to be a mod- el. He intended every child in it to be a model — -just as the young Gradgrinds were all models. There were five young Gradgrinds, and they were models every one. They had been lec- tured at, from their tenderest years ; coursed like little hares. Almost as soon as they could run alone, they had been made to run to the lecture-room. The first object with which they had an association'; or of which they had a re- membrance, was a large black-board with a dry Ogre chalking ghastly white figures on it. Not that they knew, by name or nature, any- thing about an Ogre. Fact forbid ! I only use the word to express a monster in a lecturing castle, with Heaven knows how many heads manipulated into one, taking childhood cap- tive, and dragging it into gloomy statistical dens by the hair. No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon ; it was up in the moon before it could speak distinctly. No little Gradgrind had ever learned the silly jingle, Twinkle, twinkle, little star; how I wonder what you are ! No little Gradgrind had ever known won- der on the subject, each little Gradgrind hav- ing at five years old dissected the Great Bear like a Professor Owen, and driven Charles’s Wain like a locomotive engine-driver. No little Gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that famous cow with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who worried the cat who killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous cow who swallowed Tom Thumb : it had never heard of those celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminiverous, ruminating quadruped with sev- eral stomachs. — Hard Times , Book /., Chap. 3. FACTS— The man of. In gauging fathomless deeps with his little mean excise-rod, and in staggering over the uni- verse with his rusty stiff-legged compasses, he had meant to do great things. Within the lim- its of his short tether he had tumbled about, an- nihilating the flowers of existence with greater singleness of purpose than many of the blatant personages whose company he kept. Hard Times , Book III., Chap. 1. FACTS— A disgust for. “ I wish I could collect all the Facts we hear so much about,” said Tom, spitefully setting his teeth, “and all the Figures, and all the people who found them out ; and I wish I could put a thousand barrels of gunpowder under them, and blow them all up together ! ” Hard Times , Book /., Chap. S. FACTS— The Gradgrind philosophers. The Gradgrind party wanted assistance in cutting the throats of the Graces. They went FACTS 1£6 FAINTING about recruiting; and 1 where could they enlist recruits more hopefully, than among the fine gentlemen who, having found out everything to be worth nothing, were equally ready for any- thing ? Moreover, the healthy spirits who had mounted to this sublime height were attractive to many of the Gradgrind school. They liked fine gentle- men ; they pretended that they did not, but they did. They became exhausted in imitation of them ; and they yavv-vawed in their speech like them ; and they served out, with an enervated air, the little mouldy rations of political econo- my, on which they regaled their disciples. There never before was seen on earth such a wonder- ful hybrid race as was thus produced. Hard Times , Book //., Chap . 2. FACTS— Mr. Gradgrind on. “Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts : nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir !” The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker’s square fore- finger emphasized his observations by under- scoring every sentence with a line on the school- master’s sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker’s obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoul- ders — nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was — all helped the emphasis. “ In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir ; nothing but Facts ! ” The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim. Hard Times , Book /., Chap. I. FACTS versus fancies. “ Girl number twenty,” said the gentleman, smiling in the calm strength of knowledge. Sissy blushed, and stood up. “So you would carpet your room — or your husband’s room, if you were a grown woman, and had a husband — with representations of flowers, would you,” said the gentleman. “ Why would you?” “If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers,” returned the girl. “ And is that why you would put tallies and chairs upon them, and have people walking ovei them with heavy boots?” “ It wouldn’t hurt them, sir. They wouldn’t crush and wither, if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleas- ant, and I would fancy — ” “ Ay, ay, ay ! But you mustn’t fancy,” cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so hap- pily to his point. “ That’s it ! You are never to fancy.” “You are not, Cecilia Jupe,” Thomas Grad- grind solemnly repeated, “ to do anything of that kind.” “Fact, fact, fact !” said the gentleman. And “ Fact, fact, fact !” repeated Thomas Gradgrind. “You are to be in all things regulated and governed,” said the gentleman, “ by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, com- posed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You are not to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. You don’t walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don’t find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your crockery ; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls ; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must use,” said the gentleman, “ for all these purposes, combinations and modifica- tions (in primary colors) of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstra- tion. This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is taste.” The girl curtseyed, and sat down. She was very young, and she looked as if she were fright- ened by the matter of fact prospect the world afforded . — Hard Times , Book /., Chap. 2 . FAINTING— Mrs. Varden’s family tactics. Mrs. Varden wept, and laughed, and sobbed, and shivered, and hiccoughed, and choaked . and said she knew it was very foolish, but she couldn’t help it ; and that when she was dead and gone, perhaps they would be sorry for it — which really, under the circumstances, did not appear quite so probable as she seemed to think — with a great deal more to the same effect. In a word, she passed with great decency through all the ceremonies incidental to such occasions ; and being supported up-stairs, was deposited, in a highly spasmodic state on her own bed, where Miss Miggs shortly afterwards flung herself upon the body. The philosophy of all this was, that Mrs. Varden wanted to go to Chigwell ; that she did not want to make any concession or explana- tion ; that she would only go on being im- plored and entreated so to do ; and that she would accept no other terms. Accordingly, after a vast amount of moaning and crying up- stairs, and much dampening of foreheads, and vinegaring of temples, and hartshorning of noses, and so forth ; and after most pathetic adjurations from Miggs, assisted by warm bran- dy-and- water not over-weak, and divers other cordials also of a stimulating quality, adminis- tered at first in teaspoonsful, and afterwards in FAINTING 187 FAIR increasing doses, and of which Miss Miggs her- self partook as a preventive measure (for faint- ing is infectious) ; after all these remedies, and many more too numerous to mention, but not to take, had been applied ; and many verbal consolations, moral, religious, and miscellaneous, had been superadded thereto, the locksmith humbled himself, and the end was gained. “ If it’s only for the sake of peace and quiet- ness, father,” said Dolly, urging him to go up- stairs. “Oh, Doll, Doll,” said her good-natured fa- ther. “ If you ever have a husband of your own — ” Dolly glanced at the glass. “Well, when you have,” said the locksmith, “never faint, my darling. More domestic un- happiness has come of easy fainting, Doll, than from all the greater passions put together. Re- member that, my dear, if you would be truly happy, which you never can be, if your hus- band isn’t. And a word in your ear, my pre- cious. Never have a Miggs about you ! ” Barnaby Budge , Chap. 19. FAINTING- Of Miss Miggs. Having helped the wayward ’prentice in, she faintly articulated the words “Simmun is safe ! ” and yielding to her woman’s nature, immedi- ately became insensible. “I knew I should quench her,” said Sim, rather embarrassed by this circumstance. “ Of course I was certain it would come to this, but there was nothing else to be done — if I hadn’t eyed her over, she wouldn’t have come down. Here. Keep up a minute, Miggs. What a slip- pery figure she is ! There’s no holding her com- fortably. Do keep up a minute, Miggs, will you ? ” As Miggs, however, was deaf to all entrea- ties, Mr. Tappertit leaned her against the wall as one might dispose of a walking-stick or um- brella, until he had secured the window, when he took her in his arms again, and, in short stages and with great difficulty — arising mainly from her being tall and his being short, and perhaps in some degree from that peculiar phy- sical conformation on which he had already re- marked — carried her up-stairs, and planting her in the same umbrella or walking stick fashion, just inside her own door, left her to her repose. “He may be as cool as he likes,” said Miss Miggs, recovering as soon as she was left alone ; “but I’m in his confidence and he can’t help himself, nor couldn’t if he was twenty Sim- munses ! ” — Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 9. FAINTING— The freemasonry of. But none of that gentle concern which usually characterizes the daughters of Eve in their tend- ing of each other ; none of that freemasonry in fainting, by which they are generally bound to gether in a mysterious bond of sisterhood, was visible in Mrs. Chick’s demeanor. Rather like the executioner who restores the victim to sen- sation previous to proceeding with the torture (or was wont to do so, in the good old times for which all true men wear perpetual mourning), did Mrs. Chick administer the smelling-bottle, the slapping on the hands, the dashing of cold water on the face, and the other proved reme- dies. And when, at length, Miss Tox opened her eyes, and gradually became restored to ani- mation and consciousness, Mrs. Chick drew off as from a criminal, and reversing the precedent of the murdered king of Denmark, regarded her more in anger than in sorrow. Dojnbey Son, Chap. 29. FAIR— A village. It was a Saturday evening, and at such a time the village dogs, always much more interested in the doings of humanity than in the affairs of their own species, were particularly active. At the general shop, at the butcher’s, and at the public-house, they evinced an inquiring spirit never to be satiated. Their especial interest in the public-house would seem to imply some latent rakishness in the canine character ; for little was eaten there, and they, having no taste for beer or tobacco (Mrs. Hubbard’s dog is said to have smoked, but proof is wanting), could only have been attracted by sympathy with loose convivial habits. Moreover, a most wretched fiddle .played within; a fiddle so unutterably vile, that one lean, long-bodied cur, with a bet- ter ear than the rest, found himself under com- pulsion at intervals to go round the corner and howl. Yet, even he returned to the public- house on each occasion with the tenacity of a confirmed drunkard. Fearful to relate, there was ev^n a sort of little Fair in the village. Some despairing ginger- bread that had been vainly trying to dispose of itself all over the country, and had cast a quan- tity of dust upon its head in its mortification, again appealed to the public from an infirm booth. So did a heap of nuts, long, long exiled from Barcelona, and yet speaking English so in- differently as to call fourteen of themselves a pint. A Peep-show which had originally started with the Battle of Waterloo, and had since made it every other battle of later date by altering the Duke of Wellington’s nose, tempted the student of illustrated history. A Fat Lady, perhaps in part sustained upon postponed pork, her pro- fessional associate being a Learned Pig, dis- played her life-size picture in a low dress as she appeared when presented at Court, several yards round. All this was a vicious spectacle, as any poor idea of amusement on the part of the rougher hewers of wood and drawers of water in this land of England ever is and shall be. They must not vary the rheumatism with amuse- ment. They may vary it with fever and ague, or with as many rheumatic variations as they have joints ; but positively not with entertain- ment after their own manner. Our Mutual Friend, Book IV., Chap. 6. FAIR— The Greenwich. If the Parks be “ the lungs of London,” we wonder what Greenwich Fair is — a periodical breaking out, we suppose ; a sort of spring-rash ; a three days’ fever, which cools the blood for six months afterwards, and at the expiration of which London is restored to its old habits of plodding industry, as suddenly and completely as if nothing had ever happened to disturb them. Pedestrians linger in groups at the roadside, unable to resist the allurements of the stout pro- prietress of the “ Jack-in-the box, three shies a penny,” or the more splendid offers of the man with three thimbles and a pea on a little round board, who astonishes the bewildei'ed crowd with some such address as, “ Here’s the sort o’ game to make you laugh seven years arter you’re dead. FASHIONABLE PARTY 188 FASHIONABLE PEOPLE and turn ev’ry air on youred gray with delight 1 Three thimbles and vun little pea — with a vun, two, three, and a two, three, vun : catch him who can, look on, keep your eyes open, and niversay die ! niver mind the change, and the expense : all fair and above board : them as don’t play can’t vin, and luck attend the ryal sportsman ! Bet any gen’lm’n any sum of money, from harf- a-crown up to a suverin, as he doesn’t name the thimble as kivers the pea !” Here some green- horn whispers his friend that he distinctly saw the pea roll under the middle thimble — an im- pression which is immediately confirmed by a gentleman in top-boots, who is standing by, and who, in a low tone, regrets his own inability to bet in consequence of having unfortunately left his purse at home, but strongly urges the stran- ger not to neglect such a golden opportunity. The “ plant ” is successful, the bet is made, the stranger of course loses ; and the gentleman with the thimble consoles him. as he pockets the money, with an assurance that it’s “all the fortin cd war ! this time I vin, next time you vin : niver mind the loss of two bob and a bender! Do it up in a small parcel, and break out in a fresh place. Here’s the sort o’ game,” etc. — and the eloquent harangue, with some variations as the speaker’s exuberant fancy suggests, is again re- peated to the gaping crowd, reinforced by the accession of several new comers. * * * * * Imagine yourself in an extremely dense crowd, which swings you to and fro, and in and out, and every way but the right one ; add to this the screams of women, the shouts of boys, the clanging of gongs, the firing of pistols, the ring- ing of bells, the bellowings of speaking-trum- pets, the squeaking of penny dittos, the noise of a dozen bands, with three drums in each, all playing different tunes at the same time, the hallooing of showmen, and an occasional roar from the wild-beast shows ; and you are in the very centre and heart of the fair. Scenes , Chap. 12. FASHIONABLE PARTY-A. And now the haunch of mutton vapor-bath having received a gamey infusion, and a few last touches of sweets and coffee, was quite ready, the bathers came ; but not before the dis- creet automaton had got behind the bars of the piano music-desk, and there presented the ap- pearance of a captive languishing in a rosewood jail. — Our Mutual Friend, Book I., Chap. 11. FASHIONABLE SOCIETY. They all go up again into the gorgeous draw- ing rooms — all of them flushed with breakfast, as having taken scarlatina sociably — and ther^ 1 the combined unknowns do malignant things] with their legs to ottomans, and take as muchas; possible out of the splendid furniture. Our Mutual Friend, Book /., Chap. 10. FASHIONABLE CONVENTIONALITIES. The social ice on which all the children of Podsnappery, with genteel souls to be saved, are required to skate in circles, or to slide in long rows. — Our Mutual Friend, Book II., Chap. 8. FASHIONABLE CALLS. And now, in the blooming summer days, be- hold Mr. and Mi :. Boffin established in the emi- nently aristocratic family mansion, an 1 behold all manner of crawling, creeping, fluttering, and buzzing creatures, attracted by the gold-dust of the Golden Dustman ! Foremost among those leaving cards at the eminently aristocratic door, before it is quite painted, are the Veneerings ; out of breath, one might imagine, from the impetuosity of their rush to the eminently aristocratic steps. One copper plate Mrs. Veneering, two copper-plate Mr. Veneerings, and a connubial copper-plate Mr. and Mrs. Veneering, requesting the honor of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin’s company at dinner with the utmost Analytical solemnities. The enchant ing Lady Tippins leaves a card. Twemlow leaves cards. A tall custard-colored phaeton tooling up in a solemn manner leaves four cards, to wit, a couple of Mr. Podsnaps, a Mrs. Pod- snap, and a Miss Podsnap. All the world and his wife ai\d daughter leave cards. Some- times the world’s wife has so many daughters, that her card reads rather like a Miscellaneous Lot at an Auction ; comprising Mrs. Tapkins, Miss Tapkins, Miss Frederica Tapkins, Miss Antonia Tapkins, Miss Malvina Tapkins, and Miss Euphemia Tapkins ; at the same time the same lady leaves the card of Mrs. Henry George Alfred Swoshle, nie Tapkins; also a card, Mrs. Tapkins at Home Wednesdays, Music, Port- land Place. Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap . 17. FASHIONABLE EXCLUSIVENESS. The Podsnaps lived in a shady angle adjoin- ing Portman Square. They were a kind of peo- ple certain to dwell in the shade, wherever they dwelt. Miss Podsnap’s life had been, from her first appearance on this planet, altogether of a shady order ; for, Mr. Podsnap’s young person was likely to get little good out of association with other young persons, and had therefore been restricted to companionship with not very congenial older persons, and with massive furni- ture. Miss Podsnap’s early views of life being principally derived from the reflections of it in her father’s boots, and in the walnut and rose- wood tables of the dim drawing-rooms, and in their swarthy giants of looking glasses, were of a sombre cast ; and it was not wonderful that now, when she was on most days solemnly tooled through the Park by the side of her moth- er, in a great, tall, custard-colored phaeton, she showed above the apron of that vehicle like a dejected young person sitting up in bed to take a startled look at things in general, and very strongly desiring to get her head under the counterpane again. Our Mutual Friend, Book /., Chap. II. FASHIONABLE PEOPLE— The Veneer- ing-s. Mr. and Mrs. Veneering were bran-new peo- ple in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new', their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new, :hey were as newly mar- ried as w'as lawfully compatible with their hav- ing a bran-new baby, and if they had set up a great-grandfather, he would have come home FASHIONABLE PEOPLE 189 FASHION 1 \ in matting from the Pantechnicon, without a scratch upon him, French polished to the crown of his head. For, in the Veneering establishment, from the hall-chairs with the new coat of arms to the grand pianoforte with the new action, and up- stairs again to the new fire-escape, all things were in a state of high varnish and polish. And what was observable in the furniture was ob- servable in the Veneerings — the surface smelt a little too much of the workshop and was a trifle sticky. There was an innocent piece of dinner-furni- ture that went upon easy castors and was kept over a livery stable-yarcl in Duke Street, St. James’s, when not in use, to whom the Veneer- ings were a source of blind confusion. The name of this article was Twemlow. Being first cousin to Lord Snigsworth, he was in frequent requisition, and at many houses might be said to represent the dining-table in its normal state. Mr. and Mrs. Veneering, for example, arranging a dinner, habitually started with Twemlow, and then put leaves in him, or added guests to him. Sometimes the table consisted of Twemlow and half a dozen leaves ; sometimes, of Twemlow and a dozen leaves ; sometimes, Twemlow was pulled out to his utmost extent of twenty leaves. Mr. and Mrs. Veneering on occasions of cere- mony faced each other in the centre of the board, and thus the parallel still held ; for, it always happened that the more Twemlow was pulled out, the farther he found himself from the centre, and the nearer to the sideboard at one end of the room, or the window-curtains at the other. Our Mutual Friend , Book /., Chap. 2. FASHIONABLE PEOPLE-How they are managed. There is this remarkable circumstance to be noted in everything associated with my Lady Dedlock as one of a class — as one of the leaders av\d representatives of her little world — she suoposes herself to be an inscrutable Being, quite out of the reach and ken of ordinary mor- tal:; ; seeing herself in her glass, where indeed she looks so. Yet, every dim little star revolv- ing about her, from her maid to the manager of the Italian Opera, knows her weaknesses, pre- judices, follies, haughtinesses, and caprices ; and lives upon as accurate a calculation and as nice a measure of her moral nature, as her dress- makei takes of her physical proportions. Is a new dress, a new custom, a new singer, a new dancer, a new form of jewelry, a new dwarf or giant, a new chapel, a new anything, to be set up? Tiiere are deferential people, in a dozen callings, whom my Lady Dedlock suspects of nothing out prostration before her, who can tell you how to manage her as if she were a baby ; who do nothing but nurse her all their lives; who, humbly affecting to follow with profound subservience, lead her and her whole troop after them ; who, in hooking one, hook all and bear them off, as Lemuel Gulliver bore away the stately fleet of the majestic Lilliput. “ If you want to addiess our people, sir,” say Blaze and Sparkle, the jewellers — meaning by our people, Lady Dedlock and the rest — “ you must remem- ber that you are not dealing with the general public ; you must hit our people in their weak- est place, and their weakest place is such a place.” “To make this article go down, gen- tlemen,” say Sheen and Gloss, the mercers, to their friends the manufacturers, “you must come to us, because we know where to have the fash- ionable people, and we can make it fashiona- ble.” “ If you want to get this print upon the tables of my high connection, sir,” says Mr. Sladdery, the librarian, “ or if you want to get this dwarf or giant into the houses of my high connection, sir, or if you want to secure to this entertainment the patronage of my high con- nection, sir, you must leave it, if you please, to me ; for I have been accustomed to study the leaders of my high connection, sir ; and I may tell you, without vanity, that I can turn them round my finger.” — in which Mr. Sladdery, who is an honest man, does not exaggerate at all. Bleak House , Chap. 2. FASHION— In England. Whatsoever fashion is set in England is cer- tain to descend. This is the text for a perpetual sermon on care in setting fashions. When you find a fashion low down, look back for the time (it will never be far off) when it was the fashion high up. This is the text for a perpetual ser- mon on social justice. From imitations of Ethi- opian Serenaders, to imitations of Prince’s coats and waistcoats, you will find the original model in St. James’s Parish. When the Serenaders be- come tiresome, trace them beyond the Black Country : when the coats and waistcoats become insupportable, refer them to their source in the Upper Toady Regions. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 23. FASHIONS— Like human beings. “ Fashions are like human beings. They come in, nobody knows when, why, or how ; and they go out, nobody knows when, why, or how. Everything is like life, in my opinion, if you look at it in that point of view.” David Copperjield, Chap. 9. FASHIONS— Second-hand clothes. Probably there are not more second-hand clothes sold in London than in Paris, and yet the mass of the London population have a second-hand look which is not to be detected on the mass of the Parisian population. I think this is mainly because a Parisian work- man does not in the least trouble himself about what is worn by a Parisian idler, but dresses in the way of his own class and for his own com- fort. In London, oh the contrary, the fashions descend ; and you never fully know how incon- venient or ridiculous a fashion is, until you see it in its last descent. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 23. FASHION -The world of. Both the world of fashion and the Court of Chancery are things of precedent and usage ; over-sleeping Rip Van Winkles, who have played at strange games through a deal of thundery weather ; sleeping beauties, whom the Knight will wake one day, when all the stopped spits in the kitchen shall begin to turn prodigiously ! It is not a large world. Relatively even to this world of ours, which has its limits too (as your Highness shall find when you have made the tour of it, and are come to the brink of the void beyond), it is a very little speck. There is FASHION 190 FAT BOY much good in it ; there are many good and true people in it ; it has its appointed place. But the evil of it is, that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller’s cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot see them as they circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air. Bleak House , Chap. 2. FASHION— The ennui of. My Lady Dedlock has been bored to death. Concert, assembly, opera, theatre, drive, nothing is new to my Lady, under the worn-out heavens. Only last Sunday, when poor wretches were gay — within the walls, playing with children among the clipped trees and the statues in the Palace Garden ; walking, a score abreast, in the Elysian Fields, made more Elysian by performing dogs and wooden horses ; between whiles filtering (a few) through the gloomy Cathedral of our Lady, to say a word or two at the base of a pillar, within flare of a rusty little gridiron-full of gusty little tapers — without the walls, encom- passing Paris with dancing, love-making, wine- drinking, tobacco-smoking, tomb-visiting, bil- liard, card, and domino playing, quack-doctoring, and much murderous refuse, animate and inani- mate — only last Sunday, my Lady, in the deso- lation of Boredom and the clutch of Giant Despair, almost hated her own maid for being in spirits. She cannot, therefore, go too fast from Paris. Weariness of soul lies before her, as it lies be- hind — her Ariel has put a girdle of it round the whole earth, and it cannot be unclasped — but the imperfect remedy is always to fly from the last place where it has been experienced. Fling Paris back into the distance, then, exchanging it for endless avenues and cross-avenues of wintry trees ! And, when next beheld, let it be some leagues away, with the Gate of the Star a white speck glittering in the sun, and the city a mere mound in a plain : two dark square towers rising out of it, and light and shadow descend- ing on it aslant, like the angels in Jacob’s dream ! — Bleak House , Chap. 12. FAT BOY- Joe, the. “Joe, Joe !” said the stout gentleman, when the citadel was taken, and the besiegers and be- sieged sat down to dinner. “ Damn that boy, he’s gone to sleep again. Be good enough to pinch him, sir — in the leg, if you please ; nothing else wakes him — thank you. Undo the hamper, Joe.” The fat boy, who had been effectually roused by the compression of a portion of his leg be- tween the finger and thumb of Mr. Winkle, rolled off the box once again, and proceeded to unpack the hamper, with more expedition than could have been expected from his previous in- activity. * * * * * “ Plates, Joe, plates.” A similar process em- ployed in the distribution of the crockery. “Now, Joe, the fowls. Damn that boy, lie’s gone to sleep again. Joe! Joe!” (Sundry taps on the head with a stick, and the fat boy, with some difficulty, reused from his lethargy.) “ Come, hand in the eatables. ’ There was something in the sound of the last word whi.h roused the unctuous boy. He jumped up ; and the leaden eyes which twinkled behind his mountainous cheeks, leered horribly upon the food as he unpacked it from the basket. ***** Mr. Wardle unconsciously changed the sub- ject, by calling emphatically for Joe. “ Damn that boy,” said the old gentleman, “lie’s gone to sleep again.” “Very extraordinary boy, that,” said Mr. Pick- wick, “does he always sleep in this way?” “Sleep!” said the old gentleman, “he’s al- ways asleep. Goes on errands fast asleep, and snores as he waits at table.” “ How very odd !” said Mr. Pickwick. “Ah! odd indeed,” returned the old gentle- man ; “ I’m proud of that boy — wouldn’t part with him on any account — he’s a natural curi- osity ! Here, Joe — Joe — take these things away, and open another bottle — d’ye hear?” The fat boy rose, opened his eyes, swallowed the huge piece of pie he had been in the act of masticating when he last fell asleep, and slowly obeyed his master’s orders — gloating languidly over the remains of the feast, as he removed the plates and deposited them in the hamper. Bickwicky Chap. 4. The object that presented itself to the eyes of the astonished clerk, was a boy — a wonder- fully fat boy — habited as a serving lad, standing upright on the mat, with his eyes closed as if in sleep. He had never seen such a fat boy in or out of a travelling caravan ; and this, coupled with the calmness and repose of his appearance, so very different from what was reasonably to have been expected of the inflicter of such knocks, smote him with wonder. “What’s the matter?” inquired the clerk. The extraordinary boy replied not a word ; but he nodded once, and seemed, to the clerk’s imagination, to snore feebly. “Where do you come from?” inquired the clerk. The boy made no sign. He breathed heavily, but in all other respects was motionless. The clerk repeated the question thrice, and receiving no answer, prepared to shut the door, when the boy suddenly opened his eyes, winked several times, sneezed once, and raised his hand as if to repeat the knocking. Finding the door open, he stared about him with astonishment, and at length fixed his eyes on Mr. Lowten’s face. “ What the devil do you knock in that way for?” inquired the clerk, angrily. “ Which way ! ” said the boy, in a slow and sleepy voice. “ Why, like forty hackney-coachmen,” replied the clerk. “ Because master said I wasn’t to leave off knocking till they opened the door, for fear I should go to sleep,” said the boy. Pickwick , Chap. 54. FAT BOY— Joe as a spy. “ Missus !” shouted the fat boy. “Well, Joe,” said the trembling old lady. “ I’m sure I have been a good mistress to you. You have invariably been treated very kindly. You have never had too much to do; and you have always had enough to eat.” This last was an appeal to the fat boy’s most sensitive feelings. He seemed touched, as he replied, emphatically — FAT BOY 191 FEAR “ I knows I has.” “ Then what can you want to do now?” said the old lady, gaining courage. “I wants to make your flesh creep,” replied the boy. This sounded like a very bloodthirsty mode of showing one’s gratitude ; and as the old lady did not precisely understand the process by which such a result was to be attained, all her former horrors returned. “ What do you think I see in this very arbor last night?” inquired the boy. “ Bless us ! What ? ” exclaimed the old lady, alarmed at the solemn manner of the corpulent youth. “ The strange gentleman — him as had his arm hurt — a kissin’ and huggin’ — ” “ Who. Joe? None of the servants, I hope.” “Worser than that,” roared the fat boy, in the old lady’s ear. “ Not one of my grand-da’aters ? ” “Worser than that.” “Worse than that, Joe!” said the old lady, who had thought this the extreme limit of hu- man atrocity. “ Who was it, Joe? I insist upon knowing.” The fat boy looked cautiously round, and having concluded his survey, shouted in the old lady’s ear : “ Miss Rachael.” “ What ! ” said the old lady, in a shrill tone. “ Speak louder.” “ Miss Rachael,” roared the fat boy. “ My da’ater ! ” The train of nods which the fat boy gave by way of assent, communicated a blanc-mange- like motion to his fat cheeks. “ And she suffered him ! ” exclaimed the old lady. A grin stole over the fat boy’s features as he said : “ I see her a kissin’ of him agin.” Pickwick , Chap. 8. FAT BOY— Joe in love. “Will you have some of this?” said the fat boy, plunging into the pie up to the very fer- ules of the knife and fork. “ A little, if you please,” replied Mary. The fat boy assisted Mary to a little, and himself to a great deal, and was just going to begin eating, when he suddenly laid down his knife and fork, leant forward in his chair, and letting his hands, with the knife and fork in them, fall on his knees, said, very slowly : “ I say ! how nice you look ! ” This was said in an admiring manner, and was, so far, gratifying; but still there was enough of the cannibal in the young gentle- man’s eyes to render the compliment a double one. “ Dear me, Joseph,” said Mary, affecting to blush, “ what do you mean ? ” The fat boy, gradually recovering his former position, replied with a heavy sigh, and remain- ing thoughtful for a few moments, drank a long draught of the porter. Having achieved this feat he sighed again, and applied himself assid- uously to the pie. “ What a nice young lady Miss Emily is ! ” said Mary, after a long silence. The fat boy had by this time finished the pie. “ I knows a nicerer.” “ Indeed ! ’ said Mary. “ Yes, indeed ! ” replied the fat boy, with un- wonted vivacity. “ What’s her name ? ” inquired Mary. “ What yours ?” “ Mary.” “ So’s her’s,” said the fat boy. “ You’re her.” The boy grinned to add point to the compli- ment, and put his eyes into something between a squint and a cast, which there is reason to be- lieve he intended for an ogle. “You musn’t talk to me in that way,” said Mary ; “ you don’t mean it.” “ Don’t I though ? ” replied the fat boy ; “ I say ! ” “ Well.” “ Are you going to come here regular? ” “ No,” rejoined Mary, shaking her head, “ I’m going away again to-night. Why?” “Oh!” said the'' fat boy in a tone of strong feeling; “how we should have enjoyed our- selves at meals, if you had been ! ” * * * * * “ Don’t go yet,” urged the fat boy. “ I must,” replied Mary. “ Good-bye, for the present.” The fat boy, with elephantine playfulness, stretched out his arms to ravish a kiss ; but as it required no great agility to elude him, his fair enslaver had vanished before he closed them again ; upon which the apathetic youth ate a pound or so of steak with a sentimental countenance, and fell fast asleep. Pickwick , Chap. 54. FATHER— Child’s idea of a. The child glanced keenly at the blue coat and stiff white cravat, which, with a pair of creaking boots and a very loud-ticking watch, embodied her idea of a father. — Dombey, Ch. 1. FATHER— And children. Then they would climb and clamber up stairs with him, and romp about him on the sofa, or group themselves at his knee, a very nosegay of little faces, while he seemed to tell them some story. — Dombey Son. FAVOR— The pleasure of a. “Dear Mr. Toots,” said Florence, “you are so friendly to me, and so honest, that I am sure I may ask a favor of you.” “Miss Dombey,” returned Mr. Toots, “if you’ll only name one, you’ll — you’ll give me an appetite. To which,” said Mr. Toots, with some sentiment, “ I have long been a stranger.” Dombey Sf Son , Chap. 61. “ I have quite come into my property now, you know, and — and I don’t know what to do with it. If I could be at all useful in a pecu- niary point of view, I should glide into the si- lent tomb with ease and smoothness.” Dombey 6° Son, Chap. 50. FEAR— A means of obedience. “ Repression .is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend,” observed the Marquis, “ will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof,” looking up to it, “ shuts out the sky.” Tale of Two Cities , Chap. 9. FEATURE3 192 FEELINGS FEATURES and manners— An excess of. Veneering here pulls up his oratorical Pegasus extremely short, and plumps down, clean over his head, with : “ Lammle, God bless you ! ” Then Lammle. Too much of him every way ; pervadingly too much nose of a coarse wrong shape, and his nose in his mind and his manners ; too much smile to be real ; too much frown to be false ; too many large teeth to be visible at once without suggesting a bite. Our Mutual Friend , Book II., Chap . 16. FEATURES— And personal characteristics. The lady thus specially presented, was a long lean figure, wearing such a faded air that she seemed not to have been made in what linen- drapers call “ fast colors” originally, and to have, by little and little, washed out. But for this she might have been described as the very pink of general propitiation and politeness. From a long habit of listening admirably to everything that was said in her presence, and looking at the speakers as if she were mentally engaged in tak- ing off impressions of their images upon her soul, never to part with the same but with life, her head had quite settled on one side. Her hands had contracted a spasmodic habit of rais- ing themselves of their own accord as in in- voluntary admiration. Her eyes were liable to a similar affection. She had the softest voice that ever was heard ; and her nose, stupendously aquiline, had a little knob in the very centre or key-stone of the bridge, whence it tended down- wards towai'ds her face, as in an invincible deter- mination never to turn up at anything. Dombey & Son , Chap. i. He was a slow, quiet-spoken, thoughtful old fellow, with eyes as red as if they had been small suns looking at you through a fog ; and a newly- awakened manner, such as he might have ac- quired by having stared for three or four days successively through every optical instrument in his shop, and suddenly came back to the world again, to find it green. Dombey Son , Chap. 4. And although it is not among the instincts, wild or domestic, of the cat tribe to play at cards, feline from sole to crown was Mr. Carker the Manager, as he basked in the strip of summer light and warmth that shone upon his table and the ground as if they were a crooked dial-plate, and himself the only figure on it. With hair and whiskers deficient in color at all times, but feebler than common in the rich sunshine, and more like the coat of a sandy tortoise-shell cat ; with long nails, nicely pared and sharpened ; with a natural antipathy to any speck of dirt, which made him pause sometimes and watch the falling motes of dust, and rub them olf his smooth white hand or glossy linen : Mr. Carker the Manager, sly of manner, sharp of tooth, soft of foot, watchful of eye, oily of tongue, cruel of heart, nice of habit, sat with a dainty steadfast- ness and patience at his work, as if he were waiting at a mouse’s hole. Dombey & Son , Chap. 22 . * * * A struggle which it was not very difficult to parade, his whole life being a strug- gle against all kinds of apopletic symptoms. Dombey Son , Chap. 20 . She was a very ugly old woman, with red rims round her eyes, and a mouth that mumbled and chattered of itself when she was not speaking. She was miserably dressed, ami carried some skins over her arm. She seemed to have fol- lowed Florence some little way at all events, for she had lost her breath ; and this made her uglier still, as she stood trying to regain it ; working her shrivelled yellow face and throat into all sorts of contortions. — Dombey dr* Son, Chap. 6. “ Let me tell your fortune, my pretty lady,” said the old woman, munching with her jaws, as if the Death’s Head beneath her yellow skin were impatient to get out. — Dombey Son, Chap. 10. FEELINGS— Of public men. Being naturally of a tender turn, I had dread- ful lonely feelings on me arter this. I con- quered ’em at selling times, having a reputation to keep (not to mention keeping myself), but they got me down in private, and rolled upon me. That’s often the way with us public char- acters. See us on the footboard, and you’d give pretty well anything you possess to be us. See us off the footboard, and you’d add a trifle to be off your bargain. It was under those circumstances that I come acquainted with a giant. I might have been too high to fall into conversation with him, had it not been for my lonely feelings. For the general rule is, going round the country, to draw the line at dressing up. When a man can’t trust his getting a liv- ing to his undisguised abilities, you consider him below your sort. And this giant when on view figured as a Roman. He was a languid young man, which I at- tribute to the distance betwixt "his extremities. He had a little head and less in it, he had weak eyes and weak knees, and altogether you couldn’t look at him without feeling that there was greatly too much of him both for his joints and his mind. — Dr. Maiigold. FEELINGS-Sam Weller on the. “ I have considered the matter well, for a long time, and I feel that my happiness is bound up in her.” “ That’s wot we call tying it up in a small parcel, sir,” interposed Mr. Weller, with an agreeable smile. Mr. Winkle looked somewhat stern at this interruption, and Mx*. Pickwick angrily re- quested his attendant not to jest with one of the best feelings of our nature ; to which Sam implied, “ That he wouldn’t, if he was aware on it ; but there were so many on ’em, that he hardly know’d which was the best ones wen he heerd ’em mentioned.” — Pickwick , Chap. 30. FEELINGS-Of Mr. Pecksniff. “ My goodness ! ” exclaimed that lady. “ How low you are in your spirits, sir ! ” “ I am a man, my dear madam,” said Mr Pecksniff, shedding tears, and speaking with an imperfect articulation, “ but I am also a father. I am also a widower. My feelings, Mrs. Todgers, will not consent to be entirely smothered, like the young children in the Tow- er. They ai*e grown up, and the mere I pi'ess (the bolster on them, the more they look round the corner of it.” — Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 9 PEELINGS 193 EIGHT FEELINGS-Of Toots. “ I feel,” said Mr. Toots, in an impassioned tone, “ as if I could express my feelings, at the present moment, in a most remarkable manner, if — if — I could only get a start.” Dombey Son, Chap. 56. FEVER- Its hallucinations. That I had a fever and was avoided, that I suffered greatly, that I often lost my reason, that the time *seemed interminable, that I con- founded impossible existences with my own identity ; that I was a brick in the house wall, and yet entreating to be released from the gid- dy place where the builders had set me ; that I was a steel beam of a vast engine clashing and whirling over a gulf, and yet that I implored in my own person to have the engine stopped, and my part in it hammered off ; that I passed through these phases of disease, I know of my own remembrance, and did in some sort know at the time. That I sometimes struggled with real people, in the belief that they were mur- derers, and that I would all at once compre- hend that they meant to do me good, and would then sink exhausted in their arms, and suffer them to lay me down, I also knew at the time. But, above all, I knew that there was a constant tendency in all these people — who, when I was very ill, would present all kinds of extraordinary transformations of the human face, and w’ould be much dilated in size — above all, I say, I knew that there was an extraordinary tendency in all these people, sooner or later to settle down into the likeness of Joe. Great Expectations, Chap. 57. The sun rose and sunk, and rose and sunk again, and many times after that ; and still, the boy lay stretched on his uneasy bed, dwindling away beneath the dry and wasting heat of fever. The worm does not his work more surely on the dead body, than does this slow creeping fire upon the living frame. Oliver Twist, Chap. 12. PICTION— Characters in. It is remarkable that what we call the world, which is so very credulous in what professes to be true, is most incredulous in what professes to be imaginary ; and that, while, every day in real life, it will allow in one man no blemishes, and in another no virtues, it will seldom admit a very strongly-marked character, either good or bad, in a fictitious narrative, to be within the limits of probability. Preface to Nicholas Nickleby. FIDELITY AND ORDER-Of Mr. Grew- gious. Many accounts and account-books, many files of correspondence, and several strong boxes, garnished Mr. Grewgious’s room. They can scarcely be represented as having lumbered it, so conscientious and precise was their orderly arrangement. The apprehension of dying sud- denly, and leaving one fact or one figure with any incompleteness or obscurity attaching to it, would have stretched Mr. Grewgious stone dead any day. The largest fidelity to a trust was the life-blood of the man. There are sorts of life- blood that course more quickly, more gayly, more attractively ; but there is no better sort in circulation. — Edwin Drood, Chap. 11. FIGURE— Of Mrs. Kenwigs. “But such a woman as Mrs. Kenwigs was, afore she was married ! Good gracious, such a woman ! ” Mr. Lumbey shook his head with great solem- nity, as though to imply that he supposed she must have been rather a dazzler. “Talk of fairies!” cried Mr. Kenwigs. “/ never see anybody so light to be alive, never. .Such manners too ; so playful, and yet so se- werely proper ! As for her figure ! It isn’t generally known,” said Mr. Kenwigs, dropping his voice ; “ but her figure was such, at that time, that the sign of the Britannia over in the Holloway road was painted from it.” Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 36. FIGHT— A school-boy’s. The shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition of an armed head in Macbeth. Who is this young butcher? He is the terror of the youth of Canterbury. There is a vague belief abroad, that the beef suet with which he anoints his hair gives him unnatural strength, and that he is a match for a man. He is a broad-faced, bull-necked young butcher, with rough red cheeks, an ill-conditioned mind, and an inju- rious tongue. His main use of this tongue is to disparage Dr. Strong’s young gentlemen. He says, publicly, that if they want anything he’ll give it ’em. He names individuals among them (myself included), whom he could undertake to settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him. He waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and calls challenges after me in the open streets. For these suffi- cient reasons I resolve to fight the butcher. It is a summer evening. Down in a green hol- low, at the corner of a wall, I meet the butcher by appointment. I am attended by a select body of our boys ; the butcher, by two other butchers, a young publican, and a sweep. The preliminaries are adjusted, and the butcher and myself stand face to face. In a moment the butcher lights ten thousand candles out of my left eyebrow. I11 another moment, I don’t know where the wall is, or where I am, or where anybody is. I hardly know which is mysel'f and which the butcher, we are always in such a tan- gle and tussle, knocking about the trodden grass. Sometimes I see the butcher, bloody but confi- dent ; sometimes I see nothing, and sit gasping on my second’s knee ; sometimes I go in at the butcher madly, and cut my knuckles open against his face, without appearing to discompose him at all. At last I awake, very queer about the head, as from a giddy sleep, and see the butcher walk- ing off, congratulated by the two other butchers and the sweep and publican, and putting on his coat as he goes ; firom which I augur, justly, that the victory is his. David Copperfield, Chap. 18. FIGHT— Between Q,uilp and Dick Swiveller. Daniel Quilp found himself, all flushed and dishevelled, in the middle of the street, with Mr. Richard Swiveller performing a kind of dance round him, and requiring to know “ whether he wanted any more ? ” FIGHT 194 FIRE AND MOB “ There’s plenty more of it at the same shop,” said Mr. Swiveller, by turns advancing and re- treating in a threatening attitude, “a large and extensive assortment always on hand — country orders executed with promptitude and despatch —will you have a little more, sir ? — don’t say no, if you'd rather not.” Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 13. FIGHT-Pip’s. “ Come and fight,” said the pale young gentle- man. What could I do but follow him? I have often asked myself the question since : but, what else could I do? His manner was so final and I was so astonished, that I followed where he led, as if I had been under a spell. ‘"Stop a minute, though,” he said, wheeling round before we had got many paces. “ I ought to give you a reason for fighting, too. There it is ! ” In a most irritating manner he instantly slapped his hands against one another, daintily flung one of his legs up behind him, pulled my hair, slapped his hands again, dipped his head, and butted it into my stomach. The bull-like proceeding last mentioned, be- sides that it was unquestionably to be regarded in the light of a liberty, was particularly dis- agreeable just after bread and meat. I there- fore hit out at him and was going to hit out again, when he said, “ Aha ! Would you? ” and began dancing backward and forward in a man- ner quite unparalleled within my limited ex- perience. “ Laws of the .game ! ” said he. Here he skipped from his left leg on to his right. “ Re- gular rules ! ” Here he skipped from his right leg on to his left. “ Come to the ground, and go through the preliminaries ! ” Here he dodg- ed backward and forward, and did all sorts of things, while I looked helplessly at him. I was secretly afraid of him when I saw him so dexterous ; but I felt morally and physically convinced that his light head of hair could have had no business in the pit of my stomach, and that I had a right to consider it irrelevant when so obtruded on my attention. Therefore, I fol- lowed him without a word to a retired nook of the garden, formed by the junction of two walls and screened by some rubbish. On his asking me if I was satisfied with the ground, and on my replying Yes, he begged my leave to absent himself for a moment, and quickly returned with a bottle of water and a sponge dipped in vinegar. “ Available for both, ’ he said, placing these against the wall. And then fell to pulling off, not only his jacket and waistcoat, but his shirt too, in a manner at once light-hearted, business-like, and blood-thirsty. Although he did not look very healthy — hav- ing pimples on his face, and a breaking-out at his mouth — these dreadful preparations quite ap- palled me. I judged him to be about my own age, but lie was much taller, and he had a way of spinning himself about that was full of ap- pearance. For the rest, he was a young genile- man in a gray suit (w hen not denuded for bat tie), with In > elbow , knee , wri t , and heel - considerably in advance of the rest of him as to development. * M y heart failed me when I aw him squaring ;ii ii,i- \, 1 1 1 1 every demonstration of mechanical nicety, and eying my anatomy as if he were minutely choosing his bone. I never have been so surprised in my life as I was when I let out the first blow, and saw him lying on his back, looking up at me with a bloody nose and his face exceedingly fore-shortened. But he was on his feet directly, and after sponging himself with a great show of dexterity began squaring again. 'The second greatest sur- prise I have ever had in my life was seeing him on his back again, looking up at me out of a black eye. His spirit inspired me with great respect. He seemed to have no strength, and he never once hit me hard, and he was always knocked down ; but he would be up again in a moment, spong- ing himself or drinking out of the water-bottle, with the greatest satisfaction in seconding him- self according to form, and then came at me with an air and a show that made me believe lie really was going to do for me at last. He g c\ heavily bruised, for I am sorry to record that the more I hit him, the harder I hit him ; but he came up again and again and again, until at last he got a bad fall with the back of his head against the wall. Even after that crisis in our affairs, he got up and turned round and round confusedly a few times, not knowing wdiere I was ; but finally went on his knees to his sponge and threw it up : at the same time panting out, “ That means you have won.” He seemed so brave and innocent, that al- though I had not proposed the contest I felt but a gloomy satisfaction in my victory. Indeed, I go so far as to hope that I regarded myself, while dressing, as a species of savage young wolf, or other wild beast. However, I got dressed J darkly wiping my sanguinary face at intervals; and I said, “Can I help you?” and he said, “ No, thankee,” and I said, “ Good afternoon,” and he said, “ Same to you.” Great Expectations , Chap. II. FIRE. The fire bounded up as if each sepa.ate flame had had a tiger’s life, and roared as though, in every one, there were a hungry voice. Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 65. FIRE AND MOB. It was not an easy task to draw off such a throng. If Bedlam gates had been flung open wide, there would not have issued forth such maniacs as the frenzy of that night had made. There were men there wdro danced and trampled on the beds of flowers as though they trod down human enemies, and wrenched them from the stalks, like savages vdro twisted human necks. There were men vdro cast their lighted torches in the air, and suffered them to fall upon their heads and faces, blistering the skin with deep unseemly burns. There were men who rushed up to the fire, and paddled in it with their hands as if in water; and others who were re- strained by force from plunging in, to gratify their deadly longing. On the skull of one drunken lad— not twenty, by his looks— who lay upon the ground with a bottle to his mouth, the lead from the roof came streaming down In a shower of liquid fire, white hot ; melting his head like wax. When the scattered parties were collected, men— living yet, but singed as with hot irons — were plucked out of the cellars, and carried off upon the shoulders of others, FIRE AND MOB 195 FIRE AND BREEZE who strove to wake them as they went along, with ribald jokes, and left them, dead, in the passages of hospitals. But of all the howling throng not one learned mercy from, or sickened at, these sights ; nor was the fierce, besotted, senseless rage of one man glutted. Slowly, and in small clusters, with hoarse hurrahs and repetitions of their usual cry, the assembly dropped away. The last few red-eyed stragglers reeled after those who had gone be- fore ; the distant noise of men calling to each other, and whistling for others whom they missed, grew fainter and fainter ; at length even these sounds died away, and silence reigned alone. Silence indeed ! The glare of the flames had sunk into a fitful flashing light ; and the gentle stars, invisible till now, looked down upon the ■ blackening heap. A dull smoke hung upon the ruin, as though to hide it from those eyes of Heaven ; and the wind forebore to move it. Bare walls, roof open to the sky — chambers, where the beloved dead had, many and many a fair day, risen to new life and energy; where so many dear ones had been sad and merry ; which were connected with so many thoughts and hopes, .regrets and changes — all gone. Nothing left but a dull and dreary blank — a smouldering heap of dust and ashes — the silence and solitude of utter desolation. * * * * * The more the fire crackled and raged, the wilder and more cruel the men grew ; as though moving in that element they became fiends, and changed their earthly nature for the qualities that give delight in hell. The burning pile, revealing rooms and pas- sages red-hot, through gaps made in the crum- bling walls ; the tributary fires that licked the outer bricks and stones, with their long forked tongues, and ran up to meet the glowing mass within ; the shining of the flames upon the vil- lains who looked on and fed them ; the roaring of the angry blaze, so bright and high that it seemed in its rapacity to have swallowed up the very smoke ; the living flakes the wind bore rapidly away and hurried on with, like a storm of fiery snow ; the noiseless breaking of great beams of wood, which fell like feathers on the heap of ashes, and crumbled in the very act to sparks and powder; the lurid tinge that over- spread the sky, and the darkness, very deep by contrast, which prevailed around ; the exposure to the coarse, common gaze, of every little nook which usages of home had made a sacred place, and the destruction by rude hands of every littfe household favorite which old associations made a dear and precious thing: all this taking place — not among pitying looks and friendly mur- murs of compassion, but brutal shouts and ex- ultations, which seemed to make the very rats who stood by the old house too long, creatures with some claim upon the pity and regard of those its roof had sheltered — combined to form a scene never to be forgotten by those who saw it and were not actors in the work, so long as life endured. — Barnaby Budge, Chap. 55. ***** all the woodwork round the prison-doors they did the like, leaving not a joist or beam un- touched. This infernal christening performed, they fired the pile with lighted matches and with blazing tow, and then stood by, awaiting the result. The furniture being very dry, and rendered more combustible by wax and oil, besides the arts they had used, took fire at once. The flames roared high and fiercely, blackening the prison wall, and twining up its lofty front like burning serpents. At first, they crowded round the blaze, and vented their exultation only in their looks ; but when it grew hotter and fiercer — when it crackled, leaped, and roared, like a great furnace — when it shone upon the opposite houses, and lighted up not only the pale and wondering faces at the windows, but the inmost corners of each habitation — when, through the deep red heat and glow, the fire was seen sporting and toying with the door, now clinging to its obdurate sur- face, now gliding off with fierce inconstancy and soaring high into the sky, anon l-eturning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it to its ruin — when it shone and gleamed so brightly that the church clock of St. Sepulchre’s, so often point- ing to the hour of death, was legible as in broad day, and the vane upon its steeple-top glittered in the unwonted light like something richly jewelled — when blackened stone and sombre brick grew ruddy in the deep reflection, and win- dows shone like burnished gold, dotting the longest distance in the fiery vista with their specks of brightness — when wall and tower, and roof and chimney-stack, seemed drunk, and in the flickering glare appeared to reel and stagger — when scores of objects, never seen before, burst out upon the view, and things the most familiar put on some new aspect — then the mob began to join the whirl, and with loud yells, and shouts, and clamor, such as happily is seldom heard, bestirred themselves to feed the fire, and keep it at its height. Although the heat was so intense that the paint on the houses over against the prison parched and crackled up, and swelling into boils, as it were, from excess of torture, broke and crumbled away ; although the glass fell from the winclow-sashes, and the lead and iron on the roofs blistered the incautious hand that touched them ; and the sparrows in the eaves took wing, and, rendered giddy by the smoke, fell fluttering down upon the blazing pile, still the fire was tended unceasingly by busy hands, and round it, men were going always. They never slackened in their zeal, or kept aloof, but pressed upon the flames so hard, that those in front had much ado to save themselves from being thrust in ; if one man swooned or dropped, a dozen struggled for his place, and that, although they knew the pain, and thirst, and pressure to be unendurable. Barnaby Budge, Chap. 64. FIRE— Its red eyes. The fire, which had left off roaring, winked its red eyes at us — as Richard said — like a drowsy old Chancery lion. Bleak House, Chap. 3. When all the keeper’s goods were flung upon this costly pile, to the last fragment, they smear- ed it with the pitch, and tar, and rosin they had brought, and sprinkled it with turpentine. To FIRE AND BREEZE. Now, too, the fire took fresh courage, favored by the lively wind the dance awakened, and burnt clear and h igh. It was the Genius of the FIRE 190 FIRE-PLACE room, and present everywhere. It shone in peo- ple’s eyes, it sparkled in the jewels on the snowy necks of girls, it twinkled at their ears, as if it whispered to them slyly, it flashed about their waists, it flickered on the ground and made it rosy for their feet, it bloomed upon the ceiling that its glow might set off their bright faces, and it kindled up a general illumination in Mrs. Craggs’s little belfry. Now, too, the lively air that fanned it, grew less gentle as the music quickened and the dance proceeded with new spirit ; and a breeze arose that made the leaves and berries dance upon the wall, as they had often done upon the trees ; and the breeze rustled in the room as if an invisible company of fairies, treading in the footsteps of the good substantial revellers, were whirling after them. Now, too, no feature of the Doctor’s face could be distinguished as he spun and spun ; and now there seemed a dozen Birds of Paradise in fitful flight ; and now there were a thousand little bells at work ; and now a fleet of flying skirts was ruffled by a little tempest, when the music gave in, and the dance was over. Battle of Life, Chap . 2. FIRE— A brig-ht. The music struck up, and the dance com- menced. The bright fire crackled and sparkled, rose and fell, as though it joined the dance itself, in right good fellowship. Sometimes it roared as if it would make music too. .Sometimes it •flashed and beamed as if it were the eye of the old room : it winked, too, sometimes, like a knowing Patriarch, upon the youthful whisperers in corners. Sometimes it sported with the holly-boughs ; and, shining on the leaves by fits and starts, made them look as if they were in the cold winter night again, and fluttering in the wind. Sometimes its genial humor grew obstreperous, and passed all bounds ; and then it cast into the room, among the twinkling feet, with a loud burst, a shower of harmless little sparks, and in its exultation, leaped and bounded like a mad thing, up the broad old chimney. Battle of Life, Chap. 2. FIRE— Little Nell at the forge. “ See yonder there — that’s my friend.” “The fire?” said the child. “ It has been alive as long as I have,” the man made answer. “ We talk and think to- gether all night long.” The child glanced quickly at him in her sur- prise, but he had turned his eyes in their former direction and was musing as before. “ It’s like a book to me,” he said ; “the only book I ever learned to read ; and many an old story it tells me. It’s music, for I should know its voice among a thousand, and there are other voices in its roar. It has its pictures loo. You don’t know how many strange faces and differ- ent scenes I trace in the red-hot coals. It’s my memory, that fire, and shows me all my life.” The child, bending down to listen to his words, could not help remarking with what brightened eyes he continued to speak and muse. “Yes,” he Said, with a faint smile, “ it was the same when I was quite a baby, and crawled about it, (ill I fell asleep. My father watched it then.” “Ilad you no mother?” asked the child. “ No, she was dead. Women work hard in these parts. She worked herself to death, they told me, and, as they said so then, the fire has gone on saying the same thing ever since. I suppose it was true. I have always believed it.” “ Were you brought up here, then?” said the child. “ Summer and winter,” he replied. “ Secretly at first, but when they found it out, they let him keep me here. So the fire nursed me — the same fire. It has never gone out.” “ You are fond of it?” said the child. “ Of course I am. He died before it. I saw him fall down — just there, where those ashes are burning now — and wondered, I remember, why it didn’t help him.” Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 44. / FIRE Sykes, the murderer, at a. The broad sky seemed on fire. Rising into the air with showers of sparks, and rolling one above the other, were sheets of flame, lighting the atmosphere for miles round, and driving clouds of smoke in the direction where he stood. The shouts grew louder as new voices swelled the roar, and he could hear the cry of “ Fire ! ” mingled with the ringing of an alarm-bell, the fall of heavy bodies, and the crackling of flames as they twined round some new obstacle, and shot aloft as though refreshed by food. The noise increased as he looked. There were peo- ple there — men and women — light, bustle. It was like new life to him. He darted onward — straight, headlong — dashing through brier and brake, and leaping gate and fence as madly as the dog, who careered with loud and sounding bark before him. He came upon the spot. There were half- dressed figures tearing to and fro, some endeav- oring to drag the frightened horses from the stables, others driving the cattle from the yard and out-houses, and others coming laden from the burning pile, amidst a shower of falling sparks, and the tumbling down of red-hot beams. The apertures, where doors and windows stood an hour ago, disclosed a mass of raging fire ; walls rocked and crumbled into the burning well ; the molten lead and iron poured down, white hot, upon the ground. Women and chil- dren shrieked, and men encouraged each other with noisy shouts and cheers. The clanking of the engine-pumps, and the spirting and hiss- ing of the water as it fell upon the blazing wood, added to the tremendous roar. He shouted, too, till he was hoarse ; and, flying from memory and himself, plunged into the thickest of the throng. Oliver Twist, Qhap. 48. FIRE PLACE An ancient. The fire-place was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh’s daughters, Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshaz- zars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts ; and yet that face of Marley’s, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet’s rod, and swal- lowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some “FIXING” 197 FLUTE MUSIC picture on its surface from the disjointed frag- ments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley’s head on every one. Christmas Carol , Stave i. “ FIXING A provincialism of America. “Will you try,” said my opposite neighbor, handing me a dish of potatoes, broken up in milk and butter, — “will you try some of these fixings ? ” There are few words which perform such va- rious duties as this word “ fix.” It is the Caleb Quotem of the American vocabulary. You call upon a gentleman in a country town, and his help informs you that he is “ fixing himself” just now, but will be down directly ; by which you are to understand that he is dress- ing. You inquire on board a steamboat, of a fellow-passenger, whether breakfast will be ready soon, and he tells you he should think so, for when he was last below they were “ fixing the tables,” in other words, laying the cloth. You beg a porter to collect your luggage, and he entreats you not to be uneasy, for he’ll “ fix it presently ; ” and if you complain of indispo- sition, you are advised to have recourse to Doc- tor so-and so, who will “ fix you ” in no time. One night I ordered a bottle of mulled wine at a hotel where I was staying, and waited a long lime for it ; at length it was put upon the table with an apology from the landlord that he feared it wasn’t “ fixed properly.” And I recollect once, at a stage-coach dinner, over- hearing a very stern gentleman demand of a waiter who presented him with a plate of under- done roast beef, “ whether he called that fixing God A’mighty’s vittles.” American Notes , Chap. 10. FLAG— The American. “ Tut ! ” said Martin. “ You’re a gay flag in the distance. But let a man be near enough to get the light upon the other side, and see through you, and you are but sorry fustian !’’ Marlin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 21. FLATTERER. For, although a skillful flatterer is a most de- lightful companion if you can keep him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people. Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 28. FLOWERS, BIRDS, AND ANGELS-The vision of Jenny Wren. 1 “ I wonder how it happens that when I am work, work, working here, all alone in the sum- mer-time, I smell flowers?” “Asa commonplace individual, I should say,” Eugene suggested languidly — for he was grow- ing weary of the person of the house — “ that you smell flowers because you do smell flowers.” E. “ No I don’t,” said the little creature, resting one arm upon the elbow of her chair, resting her chin upon that hand, and looking vacantly be- fore her ; “ this is not a flowery neighborhood. It’s anything but that. And yet, as I sit at work, I smell miles of flowers. I smell roses, till I think I see the rose-leaves lying in heaps, bush- els, on the floor. I smell fallen leaves, till I put down my hand — so — and expect to make them rustle. 1 smell the white and the pink May in the hedges, and all sorts of flowers that I never was among. For I have seen very few flowers indeed, in my life.” “ Pleasant fancies to have, Jenny dear ! ” said her friend : with a glance towards Eugene as if she would have asked him whether they were given the child in compensation for her losses. “ So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me. And the birds I hear ! Oh ! ” cried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking up- ward, “ how they sing ! ” There was something in the face and action for the moment quite inspired and beautiful. Then the chin dropped musingly upon the hand again. “ I dare say my birds sing better than other birds, and my flowers smell better than other flowers. For when I was a little child,” in a tone as though it were ages ago, “ the children that I used to see early in the morning were very dif- ferent from any others that I ever saw. They were not like me ; they were not chilled, anxious, ragged, or beaten ; they were never in pain. They were not like the children of the neigh- bors ; they never made me tremble all over, by setting up shrill noises, and they never mocked me. Such numbers of them too ! All in white dresses, and with something shining on the bor- ders, and on their heads, that I have never been able to imitate with my work, though I know it so well. They used to come down in long, bright, slanting rows, and say all together, ‘Who is this in pain ! Who is this in pain !’ When I told them who it was, they answered, ‘ Come and play with us ! ’ When I said ‘ I never play! I can’t play!’ they swept about me and took me up, and made me light. Then it was all delicious ease and rest till they laid me down, and said, all together, 4 Have patience, and we will come again.’ Whenever they came back, I used to know they were coming before I saw the long bright rows, by hearing them ask, all together, a long way off, 4 Who is this in pain ! who is this in pain ! ’ And I used to cry out, 4 O my blessed children, it’s poor me. Have pity on me. Take me up and make me light !’ ” By degrees, as she progressed in this remem- brance, the hand was raised, the last ecstatic look returned, and she became quite beautiful. Having so paused for a moment, silent, with a listening smile upon her face, she looked round and recalled herself. Our Mutual Friend, Book II., Chap. 2. FLUTE-PLAYER— Mi\ Mell, the. When he had put up his things for the night, he took out his flute, and blew at it, until I al- most thought he would gradually blow his whole being into the large hole at the top, and ooze away at the keys. — David Copperfald, Chap. 5. FLUTE MUSIC— Dick Swiveller’s solace in love. Some men in his blighted position would have taken to drinking; but as Mr. Swiveller had taken to that before, he only took, on receiving the news that Sophy Wackles was lost to him forever, to playing the flute ; thinking, after ma- ture consideration, that it was a good, sound, dismal occupation, not only in unison with his own sad thoughts, but calculated to awaken a fellow-feeling in the bosoms of his neighbors. In pursuance of this resolution, he now drew a FOG 198 FORTUNE-HUNTERS little table to his bedside, and arranging the light and a small oblong music-book to the best advantage, took his flute from its box, and began to play most mournfully. The air was “Away with Melancholy” — a composition, which, when it is played very slow- ly on the flute, in bed, with the further disadvan- tage of being performed by a gentleman but im- perfectly acquainted with the instrument, who repeats one note a great many times before he can find the next, has not a lively effect. Yet, for half the night, or more, Mr. Swiveller, lying sometimes on his back with his eyes upon the ceiling, and sometimes half out of bed, to cor- rect himself by the book, played this unhappy tune over and over again ; never leaving off, save for a minute or two at a time to take breath and soliloquize about the Marchioness, and then beginning again with renewed vigor. It was not until he had quite exhausted his several sub- jects of meditation, and had breathed into the flute the whole sentiment of the purl down to its very dregs, and had nearly maddened the peo- ple of the house, and at both the next doors, and over the way, — that he shut up the music- book, extinguished the candle, and finding him- self greatly lightened and relieved in his mind, turned round and fell asleep. Old Curiosity Shop , Chap . 58. FOG— A sea of. It was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and dark. Animate London, with smart- ing eyes and irritated lungs, was blinking, wheez- ing, and choking ; inanimate London was a sooty spectre, divided in purpose between being visi- ble and invisible, and so being wholly neither. Gas-lights flared in the shops with a haggard and unblest air, as knowing themselves to be night- creatures that had no business abroad under the sun ; while the sun itself, when it was for a few moments dimly indicated through circling eddies of fog, showed as if it had gone out and were collapsing flat and cold. Even in the surround- ing country it w’as a foggy day, but there the fog was grey, whereas in London it was, at about the boundary line, dark yellow, and a little with- in it brown, and then browner, and then brown- er, until, at the heart of the City — which call Saint Mary Axe — it was rusty black. From any point of the high ridge of land northward, it might have been discerned that the loftiest build- ings made an occasional struggle to get their heads above the foggy sea, and especially that the great dome of Saint Paul’s seemed to die hard ; but this was not perceivable in the streets at their feet, where the whole metropolis was a heap of vapor charged with muffled sound of wheels, and enfolding a gigantic catarrh. Our Mutual Friend , Book III., Chap. 1. The mist, though sluggish and slow to move, was of a keenly searching kind. No muffling up in furs and broadcloth kept it out. It seemed to penetrate into the very bones of the shrinking wayfarers, and to rack them with cold and pains. Everything was wet and clammy to the touch. The warm blaze alone defied it, and leaped and sparkled merrily. It was a day to be at home, ( rowding about the fire, telling stories of travel- lers who had lost their way in such weather on heaths and moors ; and to love a warm hearth more than ever. — Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 67. FORGIVENESS. “ One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind ; I dare say a prisoner begins to relent towards his prison, after he is let out.” Little Dorr it, Book /., Chap. 2 FORGIVENESS-Pecksniffian. “You will shake hands, sir.” “ No, John,” said Mr. Pecksniff, with a calm- ness quite ethereal ; “ no, I will not shake hands, John. I have forgiven you. I had already for- given you, even before you ceased to reproach and taunt me. I have embraced you in the spirit, John, which is better than shaking hands.” Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 2. FORMAL PEOPLE. The formal couple are the most prim, cold, immovable, and unsatisfactory people on the face of the earth. Their faces, voices, dress, house, furniture, walk, and manner are all the essenc of formality, unrelieved by one redeeming touch of frankness, heartiness, or nature. Everything with the formal couple resolves itself into a matter of form. They don’t call upon you on your account, but their own ; not to see how you are, but to show how they are : it is not a ceremony to do honor to you, but to themselves — not due to your position, but to theirs. If one of a friend’s children dies, the formal couple are as sure and punctual in send- ing to the house as the undertaker ; if a friend’s family be increased, the monthly nurse is not more attentive than they. The formal couple, in fact, joyfully seize all occasions of testifying their good-breeding and precise observance of the little usages of society; and for you, who are the means to this end, they care as much as a man does for the tailor who has enabled him to cut a figure, or a woman for the milliner who has assisted her to a conquest. Having an extensive connection among that kind of people who make acquaintances and eschew friends, the formal gentleman attends, from time to time, a great many funerals, to which he is formally invited, and to which he formally goes, as returning a call for the last time. Here his deportment is of the most fault- less description ; he knows the exact pitch of voice it is proper to assume, the sombre look he ought to wear, the melancholy tread which should be his gait for the day. He is perfectly acquainted with all the dreary courtesies to be observed in a mourning-coach ; knows when to sigh, and when to hide his nose in the white handkerchief; and looks into the grave and shakes his head when the ceremony is concluded, with the sad formality of a mute. The Formal Couple. FORTUNE-HUNTERS. “ A mere fortune-hunter ! ” cried the son, in- dignantly. “ What in the devil’s name, Ned, would you be?” returned the father. “All men are for- tune-hunters, are they not ? The law, the church, the court, the camp — see how they are all crowd- ed with fortune-hunters, jostling each other in the pursuit. The Stock-exchange, the pulpit, the counting-house, the royal drawing-room, the Senate — what but fortune hunters are they filled with ? A fortune-hunter ' Yes. You arc one ; and you would be nothing else, my dear Ned, FOUNDRY 199 FRENCH LANGUAGE if you were the greatest courtier, lawyer, legisla- tor, prelate, or merchant, in existence. If you are squeamish and moral, Ned, console yourself with the reflection that at the worst your fortune- hunting can make but one person miserable or unhappy. How many people do you suppose these other kinds of huntsmen crush in follow- ing their sport? Hundreds at a step — or thou- sands ?” — Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 15. FOUNDRY— Description of a. , “ This is the place,” he said, pausing at a door to put Nell down and take her hand. “ Don’t be afraid. There’s nobody here will harm you.” It needed a strong confidence in this assurance to induce them to enter, and what they saw in- side did not diminish their apprehension and alarm. In a large and lofty building, supported t by pillars of iron, with great black apertures in ,the upper walls, open to the external air ; echo- ing to the roof with the beating of hammers and roar of furnaces, mingled with the hissing of red- hot metal plunged in water, and a hundred strange, unearthly noises never heard elsewhere ; in this gloomy place, moving like demons among the flame and smoke, dimly and fitfully seen, flushed and tormented by the burning fires, and wielding great weapons, a faulty blow from any one of which must have crushed some work- man’s skull, a number of men labored like giants. Others, reposing upon heaps of coals or ashes, with their faces turned to the black vault above, slept or rested from their toil. Others again, opening the white-hot furnace- doors, cast fuel o.n the flames, which came rush- ing and roaring forth to meet it, and licked it up like oii. Others drew forth, with clashing noise, upon the ground, great sheets of glowing steel, emitting an insupportable heat, and a dull deep light like that which reddens in the eyes of sav- age beasts. Through these bewildering sights and deaf- ening sounds, their conductor led them to where, in a dark portion of the building, one furnace burnt by night and day — so, at least, they gathered from the motion of his lips, for as yet they could only see him speak — not hear him. The man who had been watching this fire, and whose task was ended for the present, gladly withdrew, and left them with their friend, who, spreading Nell’s little cloak upon a heap of ashes, and showing her where she could hang her outer-clothes to dry, signed to her and the old man to lie down and sleep. For himself, he took his station on a rugged mat before the furnace-door, and resting his chin upon his hands, watched the flame as it shone through the iron chinks, and the white ashes as they fell into their bright, hot grave below. Old Curiosity sShop, Chap. 44. FOUNTAIN— The waters of the. Merrily the fountain leaped and danced, and merrily the smiling dimples twinkled and ex- panded more and more, until they broke into a laugh against the basin’s rim, and vanished. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 45. FOWLS— Their peculiarities. * * * Ai§ aged personage, afflicted with a paucity of feather and visibility of quill, that gives her the appearance of a bundle of office- pens. When a railway goods-van that would crush an elephant comes round the corner, tear- ing over these fowls, they emerge unharmed from under the horses, perfectly satisfied that the whole rush was a passing property in the air, which may have left something to eat be- hind it. They look upon old shoes, wrecks of kettles and saucepans, and fragments of bon- nets, as a kind of meteoric discharge for fowls to peck at. Peg-tops and hoops they account, I think, as a sort of hail ; shuttlecocks, as rain or dew. Gaslight comes quite as natural to them as any other light ; and I have more than a suspicion that, in the minds of the two lords, the early public-house at the corner has super- seded the sun. I have established it as a cer- tain fact, that they always begin to crow when the public-house shutters begin to be taken down, and that they salute the pot-boy, the in- stant he appears to perform that duty, as if he were Phoebus in person. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 10. FRANCE— Scenes in Flemish. Wonderful poultry of the French-Flemish country, why take the trouble to be poultry ? Why not stop short at eggs in the rising genera- tion, and die out, and have done with it ? Pa- rents of chickens have I seen this day, followed by their wretched young families, scratching nothing out of the mud with an air — tottering about on legs so scraggy and weak that the valiant word “ drumsticks ” becomes a mockery when applied to them, and the crow of the lord and master has Teen a mere dejected case of croup. Carts have I seen, and other agricultural instru- ments, unwieldy, dislocated, monstrous. Pop- lar-trees by the thousand fringe the fields, and fringe the end of the flat landscape, so that I feel, looking straight on before me, as if, when I pass the extremest fringe on the low horizon, I shall tumble over into space. Little white- washed black holes of chapels, with barred doors and Flemish inscriptions, abound at road- side corners, and often they are garnished with a sheaf of wooden crosses, like children’s swords ; or, in their default, some hollow old tree with a saint roosting in it, is similarly deco- rated, or a pole with a very diminutive saint en- shrined aloft in a sort of sacred pigeon house. Not that we are deficient in such decoration in the town here, for, over at the church yonder, outside the building, is a scenic representation of the Crucifixion, built up with old bricks and stones, and made out with painted canvas and wooden figures ; the whole surmounting the dusty skull of some holy personage (perhaps), shut up behind a little ashy iron grate, as if it were originally put there to be cooked, and the fire had long gone out. A windmilly country this,, though the windmills are so damp and rickety that they nearly knock themselves off their legs at every turn of their sails, and creak in loud complaint. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 25. FRENCH LANGUAGE-The. “ What sort of language do you consider French, sir?” “ How do you mean?” asked Nicholas. “ Do you consider it a good language, sir ? ” said the collector ; “ a pretty language, a sensi- ble language ? ” FRIENDS 200 FRIENDLY SERVICE “ A pretty language, certainly,” replied Nich- olas ; “ancl as it has a name for everything, and admits of elegant conversation about everything, I presume it is a sensible one.” “I don’t know,” said Mr. Lillyvick, doubt- fully. “ Do you call it a cheerful language, now ? ” “Yes,” replied Nicholas, “I should say it was, certainly.” “ It’s very much changed since my time, then,” said the collector, “ very much.” “Was it a dismal one in your time?” asked Nicholas, scarcely able to repress a smile. “Very,” replied Mr. Lillyvick, with some ve- hemence of* manner. “ It’s the war time that I speak of ; the last war. It may be a cheerful language. I should be sorry to contradict any- body ; but I can only say that I’ve heard the French prisoners, who were natives, and ought to know how to speak it, talking in such a dis- mal manner, that it made one miserable to hear them. Ay, that I have, fifty times, sir — fifty times !” — Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 16. FRIENDS— The escort of a crowd. “ Of the two, and after experience of both, I think I’d rather be taken out of my house by a crowd of enemies, than escorted home by a mob of friends ! ” — Barnaby Rudge , Chap. 79. FRIENDS -Not too many. “ I have not so many friends that I shall grow confused among the number, and forget my best one.” — Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 22. FRIENDSHIP— Lowten’s opinion of. “ Friendship’s a very good thing in its way ; we are all very friendly and comfortable at the Stump, for instance, over our grog, where every man pays for himself ; but damn hurting your- self for anybody else, you know ! No man should have more than two attachments — the first, to number one, and the second to the ladies.” — Pickwick , Chap. 53. FRIENDSHIP— Between opposite charac- ters. It may be observed of this friendship, such as it was, that it had within it more likely materials of endurance than many a sworn brotherhood that has been rich in promise ; for so long as the one party found a pleasure in patronising, and the other in being patronised (which was in the very essence of their respective characters), it was of all possible events among the least pro- bable, that the twin demons, Envy and Pride, would ever arise between them. So, in very many cases of friendship, or what passes for it, the old axiom is reversed, and like clings to un- like more than to like. Martin Chuzzfewit , Chap. 7. FRIENDSHIP A Pecksniffian. “ Did you hear him say that he could have shed his blood for me?” “ Do you want any blood shed for you?” re- turned liis friend, with considerable irritation. “ Does he shed anything for you that you do want? Does he shed employment for you, in- struction for you, pocket-money for you ? Does he shed even legs of mutton for you in any de- cent proportion to potatoes and garden stub?” Alar tin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 2. FRIENDSHIP The Damons and Pythiases of modern life. Damon and Pythias were undoubtedly very good fellows in their way : the former for his ex- treme readiness to put in special bail for a friend : and the latter for a certain trump-like punctuality in turning up just in the very nick of time, scarcely less remarkable. Many points in their character have, however, grown obsolete. Damons are rather hard to find, in these days of imprisonment for debt (except the sham ones, and they cost half-a-crown) ; and, as to the Pythiases, the few that have existed in these degenerate times, have had an unfortunate knack of making themselves scarce at the very moment when their appearance would have been strictly classical. If the actions of these heroes, how- ever, can find no parallel in modern times, their friendship can. We have Damon and Pythias on the one hand. We have Potter and Smithers on the other . — Characters ( Sketches J, Chap. 11. FRIENDLY SERVICE-Wemmick’s opin- ion of a. “ Mr. Wemmick,” said I, “ I want to ask your opinion. I am very desirous to serve a friend.” Wemmick tightened his post-office and shook his head, as if his opinion were dead against any fatal weakness of that sort. “ This friend,” I pursued, “ is trying to get on in commercial life, but has no money, and finds it difficult and disheartening to make a begin- ning. Now, I want somehow to help him to a beginning.” “With money down?” said Wemmick, in a tone drier than any sawdust. . “With some money down,” I replied, for an uneasy remembrance shot across me of that sym- metrical bundle of papers at home ; “ with some money down, and perhaps some anticipation of my expectations.” “ Mr. Pip,” said Wemmick, “ I should like just to run over with you on my fingers, if you please, the names of the various bridges up as high as Chelsea Reach. Let’s see : there’s Lon- don, one ; Southwark, two ; Blackfriars, three ; Waterloo, four; Westminster, five; Vauxhall, six.” He had checked off each bridge in its turn, with the handle of his safe-key on the palm of his hand, “ There’s as many as six, you see, to choose from.” “I don’t understand you,” said I. “ Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip,” returned Wemmick, “ and take a walk upon your bridge, and pitch your money into the Thames over the centre arch of your bridge, and you know the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and you may know the end of it too — but it’s a less pleasant and profitable end.” I could have posted a newspaper in his mouth, he made it so wide after saying this. “ This is very discouraging,” said I. “ Meant to be so,” said Wemmick. “ Then is it your opinion,” I inquired, with some little indignation, “ that a man should never — ” “ — Invest portable property in a friend?” said Wemmick. “Certainly he should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the friend — and then it becomes a question how much portable property it may be worth to get#id of him.” “ And that,” said I, “ is your deliberate opin- ion, Mr. Wemmick?” FRIENDLESS MEN 201 FUNERAL “ That,” he returned, “ is my deliberate opin- ion in this office.” — Great Expectations, Chap. 36. FRIENDLESS MEN. It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in Lon- don. He awakens no sympathy in the breast of an} ? single person ; his existence is a matter of interest to no one save himself ; he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for no one remembered him when he was alive. There is a numerous class of people in this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend, and whom nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity in the first instance, they have resorted to London in search of employ- ment, and the means of subsistence. It is hard, we know, to break the ties which bind us to our homes and friends, and harder still to efface the thousand recollections of happy days and old times, which have been slumbering in our bosoms for years, and only rush upon the mind, to bring before it associations connected with the friends we have left, the scenes we have beheld too probably for the last time, and the hopes we once cherished, but may entertain no more. These men, however, happily for themselves, have long forgotten such thoughts. Old country friends have died or emigrated ; former cor- respondents have become lost, like themselves, in the crowd and turmoil of some busy city ; and they have gradually settled down into mere pas- sive creatures of habit and endurance. Sketches ( Characters J, Chap. 1. FROGS— The music of. The croaking of the frogs (whose noise in these parts is almost incredible) sounded as though a million of fairy teams with bells were travelling through the air, and keeping pace with us. — American Notes , Chap. 10. FROST— The. The frost was binding up the earth in its iron fetters, and weaving its beautiful net-work upon the trees and hedges. — Pickwick , Chap. 28. FUNERAL— The request of Charles Dick- ens. “ I emphatically direct that I be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner, that no public announcement be made of the time or place of my burial, that, at the utmost, not more than three plain mourning- coaches be employed, and that those who attend my funeral wear no scarf, cloak, black, bow, long hat-band, or other such revolting absurdity. 1 direct that my name be inscribed in plain English letters on my tomb, without the addi- tion of ‘ Mi*.’ or ‘ Esquire.’ I conjure my friends on no account to make me the subject of any monument, memorial, or testimonial whatever. I rest my claims to the remembrance of my country upon my published works, and to the remembrance of my friends upon their expe- rience of me ; in addition thereto I commit my soul to the mercy of God, through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and I 'exhort my dear chil- dren humbly to try to guide themselves by the teachings of the New Testament in its broad spirit, and to put no faith in any man’s narrow construction of its letter here or there. In wit- ness whereof, I, the said Charles Dickens, the testator, have to this my last will and testament set my hand this twelfth day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine. Charles Dickens.” Will of Charles Dickens. FUNERAL— Mr. Mould’s philosophy of a. At length the day of the funeral, pious and truthful ceremony that it was, arrived. Mr. Mould, with a glass of generous port between his eye and the light, leaned against the desk in the little glass office, with his gold watch in his unoccupied hand, and conversed with Mrs. Gamp ; two mutes were at the house-door, look- ing as mournful as could be reasonably expected of men with such a thriving job in hand ; the whole of Mr. Mould’s establishment were on duty within the house or without ; feathers waved, horses snorted, silks and velvets flut- tered ; in a word, as Mr. Mould emphatically said, “ everything that money could do was done.” “And what can do more, Mrs. Gamp?” ex- claimed the undertaker, as he emptied his glass, and smacked his lips. “ Nothing in the world, sir.” “ Nothing in the world,” repeated Mr. Mould. “You are right, Mrs. Gamp. Why do people spend more money:” here he filled his glass again : “upon a death, Mrs. Gamp, than upon a birth ? Come, that’s in your way ; you ought to know. How do you account for that now?” “ Perhaps it is because an undertaker’s charges comes dearer than a nurse’s charges, sir,” said Mrs. Gamp, tittering, and smoothing down her new black dress with her hands. “ Ha, ha ! ” laughed Mr. Mould. “You have been breakfasting at somebody’s expense this morning, Mrs. Gamp.” But seeing, by the aid of a little shaving-glass which hung opposite, that he looked merry, he composed his features and became sorrowful. “ Many’s the time that I’ve not breakfasted at my own expense along of your kind recommend- ing, sir : and many’s the time I hope to do the same in time to come,” said Mrs. Gamp, with an apologetic curtsey. “So be it,” replied Mr. Mould, “ please Pro- vidence. No, Mrs. Gamp ; I’ll tell you why it is. It's because the laying out of money with a well-conducted establishment, where the thing is performed upon the very best scale, binds the broken heart, and sheds balm upon the wounded spirit. Hearts want binding and spirits want balming when people die — not when people are born. Look at this gentleman to-day ; look at him.” “An open-handed gentleman?” cried Mrs. Gamp, with enthusiasm. “ No, no,” said the undertaker ; “not an open- handed gentleman in general, by any means. There you mistake him : but an afflicted gen- tleman, an affectionate gentleman, who knows what it is in the power of money to do, in giving him relief, and in testifying his love and ven- eration for the departed. It can give him,” said Mr. Mould, waving his watch-chain slowly round and round, so that he described one circle after every item ; “ it can give him four horses to each vehicle ; it can give him velvet trappings ; it can give him drivers in cloth cloaks and top- boots ; it can give him the plumage of the os- trich, dyed black ; it can give him any number of walking attendants, dressed in the first style FUNERAL 202 FUNERAL of funeral fashion, and carrying batons tipped with brass ; it can give him a handsome tomb ; it can give him a place in Westminster Abbey itself, il lie choose to invest it in such a pur- chase. Oh ! do not let us say that gold is dross, when it can buy such things as these, Mrs. Gamp.” ‘‘Ilui what a blessing, sir,” said Airs. Gamp, “ that there are such as you, to sell or let ’em out on hire ! ” ‘‘Ay, Mrs. Gamp, you are right,” rejoined the undertaker. “We should be an honored call- ing. We do good by stealth, and blush to have it mentioned in our little bills. How much consolation may I, even I,” cried Mr. Mould, “have diffused among my fellow-creatures by means of my four long-tailed prancers, never harnessed under ten pound ten.” Mrs. Gamp had begun to make a suitable re- ply, when she was interrupted by the appear- ance of one of Mr. Mould’s assistants — his chief mourner, in fact — an obese person, with his waistcoat in closer connection with his legs than is quite reconcilable with the. established ideas of grace ; with that cast of feature which is figuratively called a bottle-nose ; and with a face covered all over with pimples. He had been a tender plant once upon a time, but from constant blowing in the fat atmosphere of funer- als, had run to seed. “Well, Tacker,” said Mr. Mould, “is all ready below ? ” “A beautiful show, sir,” rejoined Tacker. “ The horses are prouder and fresher than ever I see ’em ; and toss their heads, they do, as if they knowed how much their plumes cost.!’ Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 19. FUNERAL- Of Anthony Chuzzlewit. Mr. Mould and his men had not exaggerated the grandeur of the arrangements. They were splendid. The four hearse-horses, especially, reared and pranced, and showed their highest action, as if they knew a man was dead, and triumphed in it. “ They break us, drive us, ride us ; ill-treat, abuse, and maim us for their pleas- ure — But they die ; Hurrah, they die ! v So through the narrow streets -and winding city ways, went Anthony Chuzzlewit’s funeral : Mr. Jonas glancing stealthily out of the coach- windows now and then, to observe its effect upon the crowd ; Mr. Mould, as he walked along, listening with a sober pride to the ex- clamations of the bystanders ; the doctor whis- pering his story to Mr. Pecksniff, without ap- pearing to come any nearer the end of it ; and poor old Chuffey sobbing unregarded in a corner. But he had greatly scandalised Mr. Mould at an early stage of the ceremony by carrying his handkerchief in his hat in a perfectly informal manner, and wiping his eyes with his knuckles. And as Mr. Mould himself had said already, his behavior was indecent, and quite unworthy of such an occasion ; and he never ought to have been there. There he was, however ; and in the church- yard there he was, also, conducting himself in a no less unbecoming manner, and leaning for support on Tacker, who plainly told him that Ik; was fit for nothing belter than a walking funeral. But Gluiffey, Heaven help him ! heard no sound but (lie echoes, lingering in his own heart, of a voice forever silent. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 19. FUNERAL — The pretentious solemnities of a. Other funerals have I seen with grown-up eyes, since that day, of which the burden has been the same childish burden — making game. Real affliction, real grief and solemnity, have been outraged, and the funeral has been “per- formed." The waste for which the funeral cus- toms of many tribes of savages are conspicuous has attended these civilized obsequies ; and once, and twice, have I wished in my soul that, if the waste must be, they would let the under- taker bury the money, and let me bury the friend. In France, upon the whole, these ceremonies are more sensibly regulated, because they are upon the whole less expensively regulated. I cannot say that I have ever been much edified by the custom of tying a bib and apron on the front of the house of mourning, or that I w'ould myself particularly care to be driven to my grave in a nodding and bobbing car, like an in- firm four-post bedstead, by an inky fellow-crea- ture in a cocked hat. But it may be that I am constitutionally insensible to the virtues of a cocked hat. In provincial France the solemni- ties are sufficiently hideous, but are few and cheap. The friends and townsmen of the de- parted, in their own dresses, and not masquerad- ing under the auspices of the African Conjuror, surround the hand-bier, and often carry it. It is not considered indispensable to stifle the bearers, or even to elevate the burden on their shoulders ; consequently it is easily taken up, and easily set down, and is carried through the streets without the distressing floundering and shuffling that we see at home. rjC Once I lost a friend by death, who had been troubled in his time by the Medicine-Man and the Conjuror, and upon whose limited resources there w'ere abundant claims. The Conjuror as- sured me that I must positively “ follow,” and both he and the Medicine-Man entertained no doubt that I must go in a black carriage, and must wear “ fittings.” I objected to fittings as having nothing to do with my friendship, and I objected to the black carriage as being in more senses than one a job. So it came into my mind to try what would happen if 1 quietly walked in my own way from my own house to my friend’s burial-place, and stood beside his open grave in my own dress and person, rever- ently listening to the best of Services. It satis- fied my mind, I found, quite as "well as if I had been disguised in a hired hatband and scarf, both trailing to my very heels, and as if I had cost the orphan children, in their greatest need, ten guineas. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 26. FUNERAL- After the. The pageant of a few short hours ago was written nowdiere half so legibly as in the under- taker’s books. Not in the churchyard? Not even there. The gates were closed ; the night was dark and wet ; the rain fell silently among the stagnant weeds and nettles. One new mound was there which had not been there last night. Time, burrowing like a mole below the ground, had marked his track by throwing up another heap of earth. And that was all. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 19. FUNERAL 203 FUNERAL FUNERAL— A fashionable. A great crowd assembles in Lincoln’s Inn Fields on the day of the funeral. Sir Leicester Deblock attends the ceremony in person ; strict- ly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that is to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin (thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable carriages is immense. The Peerage contributes more four-wheeled affliction than has ever been seen in that neighborhood. Such is the assem- blage of armorial bearings on coach panels, that the Herald’s College might be supposed to have lost its father and mother at a blow. The Duke of Foodie sends a splendid pile of dust and ashes, with silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last improvements, and three bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on behind, in a bunch of woe. All the state coachmen in Lon- don seem plunged into mourning ; and if that dead old man of the rusty garb be not beyond a taste in horseflesh (which appears impossible), it must be highly gratified this day. Quiet among the undertakers, and the equipa- ges, and the calves of so many legs all steeped in grief, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of the inconsolable carriages, and at his ease sur- veys the crowd through the lattice blinds. Bleak House , Chap. 53. FUNERAL— An unostentatious. The simple arrangements were of her own making, and were stated to Riah thus : “ I mean to go alone, godmother, in my usual carriage, and you’ll be so kind as keep house while I am gone. It’s not far off. And when I return, we’ll have a cup of tea, and a chat over future arrangements. It’s a very plain last house that I have been able to give my poor unfortunate boy ; but he’ll accept the will for the deed, if he knows anything about it ; and if he doesn’t know anything about it,” with a sob, and wiping her eyes, “ why, it won’t mat- ter to him. I see the service in the Prayer- book says, that we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can take nothing out. It comforts me for not being able to hire a lot of stupid undertaker’s things for my poor child, and seeming as if I was trying to smuggle ’em out of this world with him, when of course I must break down in the attempt, and bring ’em all back again. As it is, there’ll be nothing to bring back but me, and that’s quite consistent, for / shan’t be brought back some day ! ” After that previous carrying of him in the streets, the wretched old fellow seemed to be twice buried. He was taken on the shoulders of half a dozen blossom-faced men, who shuf- fled with him to the churchyard, and who were preceded by another blossom-faced man, affect- ing a stately stalk, as if he were a Policeman of the D(eath) Division, and ceremoniously pre- tending not to know his intimate acquaintances, as he led the pageant. Yet, the spectacle of only one little mourner hobbling after, caused many people to turn their heads with a look of interest. At last the troublesome deceased was got into the ground, to be buried no more, and the stately stalker stalked back before the solitai-y dress- maker, as if she were bound in honor to have no notion of the way home. Those furies, the conventionalities, being thus appeased, he left her . — Our Mutual Friend, Book IV., Chap. 9. FUNERAL — Of Mrs. Joe Gargrery. It was the first time that a grave had opened in my road of life, and the gap it made in the smooth ground was wonderful. The figure of my sister, in her chair by the kitchen fire, haunted me night and day. That the place could possibly be, without her, was something my mind seemed unable to compass ; and where- as she had seldom or never been in my thoughts of late, I had now the strangest ideas that she was coming toward me in the street, or that she would presently knock at the door. In my rooms too, with which she had never been at all associated, there was at once the blankness of death and a perpetual suggestion of the sound of her voice or the turn of her face or figure, as if she were still alive and had been often there. Whatever my fortunes might have been, I could scarcely have recalled my sister with much tenderness. But I suppose there is a shock of regret which may exist without much tenderness. ^ "H" ijs It was fine summer weather again, and, as I walked along, the times when I was a little help- less creature, and my sister did not spare me, vividly returned. But they returned with a gen- tle tone upon them that softened even the edge of Tickler. For now the very breath of the beans and clover whispered to my heart that the day must come when it would be well for my memory that others, walking in the sunshine, should be softened as they thought of me. At last I came within sight of the house, and saw that Trabb and Co. had put in a funereal execution and taken possession. Two dismally absurd persons, each ostentatiously exhibiting a crutch done up in a black bandage — as if that instrument could possibly communicate any comfort to anybody — were posted at the front door ; and in one of them I recognised a post- boy discharged from the Boar for turning a young couple into a saw-pit on their bridal morning, in consequence of intoxication rendering it neces- sary for him to ride his horse clasped round the neck with both arms. Another sable warder (a carpenter, who had once eaten two geese for a wager) opened the door, and showed me into the best parlor. Here, Mr. Trabb had taken unto himself the best table, and had got all the leaves up, and was holding a kind of black Bazaar, with the aid of a quantity of black pins. At the moment of my arrival, he had just finished putting somebody’s hat into black long-clothes, like an African baby ; so he held out his hand for mine. But I, misled by the action, and confused by the occasion, shook hands with him with every testimony of warm affection. * tj: ^ % Poor, dear Joe, entangled in a little black cloak tied in a large bow under his chin, was seated apart at the upper end of the room ; where, as chief mourner, he had evidently been stationed by Trabb. When I bent down and said to him, “ Dear Joe, how are you ? ” he said, “ Pip, old chap, you knowed her when she were a fine figure of a — ” and clasped my hand and said no muie. % ■$£ # *H* Standing at this table, I became conscious of the servile Pumblechook, in a black cloak and several yards of hat- band, who was alternately FUNERAL 204 FURNITURE stuffing himself, and making obsequious move- ments to catch my attention. The moment he succeeded he came over to me (breathing sherry and crumbs), and said in a subdued voice, “ May I, dear sir?” and did. I then descried Mr. and Mrs. Hubble ; the last-named in a decent speech- less paroxysm in a corner. We were all going to “ follow,” and were all in course of being tied up separately (byTrabb) into ridiculous bundles. “Which I meantersay, Pip,” Joe whispered me, as we were being what Mr. Trabb called “ formed ” in the parlor, two and two — and it was dreadfully like a preparation for some grim kind of dance ; “which I meantersay, sir, as I would in preference have carried her to the church myself, along with three or four friendly ones wot come to it with willing harts and arms, but it were considered wot the neighbors would look down on such and would be of opinions as it were wanting in respect.” “Pocket-handkerchiefs out, all'” cried Mr. Trabb at this point, in a depressed business-like voice. “ Pocket-handkerchiefs out ! We are ready ! ” So we all put our pocket-handkerchiefs to our faces, as if our noses were bleeding, and filed out two and two ; Joe and I.; Biddy and Pumble- chook ; Mr. and Mrs. Hubble. The remains of my poor sister had been brought round by the kitchen door, and, it being a point of undertak- ing ceremony that the six bearers must be stifled and blinded under a horrible black velvet hous- ing with a white border, the whole looked like a blind monster with twelve human legs, shuf- fling and blundering along, under the guidance ol tw'o keepers — the postboy and his comrade. Great Expectations, Chap. 35. FUNERAL-Of Little Nell. [.Mr. R. H. Horne pointed out twenty-five years ago, that a great portion of the scenes de- scribing the death of Little Nell in the “ Old Curiosity Shop,” wall be found to be written — whether by design or harmonious accident, of which the author was not even subsequently fully conscious — in blank verse, of irregular metre and rhythms, which Southey, Shelley, and some other poets have occasionally adopted. The following passage, properly divided into lines, will stand thus :] nelly’s funeral. “And now the be! 1 — the hell She had so often heard by night and day, And listen'd to with solemn pleasure, Almost as a living voice — Rung its remorseless toll for her, So young, so beautiful, so good. “ Decrepit age. and vigorous life. And blooming youth, and helpless infancy, Pour’o forth— on crutches, in the pride of strength And health, in the full blush Of promise, the mere dawn of life — To gather round her tomb, old men were there, Whose eyes wore dim And senses failing - Grai'dmnes. who might have died ten years ago, And still been old- the deaf, the blind', the lame, Tlie palsied. The living (lend in many shapes and forma, To Hi t: the closing of that early grave. What \v;ih tin- death it would abut in To lint which still Could crawl and creep above it? “Along the cow-mid path they boro her now; Pure us the new fall’ll snow That cover’d it; whose day on earth Had been as fleeting. Under that porch, where she hud sat when Heaven In mercy brought, her to that peaceful spot, She pass’d again, and the old church Received her in its quiet shade.” Old Cutiosity Shop , Chap. 72. FURNITURE— Old-fashioned. It came on darker and darker. The old-fash- ioned furniture of the chamber, which was a kind of hospital for all the invalided movables in the house, grew indistinct and shadowy in its many shapes ; chairs and tables, which by day were as honest cripples as need be, assumed a doubtful and mysterious character ; and one old leprous screen of faded India leather and gold binding, which had kept out many a cold breath of air in days of yore and shut in many a jolly face, frowned on him with a spectral aspect, and stood at full height in its allotted corner, like some gaunt ghost who waited to be questioned. A portrait opposite the window — a queer, old gray-eyed general, in an oval frame — seemed to wink and doze as the light decayed, and at length, when the last faint glimmering speck of day went out, to shut its eyes in good earnest, and fall sound asleep. There was such a hush and mystery about everything, that Joe could not help following its example ; and so went off into a slumber likewise, and dreamed of Dolly, till the clock of Chigwell church struck two. Barnaby Rndge, Chap. 31. FURNITURE-Covered. Within a few hours the cottage furniture be- gan to be wrapped up for preservation in the family absence — or, as Mr. Meagles expressed it, the house began to put its hair in papers. Little Dorr it. Book II., Chap. 9. FURNITURE— The home of a usurer. In an old house, dismal, dark, and dusty, which seemed to have withered, like himself, and to have grown yellow and shrivelled in hoarding him from the light of day, as he had in hoarding his money, lived Arthur Gride. Meagre old chairs and tables, of spare and bony make, and hard and cold as misers’ hearts, were ranged in grim array against the gloomy walls ; attenuated presses, grown lank and lantern-jawed in guard- ing the treasures they inclosed, and tottering, as though from constant fear and dread of thieves, shrunk up in dark corners, whence they cast no shadows on the ground, and seemed to hide and cower from observation. A tall grim clock upon the stairs, with long lean hands and famished face, ticked in cautious whispers ; and when it struck the time, in thin and piping sounds like an old man’s voice, it rattled, as if it were pinched with hunger. No fireside couch was there, to invite repose and comfort. Elbow-chairs there were, but they looked uneasy in their minds, cocked their arms suspiciously and timidly, and kept on their guard. Others were fantastically grim and gaunt, as having drawn themselves up to their utmost height, and put on their fiercest looks to stare all comers out of countenance. Others, again, knocked up against their neighbors, or leaned for support against the wall — somewhat ostentatiously, as if to call all men to witness that they were not worth the taking. The dark, squat e, lumbering bedsteads seemed built for FUTURE 205 GARDENS restless dreams. The musty hangings seemed to creep in scanty folds together, whispering among themselves, when rustled by the wind, their trembling knowledge of the tempting wares that lurked within the dark and tight- locked closets . — Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 51. FUTURE— The river a type of. He dipped his hand in the water over the boat’s gunwale, and said, smiling with that soft- ened air upon him which was not. new to me : “ Ay, I suppose I think so, dear boy. We’d be puzzled to be more quiet and easy-going than we are at present. But — it’s a flowing so soft and pleasant through the water, p’raps, as makes me think it — I was a thinking through my smoke just then, that we can no more see the bottom of the next few hours, than we can see to the bottom of this river, what I catches hold of. Nor yet we can’t no more hold their tide than I can hold this. And it’s run through my fin- gers and gone, you see ! ” holding up his drip- ping hand. “ But for your face, I should think you were a little despondent,” said I. “Not a bit on it, dear boy ! It comes of flow- ing on so quiet, and of that there, rippling at the boat’s head making a sort of a Sunday tune. Maybe I’m growing a trifle old, besides.” Great Expectations , Chap. 54. Gr GAYETY-Forced. When the morning — the morning — came, and we met at breakfast, it was curious to see how eager we all were to prevent a moment’s pause in the conversation, and how astoundingly gay everybody was, the forced spirits of each mem- ber of the little party having as much likeness to his natural mirth as hot-house peas at five guineas the quart resemble in flavor the growth of the dews and air and rain of Heaven. American Notes , Chap. 1. GALLANTRY-Pecksniffian. They were now so near it that he stopped, and holding up her little finger, said in playful accents, as a parting fancy : “ Shall I bite it ? ” Receiving 1I0 reply he kissed it instead ; and then, stooping down, inclined his flabby face to hers (he had a flabby face, although he was a good man), and with a blessing, which from such a source was quite enough to set her up in life, and prosper her from that time forth, per- mitted her to leave him. Gallantry in its true sense is supposed to ennoble and dignify a man ; and love has shed refinements on innumerable Cy moils. But Mr. Pecksniff — perhaps because to one of his exalted nature these were mere grossnesses — certainly did not appear to any unusual advantage, now that he was left alone. On the contrary, he seemed to be shrunk and reduced ; to be trying to hide himself within himself ; and to be wretched at not having the power to do it. His shoes looked too large ; his sleeve looked too long ; his hair looked too limp ; his features looked too mean ; his exposed throat looked as if a halter would have done it good. For a minute or two, in fact, he was hot, and pale, and mean, and shy, and slinking, and conse- quently not at all Pecksniffian. But after that, he recovered himself, and went home with as beneficent an air as if he had been the High Priest of the summer weather. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 30. GAMBLERS-The frenzied. The excitement of play, hot rooms, and glar- ing lights, was not calculated to allay the fever of the time. In that giddy whirl of noise and confusion, the men were delirious. Who thought of money, ruin, or the morrow, in the' savage intoxication of the moment? More wine was called for, glass after glass was drained, their parched and scalding mouths were cracked with thirst. Down poured the wine like oil on blaz- ing fire. Amd still the riot went on. The de- bauchery gained its height ; glasses were dashed upon the floor by hands that could not carry them to lips ; oaths were shouted out by lips which could scarcely form the words to vent them in ; drunken losers cursed and roared ; some mounted on the tables, waving bottles above their heads, and bidding defiance to the rest ; some danced, some sang, some tore the cards and raved. Tumult and frenzy reigned supreme ; when a noise arose that drowned all others, and two men, seizing each other by the throat, struggled into the middle of the room. Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 50. GARDEN. A little slip of front garden abutting on the thirsty high road, where a few of the dustiest of leaves hung their dismal heads and led a life of choking. — Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 25. GARDEN- An old. It was quite a wilderness, and there were old melon-frames and cucumber-frames in it, which seemed in their decline to have produced a spontaneous growth of weak attempts at pieces of old hats and boots, with now and then a weedy offshoot into the likeness of a battered saucepan. — Great Expectations, Chap. II. GARDENS— In London. Some London houses have a melancholy little plot of ground behind them — usually fenced in by four high whitewashed walls, and frowned upon by stacks of chimneys — in which there withers on, from year to year, a crippled tree, that makes a show of putting forth a few leaves late in autumn when other trees shed theirs, and, drooping in the effort, lingers on, all crackled and smoke-dried, till the following season, when it repeats the same process ; and perhaps, if the weather be particularly genial, even tempts some rheumatic sparrow to chirrup in its branches. People sometimes call these dark yards “ gardens it is not supposed that they were ever planted, but rather that they are pieces of unreclaimed land, with the withered vegetation of the original brick-field. No man thinks of walking in this desolate place, or of turning it to any account. A few hampers, half a- dozen broken bottles, and such-like rubbish, GENIUS 200 GENOA may be thrown there, when the tenant first moves in, but nothing more ; and there they remain until he goes away again : the damp straw taking just as long to moulder as it thinks proper: and mingling with the scanty box, and stunted everbrowns, and broken flower-pots, that are scattered mournfully about — a prey to “ blacks” and dirt. — Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 2. GENIUS— In debt. “ Then I tell you what it is, gents both. There is at this present moment in this very place, a perfect constellation of talent and ge- nius, who is involved, through what I cannot but designate as the culpable negligence of my friend Pecksniff, in a situation as tremendous, perhaps, as the social intercourse of the nineteenth cen- tury will readily admit of. There is actually at this instant, at the Blue Dragon in this village — an ale-house, observe : a common, paltry, low- minded, clodhopping, pipe smoking ale-house — an individual, of whom it may be said, in the language of the Poet, that nobody but himself can in any way come up to him ; who is detained there for his bill. Ha! ha! For his bill. I repeat it. For his bill. Now,” said Mr. Tigg, “we have heard of Fox’s Book of Martyrs, I believe, and we have heard of the Court of. Re- quests, and the Star Chamber ; but I fear the contradiction of no man alive or dead, when I assert that my friend Chevy Slyme being held in pawn for a bill, beats any amount of cock- fighting with which I am acquainted.” * * * * * “ Don’t mistake me, gents both,” he said, stretching forth his right hand. “ If it had been for anything but a bill, I could have borne it, and could still have looked upon mankind with some feeling of inspect : but when such a man as my friend Slyme is detained for a score — a thing in itself essentially mean ; a low perform- ance on a slate, or possibly chalked upon the back of a door— I do feel that there is a screw of such magnitude loose somewhere, that the whole framework of society is shaken, and the very first principles of things can no longer be trusted. In short, gents both,” said Mr. Tigg, with a passionate flourish of his hands and head, “ when a man like Slyme is detained for such a thing as a bill, I reject the superstitions of ages, and believe nothing. I don’t even believe that I don't believe, curse me if I do ! ” ;jc “ I swear,” cried Mr. Slyme, giving the table an imbecile blow with his fist, and then feebly leaning his head upon his hand, while some drunken drops oozed from his eyes, “ that I am the wietchedest creature on record. Society is in a conspiracy against me, I’m the most lit- erary man alive. I’m full of scholarship ; I’m full of genius ; I’m full of information ; I’m full of novel views on every subject ; yet look at my condition ! I’m at this moment obliged to two strangers for a tavern bill ! ” Martin Chnzzlewit , Chap. 7. GENIUS -The weaknesses of. All men whom mighty genius has raised, to a proud eminence in the world, have usually some little weakness which appears the more con- spicuous from the contrast it presents to their general character. If Mr. Pott had a weakness, \t was, perhaps, that he was rather t< sive to the somewhat contemptuous control and sway of his wife. — Pickwick , Chap. 13. GENOA. The endless details of these rich Palace^ : the walls of some of them, within, alive with master- pieces by Vandyke ! The great, heavy, stone balconies, one above another, and tier over tier: w ith here and there one larger than the rest, towering high up — a huge marble platform — the doorless vestibules, massively barred lower win- dow's, immense public staircases, thick marble pillars, strong dungeon-like arches, and dreary, dreaming, echoing, vaulted chambers ; among which the eye wanders again, and again, and again, as every palace is succeeded by another — the terrace gardens between house and house, with green arches of the vine, and groves of orange-trees, and blushing oleander in full bloom, twenty, thirty, forty feet above the street — the painted halls, mouldering, and blotting, and rot- ting in the damp corners, and still shining out in beautiful colors and voluptuous designs, where the walls are dry — the faded figures on the out- sides of the houses, holding wreaths and crowns, and flying upward, and downward, and standing in niches, and here and there looking fainterand more feeble than elsewhere, by contrasts with some fresh little Cupids, who, on a more recently decorated portion of the front, are stretching out what seems to be the semblance of a blanket, but is, indeed, a sun-dial — the steep, steep, up-hill streets of small palaces (but very large palaces for all that), with marble terraces looking down into close by-ways — the magnificent and innumerable Churches ; and the rapid passage from a street of stately edifices into a maze of the vilest squa- lor, steaming with unwholesome stenches, and swarming with half-naked children and whole worlds of dirty people — make up, altogether, such a scene of wonder ; so lively, and yet so dead ; so noisy, and yet so quiet ; so obtrusive, and yet so shy and lowering ; so wide awake, and yet so fast asleep ; that it is a sort of intoxication to a stranger to walk on, and on, and on, and look about him. A bewildering phantasmagoria, with all the inconsistency of a dream, and all the pain and all the pleasure of an extravagant reality ! It is a place that “ grows upon you” every day. There seems to be always something to find out in it. There are the most extraordinary alleys and by-ways to walk about in. You can lose your way (what a comfort that is, when you are idle !) twenty times a day, if you like ; and turn up again, under the most unexpected and sur- prising difficulties. It abounds in the strangest contrasts; things that are picturesque, ugly, mean, magnificent, delightful, and offensive, break upon the view at every turn. In the streets of shops, the houses are much smaller, but of great size notwithstanding, and extremely high. They are very dirty : quite un- drained, if my nose be at all reliable ; and emit a peculiar fragrance, like the smell of very bad cheese, kept in very hot blankets. Notwithstand- ing the height of the houses, there would seem to have been a lack of room in the city, for new houses are thrust in everywhere. Wherever it has been possible to cram tumble-down tene- ment into a crack or corner, in it has gone, if , there be a nook or angle in the wall of a church, GENTILITY 207 GENTLEMAN or a crevice in any other dead wall, of any sort, there you are sure to find some kind of habita- tion — looking as if it had grown there, like a fungus. Against the Government house, against the old Senate house, round about any large building, little shops stick close, like parasite vermin to the great carcass. And for all this, look where you may — up steps, down steps, any- where, everywhere , there are irregular houses, receding, starting forward, tumbling down, lean- ing against their neighbors, crippling themselves or their friends by some means or other, until one, more irregular than the i*est,- chokes up the way, and you can’t see any further. Pictures from Italy. GENTILITY— The distinctions of. “ I don’t know why it should be a crack thing to be a brewer ; but it is indisputable that while you cannot possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was and brew. You see it every day.” “Yet a gentleman may not keep a public- house ; may he ? ” said I. “ Not on any account,” returned Herbert ; “ but a public-house may keep a gentleman.” Great Expectations , Chap. 22. GENTILITY— Shabby. There are certain descriptions of people who, oddly enough, appear to appertain exclusively to the metropolis. You meet them, every day, in the streets of London, but no one ever en- counters them elsewhere ; they seem indigenous to the soil, and to belong as exclusively to Lon- don as its own smoke, or the dingy bricks and mortar. We could illustrate the remark by a variety of examples, but, in our present sketch, we will only advert to one class as a specimen — that class which is so aptly and expressively designated as “ shabby-genteel.” Now, shabby people, God knows, may be found anywhere, and genteel people are not articles of greater scarcity out of London than in it ; but this compound of the two — this shab- by-gentility — is as purely local as the statue at Charing Cross, or the pump at Aldgate. It is worthy of remark, too, that only men are shab- by-genteel ; a woman is always either dirty and slovenly in the extreme, or neat and respectable, however poverty-stricken in appearance. A very poor man “ who has seen better days,” as the phrase goes, is a strange compound of dirty slovenliness and wretched attempts at faded smartness. We will endeavor to explain our conception of the term which forms the title of this paper. If you meet a man, lounging up Drury Lane, or leaning with his back against a post in Long Acre, with his hands in the pockets of a pair of drab trousers plentifully besprinkled with grease spots ; the trousers made very full over the boots, and ornamented with two cords down the outside of each leg — wearing, also, what has been a brown coat with bright buttons, and a hat very much pinched up at the sides, cocked over his right eye — don’t pity him. He is not shabby-genteel. The “harmonic meetings” at some fourth-rate public-house, or the purlieus of a private theatre, are his chosen haunts ; he entertains a rooted antipathy to any kind of work, and is on familiar terms with several pantomime men at the large houses. But, if you see hurrying along a by-street, keeping as close as he can to the area railings, a man of about forty or fifty, clad in an old rusty suit of threadbare black cloth, which shines with con- stant wear as if it had been bees-waxed — the trousers tightly strapped down, partly for the look of the thing and partly to keep his old shoes from slipping off at the heels — if you observe, too, that his yellowish-white neck- erchief is carefully pinned up, to conceal the tattered garment underneath, and that his hands are encased in the remains of an old pair of beaver gloves, you may set him down as a shabby-genteel man. A glance at that de- pressed face, and timorous air of conscious pov- erty, will make your heart ache — always sup- posing that you are neither a philosopher nor a political economist. Characters {Sketches), Chap. io. GENTLEMAN— “ A wery good imitation o’ one ” (Sam Weller). “ Person’s a waitin’,” said Sam, epigrammati- cally. “ Does the person want me, Sam?” inquired Mr. Pickwick. “ He wants you particklar ; and no one else’ll do, as the Devil’s private secretary said ven he fetched away Doctor Faustus,” replied Mr. Weller. “ He. Is it a gentleman ? ” said Mr. Pick- wick. “ A wery good imitation o’ one, if it ain’t,” replied Mr. Weller. — Pickwick , Chap. 15. GENTLEMAN— An English (Sir Leicester Dedlock). Sir Leicester Dedlock is only a baronet, but there is no mightier baronet than he. His fam- ily is as old as the hills, and infinitely more re- spectable. He has a general opinion that the world might get on without hills, but would be done up without Dedlocks. He would, on the whole, admit Nature to be a good idea (a little low, perhaps, when not enclosed with a park- fence), but an idea dependent for its execution on your great county families. He is a gentle- man of strict conscience, disdainful of all little- ness and meanness, and ready, on the shortest notice, to die any death you may please to mention, rather than give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity. Pie is an honor- able, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely- prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man. Sir Leicester is twenty years, full measure, older than my Lady. He will never see sixty- five again, nor perhaps sixty-six, nor yet sixty- seven. He has a twist of the gout now and then, and walks a little stiffly. He is of a worthy presence, with his light gray hair and whiskers, his fine shirt-frill, his pure white waistcoat, and his blue coat with bright but- tons, always buttoned. He is ceremonious, stately, most polite on every occasion to my Lady, and holds her personal attractions in the highest estimation. His gallantry to my Lady, which has never changed since he courted her, is the one little touch of romantic fancy in him. Indeed, he married her for love. A whisper still goes about, that she had not even family ; howbeit, Sir Leicester had so much family that perhaps he had enough, and could dispense with any more. But she had beauty, pride, am- GENTLEMAN 208 GHOST bition, insolent resolve, and sense enough to portion out a legion of fine ladies. Wealth and station, added to these, soon floated her up- ward ; and for years, now, my Lady Dedlock has been at the centre of the fashionable in- telligence, and at the top of the fashionable tree. — Bleak House , Chap. 2. GENTLEMAN-A French. Monsieur Mutuel — a gentleman in every thread of his cloudy linen, under whose wrinkled hand every grain in the quarter of an ounce of poor snuff in his poor little tin box became a gentleman’s property — Monsieur Mutuel passed on, with his cap in his hand. Somebody' s Luggage , Chap. 2. GENTLEMAN-The grace of a true. He went into Mr. Barkis's room like light and air, brightening and refreshing it as if he were healthy weather. There was no noise, no effort, no consciousness, in anything he did ; but in everything an indescribable lightness, a seem- ing impossibility of doing anything else, or do- ing anything better, which was so graceful, so natural, and agreeable, that it overcomes me, even now, in the remembrance. David Copper field , Chap. 21. GENTLEMAN -The true. But that he was not to be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my fa- ther most strongly asseverates ; because it is a principle of his that no man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood ; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself. Great Expectations , Chap. 22. GHOSTS— And the senses. “You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost. “ I don’t,” said Scrooge. “ What evidence would you have of my real- ity beyond that of your own senses?” “ I don’t know,” said Scrooge. “ Why do you doubt your senses ? ” “ Because,” said Scrooge, “ a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you,’ whatever you are ! ” Scrooge was not much in the habit of crack- ing jokes, nor did he feel in his heart, by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his terror; for the spectre’s voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones. — Christmas Carol , Stave 1. GHOST An argument with a. “ ‘ This apartment is mine : leave it to me.’ * T f you insist upon making your appearance here,’ said the tenant, who had had time to col- lect hi*-, presence of mind during this prosy state- ment of the ghost’s, ‘ I shall give up possession with the greatest pleasure ; but I should like to ask you one question, if you will allow me.’ ‘Say on,’ said the apparition, sternly. ‘Well,’ said the tenant, ‘ I don’t apply the observation personally to you, because it is equally ap- plicable to most of the ghosts I ever heard of ; but it does appear to me somewhat inconsistent, that when you have an opportunity of visiting the fairest spots of earth — for I suppose space is nothing to you — you should always return ex- actly to the very places where you have been most miserable.’ ‘ Egad, that’s very true ; I never thought of that before,’ said the ghost. ‘You see, sir,’ pursued the tenant, * this is a very uncomfortable room. From the appearance of that press, I should be disposed to say that it is not wholly free from bugs ; and I really think you might find much more comfortable quarters ; to say nothing of the climate of London, which is extremely disagreeable.’ ‘ You are very right, sir,’ said the ghost, politely, ‘ it never struck me till now ; I’ll try change of air directly.’ In fact, he began to vanish as he spoke ; his legs, indeed, had quite disappeared. ‘And if, sir,’ said the tenant, calling after him, * if you 7 uould have the goodness to suggest to the other ladies and gentlemen who are now engaged in haunt- ing old empty houses, that they might be much more comfortable elsewhere, you will confer a great benefit on society.’ ‘ I will,’ replied the ghost ; ‘ we must be dull fellows, very dull fellows, indeed ; I can’t imagine how we can have been so stupid.’ With these words the spirit disappeared ; and what is rather remark- able,” added the old man, with a shrewd look round the table, “he never came back again.” Pickwick , Chap. 21. GHOSTS-Of clothes. “ Look down there,” he said softly ; “ do you mark how they whisper in each other’s ears ; then dance and leap, to make believe they are in sport ? Do you see how they stop for a moment, when they think there is no one looking, and mutter among themselves again ; and then how they roll and gambol, delighted with the mischief they’ve been plotting ? Look at ’em now. See how they whirl and plunge. And now they stop again, and whisper cautiously together — little thinking, mind, how often I have lain upon the grass and watched them. I say — what is it that they plot and hatch ? — Do you know?” “ They are only clothes,” returned the guest, “ such as we wear ; hanging on those lines to dry, and fluttering in the wind.” “ Clothes ! ” echoed Barnaby, looking close into his face, and falling quickly back. “Ha ha! Why, how much better to be silly, than as wise as you ! You don’t see shadowy people there, like those that live in sleep — not you. Nor eyes in the knotted panes of glass, nor swift ghosts when it blows hard, nor do you hear voices in the air, nor see men stalking in the sky — not you ! I lead a merrier life than you, with all your cleverness. You’re the dull men. WVre the bright ones. Ha ! ha ! I’ll not change with you, clever as you are— not I ! ” With that, he waved his hat above his head, and darted off. — Barnaby Pudge , Chap. 10. GIIOST-Of Marley. His body was transparent ; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waist- coat, could see the two buttons on his coat be- hind. Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley GHOSTS 209 GOOD-NIGHT had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now. No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him ; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes ; and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before ; he was still incred- ulous, and fought against his senses. “ How now ! ” said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. “ What do you want with me ? ” “ Much ! ” — Marley’s voice, no doubt about it. “ Who are you ? ” “ Ask me who I was!' “ Who were you then ? ” said Scrooge, raising his voice. “ You’re particular, for a shade.” He was going to say “ to a shade,” but substitut- ed this, as more appropriate. “ In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.” “ Can you — can you sit down ? ” asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him. “ I can.” “ Do it then.” Scrooge asked the question, because he didn’t know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair ; and felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing expla- nation. But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it. — Christmas Carol , Stave I. GHOSTS— A privilege of the upper classes. “Sir Morbury Dedlock was the owner of Chesney Wold. Whether there was any ac- count of a ghost in the family before those days, I can’t say. I should think it very likely, in- deed.” Mrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion, because she considers that a family of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She regards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes ; a genteel distinction to which the com- mon people have no claim. Bleak House, Chap. 7. GHOSTS— Their anniversaries. “ I have heard it said that as we keep our birthdays when we are alive, so the ghosts of dead people, who are not easy in their graves, keep the day they died upon.” Barnaby Rudge , Chap. 33. GIANTS— Used up. “ Once get a giant shaky on his legs, and the public care no more about him than they do for a dead cabbage-stalk.” “What becomes of the old giants?” said Short, turning to him again after a little reflec- tion. “ They’re usually kept in carawans to wait upon the dwarfs,” said Mr. Vuffin. “ The maintaining of ’em must come expen- sive, when they can’t be shown, eh ? ” remarked Short, eyeing him doubtfully. “ It’s better that, than letting ’em go upon the parish or about the streets,” said Mr. Vuffin. “ Once make a giant common, and giants will never draw again. Look at wooden legs. If there was only one man with a wooden leg what a property he’d be ! ” “ So he would ! ” observed the landlord and Short both together. “ That’s very true.” “ Instead of which,” pursued Mr. Vuffin, “if you was to advertise Shakspeare played entirely by wooden legs, it’s my belief you wouldn’t draw a sixpence.” “ I don’t suppose you would,” said Short. And the landlord said so too. “ This shows, you see,”, said Mr. Vuffin, wav- ing his pipe with an argumentative air, “ this shows the policy of keeping the used-up giants still in the carawans, where they get food and lodging for nothing, all their lives, and in gen- eral very glad they are to stop there.” “ What about the dwarfs when they get old ? ” inquired the landlord. “ The older a dwarf is, the better worth he is,” returned Mr. Vuffin : “ a grey-headed dwarf, well wrinkled, is beyond all suspicion. But a giant weak in the legs and not standing up- right ! — keep him in the carawan, but never show him, never show him, for any persuasion that can be offered.” Old Curiosity Shop , Chap , 19. GIRLS— Traddles’ idea of. “ The society of girls is a very delightful thing, Copperfield. It’s not professional, but it’s very delightful.” — David Copperfield, Chap. 59. GIRLHOOD-Of Florence. There had been a girl some six years before, and the child, who had stolen into the chambev unobserved, .was now crouching timidly, in a corner whence she could see her mother’s face. But what was a girl to Dombey and Son ! In the capital of the House’s name and dignity, such a child was merely a piece of a base coin that couldn’t be invested — a bad Boy— -nothing more. — Dombey < 5 ^ Son , Ckap. 1. Thus living, in a dream wherein the overflow- ing love of her young heart expended itself on airy forms, and in a real world' where she had experienced little but the rolling back of that strong tide upon itself, Florence grew to bd seventeen. Timid and retiring as her solitary life had made her, it had not embittered her sweet temper, or her earnest nature. A child in innocent simplicity ; a woman in her modest self-reliance, and her deep intensity of feeling ; both child and woman seemed at once expressed in her fair face and fragile delicacy of shape, and gracefully to mingle there ; — -as if the spring should be unwilling to depart when summer came, and sought to blend the earlier beauties of the flowers with their bloom. But in her thrilling voice, in her calm eyes, sometimes in a strange ethereal light that seemed to rest upon her head, and always in a certain pensive air upon her beauty, there was an expression, such as had been seen in the dead boy ; and the council in the Servants’ Hall whispered so among themselves, and shook their heads, and ate and drank the more, in a closer bond of goodfellowship . — Dombey Of Son, Chap. 57. GOOD-NIGHT— An interrupted blessing:. “ Good-night — a — a — God bless you.” The blessing seemed to stick in Mr. Ralph Nickleby’s throat, as if it were not used to the thoroughfare, and didn’t know the way oyt. Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 19. GOLD 210 GOURMAND GOLD— The influence of riches. Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal. Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. I. GOOD AND EVIL -In men. It appeared, before the breakfast was over, that everybody whom this Gowan knew was either more or less of an ass, or more or less of a knave ; but was, notwithstanding, the most lovable, the most engaging, the simplest, tru- est, kindest, dearest, best fellow that ever lived. The process by which this unvarying result was attained, whatever the premises, might have been stated by Mr. Henry Gowan thus : “ I claim to be always bookkeeping, with a pe- culiar nicety, in every man’s case, and posting up a careful little account of Good and Evil with him. I do this so conscientiously, that I am happy to tell you I find the most worthless of men to be the dearest old fellow too ; and am in a condition to make the gratifying re- port, that there is much less difference than you are inclined to suppose between an honest man and a scoundrel.” The effect of this cheering discovery happened to be, that while he seemed to be scrupulously finding good in most men, he did in reality lower it where it was, and set it up where it was not ; but that was its only disagreeable or dangerous feature. Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 17. GOOD PURPOSES-Perverted. “ All good things perverted to evil purposes, are worse than those which are naturally bad. A thoroughly wicked woman is wicked indeed. When religion goes wrong, she is very wrong, for the same reason.” Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 51. GOODNESS— Its propagation. Any propagation of goodness and benevo- lence is no small addition to the aristocracy of nature, and no small ’subject of rejoicing for mankind at large . — Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 73. GOSSIP. It concentrated itself on the acknowledged Beauty of the party, every stitch in whose dress was verbally unripped by the old ladies then and there, and whose “ goings on ” with another and a thinner personage in a white hat might have suffused the pump (where they were prin- cipally discussed) with blushes for months af- terwards.— Uncommercial Traveller, Chap. 27. GOUT- A patrician disorder. Sir Leicester receives the gout as a trouble- some demon, but still a demon of the patrician order. All the Dedlocks, in the direct male line, through a course of time during and be- yond which the memory of man goeth not to the contrary, have had the gout. It can be proved, sir. Other men’s fathers may have died of the rheumatism, or may have taken base con- tagion from the tainted blood of the sick vul- gar, but the Dedlock family have communicated something exclusive, even to the levelling pro- cess of dying, by dying of their own family gout. It has come down, through the illustrious line, like the plate, or the pictures, or the place in Lincolnshire. It is among their dignities. Sir Leicester is, perhaps, not wholly without an im- pression, though he has never resolved it into words, that the angel of death, in the discharge of his necessary duties, may observe to the shades of the aristocracy, “ My lords and gentlemen, I have the honor to present to you another Ded lock, certified to have arrived per the family gout.” Hence, Sir Leicester yields up his family legs to the family disorder, as if he held his name and fortune on that feudal tenure. He feels, that for a Dedlock to be laid upon his back, and spasmodically twitched and stabbed in his ex- tremities, is a liberty taken somewhere ; but, he thinks, “We have all yielded to this; it belongs to us ; it has, for some hundreds of years, been understood that we are not to make the vaults in the park interesting on more ignoble terms ; and I submit myself to the compromise.” Bleak House, Chap. 16. GOUT— Mr. Weller’s remedy for. “ Take care, old fellow, or you’ll have a touch of your old complaint, the gout.” “ I’ve found a sov'rin cure for that, Sammy,” said Mr. Weller, setting down the glass. “A sovereign cure for the gout,” said Mr. Pickwick, hastily producing his note-book ; “ what is it ? ” “ The gout, sir,” replied Mr. Weller, “ the gout is a complaint as arises from too much ease and comfort. If ever you’re attacked with the gout, sir, jist you marry a widder as has got a good loud woice, with a decent notion of usin’ it, and you’ll never have the gout agin. It’s a cap- ital prescription, sir. I takes it reg’lar, and I can warrant it to drive away any illness as is caused by too much jollity.” Having imparted this valuable secret, Mr. Weller drained his glass once more, produced a labored wink, sighed deeply, and slowly retired. “ Well, what do you think of what your father says, Sam?” inquired Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. “Think, sir!” replied Mr. Weller; “why, I think he’s the wictim o’ connubiality, as Blue Beard’s domestic chaplain said, with a tear of pity, ven he buried him.” — Pickwick , Chap. 20. GOUT— An aristocratic privilege. “ The door will be opened immediately,” he said. “ There is nobody but a very dilapidated female to perform such offices. You will excuse her infirmities? If she were in a more elevated station in society, she would be gouty. Being but a hewer of wood and drawer of water, she is rheumatic. My dear Haredale, these are nat- ural class distinctions, depend upon it.” Barnaby Rudge , Chap. 26. GOURMAND— A. If he really be eating his supper now, at j what hour can he possibly have dined ! A sec- ond solid mass of rump steak has disappear- ed, and he ate the first in four minutes and three-quarters, by the clock over the window. Was there ever such a personification of Fal- staff ! Mark the air with which he gloats over that Stilton as he removes the napkin which has been placed beneath his chin to catch the super- fluous gravy of the steak, and with what gusto he imbibes the porter which has been fetched, expressly for him, in the pewter pot. Listen to GHIA.CE 211 GRAVE the hoarse sound of that voice, kept down as it is by layers of solids, and deep draughts of rich wine, and tell us if you ever saw such a perfect picture of a regular gourmand ; and whether he is not exactly the man whom you would pitch upon as having been the partner of Sheridan’s parliamentary carouses, the volunteer driver of the hackney coach that took him home, and the involuntary upsetter of the whole party. What an amusing contrast between his voice and appearance, and that of the spare, squeak- ing old man, who sits at the same table, and who, elevating a little, cracked, bantam sort of voice to its highest pitch, invokes damnation upon his own eyes or somebody else’s at the commencement of every sentence he utters. “ The Captain,” as they call him, is a very old frequenter of Bellamy’s ; much addicted to stopping “ after the House is up ” (an inexpiable crime in Jane’s eyes, and a complete walking reservoir of spirits and water. Scenes , Chap. 18. GRACE— Before meat. Mr. Cruncher’s temper was not at all im- proved when he came to his breakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher’s saying Grace with particular animosity. “ Now, Aggerawayter ! What are you up to? At it agin ? ” H is wife explained that she had merely “ asked a blessing.” “ Don’t do it ! ” said Mr. Cruncher, looking about, as if he rather expected to see the loaf disappear under the efficacy of his wife’s peti- tions. “ I ain’t a going to be blest out of house and home. I won’t have my wittles blest off my table. Keep still ! ” Tale of Two Cities , Book II., Chap. I. GRAMMAR-For the laity. “ Mr. Jasper was that, Tope? ” “Yes, Mr. Dean.” “ He has stayed late.” “Yes, Mr. Dean. I have stayed for him, your Reverence. He has been took a little poorly.” “Say ‘taken,’ Tope — to the Dean,” the younger rook interposes in a low tone with this touch of correction, as who should say, “You may offer bad grammar to the laity, or the humbler clergy, not to the Dean.” Edwin Drood, Chap. 2. GRAMMAR-Of Mrs. Merdle. In the grammar of Mrs. Merdle’s verbs on this momentous subject, there was only one Mood, the Imperative ; and that Mood had only one tense, the Present. Mrs. Merdle’s verbs were so pressingly presented to Mr. Mer- dle to conjugate, that his sluggish blood and long coat-cuffs became quite agitated. Little Dorr it, Book II., Chap. 12. GRANDFATHER-The. Buried wine grows older, as the old Madeira did, in its time ; and dust and cobwebs thicken on the bottles. Autumn days are shining, and on the sea- beach there are often a young lady, an$ a white- haired gentleman. With them, or near them, are two children : boy and girl. And an old dog is generally in their company. The white-haired gentleman walks with the little boy, talks with him, helps him in his play, attends upon him, watches him, as if he were the object of his life. If he be thoughtful, the white-haired gentleman is thoughtful too; and sometimes, when the child is sitting by his side, and looks up in his face, asking him questions, he takes the tiny hand in his, and holding it, forgets to answer. Then the child says : “ What, grandpapa ! Am I so like my poor little uncle again !” “Yes, Paul. But he was weak, and you are very strong.” “ Oh yes, I am very strong.” “ And he lay on a little bed beside the sea, and you can run about.” And so they range away again, busily, for the white-haired gentleman likes best to see the child free and stirring ; ^nd as they go about together, the story of t)ie bond between them goes about, and follows them. But no one, except Florence, knows the meas- ure of the white haired gentleman’s affection for the girl. That story never goes about. The child herself alnfost wonders at a certain secrecy he keeps in it. He hoards her in his heart. Pie cannot bear to see a cloud upon her face. He cannot bear to see her sit apart. He fancies that she feels a slight, when there is none. He steals away to look at her, in her sleep. It pleases him to have her come, and wake him in the morning. He is fondest of her and most loving to her, when there is no creature by. The child says then, sometimes : “ Dear grandpapa, why do you cry when you kiss me ? ” He only answers “ Little Florence ! Little Florence ! ” and smooths away the curls that shade her earnest eyes. Dombey 6° Son, Chap.- 42. GRATITUDE— A mother’s. Polly, who had passed Pleaven knows how many sleepless nights on account of this her ■dissipated firstborn, and had not seen him for weeks and weeks, could have almost kneeled to Mr. Carker the Manager, as to a Good Spirit — in spite of his teeth. But Mr. Carker rising to depart, she only thanked him. with her mother’s prayers and blessings : thanks so rich when paid out of the heart’s mint, especially for any service Mr. Carker had rendered, that he might have given back a large amount of change, and yet been overpaid. — Dombey Son, Chap. 22. GRAVE-The. Brave lodgings for one, brave lodgings for one, A few feet of cold earth, wh.-n life is done ; A stone at the head, a stone at the feet, A rich, juicy meal for the worms to eat. Rank grass over head, and damp clay around, Brave lodgings for one, these, in holy ground. Pickwick, Chap. 29. GRAVE— Of the dead pauper. Then the active and intelligent, who has got into the morning papers as such, comes with his pauper company to Mr. Krook’s, and bears off the body of our dear brother here departed, to a hemmed-in churchyard, pestiferous and obscene, whence malignant diseases are communicated to the bodies of our dear brothers and sisters who have not departed ; while our dear brothers and sisters who. hang about official back-stairs — GRAVE 212 GRAVE-DIGGER would to Heaven they had departed ! — are very complacent and agreeable. Into a beastly scrap of ground which a Turk would reject as a savage abomination, and a Caffre would shudder at, they bring our dear brother here departed, to receive Christian burial. With houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little tunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate — with every villainy of life in action close on death, and every poison- ous element of death in action close on life — here, they lower our dear brother down a foot or two ; here, sow him in corruption, to be raised in corruption : an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside: a shameful testimony to future ages, how civilization and barbarism walked this boastful island together. Come night, come darkness, for you cannot come loo soon, or stay too long, by such a place as this ! Come, straggling lights, into the win- dows of the ugly houses ; and you who do ini- quity therein, do it at least with this dread scene shut out ! Come, flame of gas, burning so sul- lenly above the iron gate, on which the poisoned air deposits its witch-ointment, slimy to the touch ! Tt is well that you should call to every passeT-by, “ Look here ! ” With the night, comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-court, to the outside of the iron gate. It holds the gate with its hands, and looks in between the bars ; stands looking in, for a little while. It then, with an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step, and makes the archway clean. It does so, very busily and trimly ; looks in again, a little while ; and so departs. Jo, is it thou? Well, well! Though a re- jected witness, who “can’t exactly say” what will be done to him in greater hands than men’s, thou art not quite in outer darkness. There is something like a distant ray of light in thy mut- tered reason for this ; “He wos wery good to me, he wos ! ” Bleak House , Chap. n. GRAVE— A child’s. Some young childi-en sported among the tombs, and hid from each other, with laughing faces. They had -an infant with them, and had laid it down asleep upon a child’s grave, in a little bed of leaves. It was a new grave — the resting-place, perhaps, of some little creature, who, meek and patient in its illness, had often sat and watched them, and now seemed, to their minds, scarcely changed. She drew near and asked one of them whose grave it was. The child answered that that was not its name ; it was a garden — his brother’s. It was greener, he said, than all the other gar- dens, and the birds loved it better because he had been used to feed them. When he had done speaking, he looked at her with a smile, and kneeling down and nestling for a moment with his cheek against the turf, bounded merrily away. — Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 53. GRAVE Of the erring-. Within the altar of the old village church there stands a white marble tablet, which bears as yet but one word — “ Agnes ! ” There is no coffin in that tomb ; and may it be many, many years, before another name is placed above it ! Hut if the spirits of the Dead ever come back to earth, to visit spots hallowed by the love — the love beyond the grave — of those whom they knew in life, 1 believe that the shade of Agnes sometimes hovers round that solemn nook. I believe it none the less because that nook is in a church, and she was weak and erring. Oliver Twisty Chap. 53. GRAVE-Of Smike. The grass was green above the dead boy's grave, and trodden by feet so small and light, that not a daisy drooped its head beneath theii pressure. Through all the spring and summer- time, garlands of fresh flowers, wreathed by in- fant hands, rested on the stone ; and when the children came here to change them lest they should wither and be pleasant to him no longer, their eyes filled with tears, and they spoke low and softly of their poor dead cousin. A r ic /tolas Nickleby , Chap. 65. GR AVE-DIGGER-The. “ That’s the sexton’s spade, and it’s a well- used one, as you see. We’re healthy people here, but it has done a power of work. If it could speak now, that spade, it would tell you of many an unexpected job that it and I have done together ; but I forget ’em, for my memory's a poor one. — That’s nothing new,” he added hastily. “ It always was.” “ There are flowers and shrubs to speak to your other work,” said the child. “ Oh yes. And tall trees. But they are not so separate from the sexton’s labors as you think.” “ No ! ” “ Not in my mind and recollection — such as it is,” said the old man. “ Indeed, they often help it. For say that I planted such a tree for such a man. There it stands, to remind me that he died. When I look at its broad shadow, and remember what it was in his time, it helps me tc the age of my other work, and I can tell you pretty nearly when I made his grave.” “ But it may remind you of one who is still alive,” said the child. “ Of twenty that are dead, in connection with that one who lives, then,” rejoined the old man ; “wife, husband, parents, brothers, sisters, chil- dren, friends — a score at least. So it happens that the sexton’s spade gets worn and battered. I shall need a new one — next summer.” The child looked quickly towards him, think- ing that he jested with his age and infirmity ; but the unconscious sexton was quite in earnest. “ Ah !” he said, after a brief silence. “ Peo- ple never learn. They never learn. It’s only we who turn up the ground, where nothing grow* and everything decays, who think of such things as these — who think of them properly, I mean. You have been into the church ? ” “ I am going there now,” the child replied. “ There’s an old well there,” said the sexton, “ right underneath the belfry ; a deep, dark, echo- ing well. Forty year ago, you had only to let down the bucket till the first knot in the rope was free of the windlass, and you heard it splash- ing in the cold dull water. By little and little the water fell away, so that in ten year after that a second Jcnot was made, and you must unwind so much rope, or the bucket swung tight and empty at the end. In ten years’ time, the water fell again, and a third knot was made. In ten GRAVESTONES 213 GRIDIRON years more, the well dried up ; and now, if you lower the bucket till your arms are tired, and let out nearly all the cord, you’ll hear it, of a sud- den, clanking and rattling on the ground below ; with a sound of being so deep and so far down, that your heart leaps into your mouth, and you start away as if you were falling in.” “ A dreadful place to come on in the dark ! ” exclaimed the child, who had followed the old man’s looks and words until she seemed to stand upon its brink. “ What is it but a grave ! ” said the sexton. “ What else ! And which of our old folks, know- ing all this, thought, as the spring subsided, of their own failing strength, and lessening life ? Not one ! ” — Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 53. GRAVESTONES-Pip’s reading of the. At the time when I stood in the churchyard, reading the family tombstones, I had just enough learning to be able to spell them out. My con- struction even of their simple meaning was not very correct, for I read “ wife of the above ” as a complimentary reference to my father’s exalta- tion to a better world ; and if any one of my de- ceased relations had been referred to as “ below,” I have no doubt I should have formed the worst opinions of that member of the family. Great Expectations , Chap. 7. GRAVESTONES-Pip’s family. My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister — Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photo- graphs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, “ Also Georgiana , Wife of the Above," I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were ar- ranged in a neat row beside their graves, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine — who gave up trying to get a living exceedingly eaidy in that universal struggle — I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence. Great Expectations , Chap. 1. GRAVE-YARD. A poor, mean burial-ground — a dismal place, raised a few feet above the level of the street, and parted from it by a low parapet-wall and an iron railing ; a rank, unwholesome, rotten spot, where the very grass and weeds seemed, in their frowsy growth, to tell that they had sprung from paupers’ bodies, and had struck their roots in the graves of men, sodden, while alive, in steaming courts and drunken hungry dens. And here, in truth, they lay, parted from the livi-ng by a little earth and a board or two — lay thick and close — corrupting in body as they had in mind — a dense and squalid crowd. Here they lay, cheek by jowl with life : no deeper down than the feet of the throng that passed there every day, and piled high as their throats. Here they lay, a grisly family, all these dear departed brothers and sisters of the niddy clergyman who did his task so speedily when they were hidden in the ground ! — Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 62. GRAVE-YARD-A City. “ He was put there,” says Jo, holding to the bars and looking in. “ Where ? O, what a scene of horror ! ” “ There ! ” says Jo, pointing. “ Over yinder. Among them piles of bones, and close to that there kitchin winder ! They put him wery nigh the top. They was obliged to stamp upon it to get it in. I could unk^ver it for you with my broom, if the gate was open. That’s why they locks it, I s’pose,” giving it a shake. “ It’s al- ways locked : Look at the rat ! ” cries Jo, excited. “Hi! look! There he goes! Ho! into the ground ! ” The servant shrinks into a corner — into a corner of that hideous archway, with its deadly stains contaminating her dress ; and putting out her two hands, and passionately telling him to keep away from her, for he is loathsome to her, so remains for some moments. Jo stands staring, and is still staring when she recovers herself. “ Is this place of abomination consecrated ground ? ” “ I don’t know nothink of consequential ground,” says Jo, still staring. ■“ Is it blessed ? ” “Which?” says Jo, in the last degree amazed. “ Is it blessed? ” “ I’m blest if I know,” says Jo, staring more than ever ; “ but I shouldn’t think it warn’t. Blest?” repeats Jo, something troubled in his mind. “ It ain’t done it much good if it is. Blest? I'should think it was t’othered myself. But I dont know nothink ! ” Bleak House , Chap. 16. GRAVY— The human passion for. “ Presiding over an establishment like this, makes sad havoc with the features, my dear Miss Pecksniffs,” said Mrs. Todgers. “ The gravy alone is enough to add twenty years to one’s age, I do assure you.” “ Lor ! ” cried the two Miss Pecksniffs. “The anxiety of that one item, my dears,” said Mrs. Todgers, “keeps the mind continually upon the stretch. There is no such passion in human nature, as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen. It’s nothing to say a joint won’t yield — a whole animal wouldn’t yield — the amount of gravy they expect each day at dinner. And what I have undergone in conse- quence,” cried Mrs. Todgers, raising her eyes, and shaking her head, “ no one would believe ! ” Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 9. GRIDIRON— A Gridiron is a. “ The oncommonest workman can’t show him- self oncommon in a gridiron — for a gridiron is a gridiron,” said Joe, steadfastly impressing it upon me, as if he were endeavoring to rouse me from a fixed delusion, “and you may hai.n GRIEF 214 GUILLOTINE at what you like, but a gridiron it will come cfut, either by your leave, or again your leave, and you can’t help yourself — ” Great Expectations, Chap. 15. GRIEF— A burden. As a man upon a field of battle will receive a mortal hurt, and scarcely know that he is struck, so I, when I was left alone with my un- disciplined heart, had no conception of the wound with which it had to strive. * * * * * It is not in my power to retrace, one by one, all the weary phases of distress of mind through which I passed. There are some dreams that can only be imperfectly and vaguely described ; and when I oblige myself to look back on this time of my life, I seem to be recalling such a dream. I see myself passing on among the novelties of foreign towns, palaces, cathedrals, temples, pictures, castles, tombs, fantastic streets — the old abiding places of History and Fancy — as a dreamer might ; bearing my painful load through all, and hardly conscious of the objects as they fade before me. Listlessness to everything but brooding sorrow, was the night that fell on my undisciplined heart. Let me look up from it — as at last I did, thank Heaven ! — and from its long, sad, wretched dream, to dawn. David Copperfield, Chap. 58. GUILLOTINE. The sharp female newly-born and called La Guillotine. Tale of Two Cities , Book III., Chap. 1. GUILLOTINE— Execution by the. Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rum- ble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagina- tion could record itself, are fused in the one reali- zation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression ever again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind. Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what they were, thou power- ful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equi- pages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, churches that are not My Father’s house but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants ! No ; the great magician who majestically works out the appointed order of the Creator, never reverses his transformations. “ If thou be changed into this shape by the will of God,” say the seers to the enchanted, in the wise Arabian stories, “ then remain so ! But, if thou wear this form through mere passing con- juration, then resume thy former aspect ! ” Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along. As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem to plough up a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Ridges of faces are thrown to this side and to that, and the ploughs go steadily onward. So used are the regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that in many windows there are no people, and in some the occupation of the hands is not so much as suspended, while the eyes sur- vey the faces in the tumbrils. Here and there, the inmate has visitors to see the sight ; then he points his finger, with something of the compla- cency of a curator or authorized exponent, to this cart and to this, and seems to tell who sat here yesterday, and who there the day before. Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, and all things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare ; others, with a lingering interest in the ways of life and men. Some, seated with drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair ; again, there are some so heedful of their looks that they cast upon the multitude such glances as they have seen in theatres and in pictures. Several close their eyes, and think, or try to get their straying thoughts together. Only one, and he a miserable creature of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made drunk by horror that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole number appeals, by look or gesture, to the pity of the peopie. ***** The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow ploughed among the populace is turning round, to come on into the place of execution, and end. The ridges thrown to this side and to that, now crumble in and close behind the last plough as it passes on, for all are following to the Guillotine. In front of it, seated in chairs as in a garden of public diversion, are a number of women, busily knitting. On one of the fore- most chairs stands The Vengeance, looking about for her friend. • ***** The tumbrils began to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are robed and ready. Crash ! — Ahead is held up, and the knitting-women, who scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could think and speak, count One. The second tumbril empties and moves on ; the third comes up. Crash ! — And the knitting- women, never faltering or pausing in their work, count Two. The supposed Evremonde descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back to the crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into his face and thanks him. ***** The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway to repair home together, and to rest in her bosom. She’ kisses his lips ; he kisses hers ; they sol- emnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it ; nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him — is gone ! the knitting-women count Twenty-Two. “ I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord : he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : and whoso- GUILLOTINE 215 HABIT ever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.” The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many foot- steps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three. Tale of Two Cities , Book III., Chap. 15. GUILLOTINE— The reign of the. The new Era began ; the king was tried, doomed, and beheaded ; the Republic of Lib- erty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, declared for victory or death against the world in arms ; the black flag waved night and day from the great towers of Notre Dame ; three hundred thousand men, summoned to rise against the tyrants of the earth, rose from all the varying soils of France, as if the dragon’s teeth had been sown broadcast, and had yielded fruit equally on hill and plain, on rock, in gravel, and alluvial mud, under the bright sky of the South and under the clouds of the North, in fell and forest, in the vineyards and the olive-grounds, and among the cropped grass and the stubble of the corn, along the fruitful banks of the broad rivers, and in the sand of the sea-shore. What private solici- tude could rear itself against the deluge of the Year One of Liberty — the deluge rising from below, not falling from above, and with the windows of Heaven shut, not opened ! There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest, no measurement of time. Though days and nights circled as regu- larly as when time was young, and the evening and the morning were the first day, other count of time there was none. Hold of it was lost in the raging fever of a nation, as it is in the fever of one patient. Now, breaking the unnatural silence of a whole city, the executioner showed the people the head of the king — and now, it seemed almost in the same Lreath, the head of his fair wife, which had had eight weary months of imprisoned widowhood and misery to turn it gray. And yet, observing the strange law of con- tradiction which obtains in all such cases, the time was long, while it flamed by so fast. A revolutionary tribunal in the capital, and forty or fifty thousand revolutionary committees all over the land ; a law of the Suspected, which struck away all security for liberty or life, and delivered over any good and innocent person to any bad and guilty one ; prisons gorged with people who had committed no offence, and could obtain no hearing ; these things became the established order and nature of appointed things, and seemed to be ancient usage before they were many weeks old. Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been before the general gaze from the foundation of the world — the figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine. It was the popular theme for jests ; it was the best cure for headache, it infallibly prevented the hair from turning gray, it imparted a pecu- liar delicacy to the complexion, it was the Na- tional Razor which shaved close: who kissed La Guillotine, looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack. It was the sign of the regeneration of the human race. It super- seded the Cross. Models of it were worn on breasts from which the Cross was discarded, and it was bowed down to and believed in where the Cross was denied. It sheared off heads so many, that it, and the ground it most polluted, were a rotten red. It was taken to pieces, like a toy-puzzle for a young Devil, and was put together again when occasion wanted it. It hushed the eloquent, struck down the powerful, abolished the beauti- ful and good. Twenty-two friends of high pub- lic mark, twenty-one living and one dead, it had lopped the heads off, in one morning, in as many minutes. • The name of the strong man of Old Scripture had descended to the chief functionary who worked it ; but, so armed, he was stronger than his namesake, and blinder, and tore away the gates of God’s own Temple every day. Tale of Two Cities , Book III . , Chap. 4. One year and three rfionths. During all that time Lucie was never sure, from hour to hour, but that the Guillotine would strike off her hus- band’s head next day. Every day, through the stony streets, the tumbrils now jolted heavily, filled with Condemned. Lovely girls , bright women, brown-haired, black-haired, and gray ; youths ; stalwart men and old ; gentle bom and peasant born ; all red wine for La Guillo- tine, all daily brought into light from the dark cellars of the loathsome prisons, and carried to her through the streets to slake her devouring thirst. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death ; — the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guil- lotine ! — Tale of Two Cities , Book III., Chap. 5. GUILT— The pain of. Although at the bottom of his every thought there was an uneasy sense of guilt, and dread of death, he felt no more than that vague con- sciousness of it, which a sleeper has of pain. It pursues him through his dreams, gnaws at the heart of all his fancied pleasures, robs the banquet of its taste, music of its sweetness, makes happiness itself unhappy, and yet is no bodily sensation, but a phantom without shape, or form, or visible presence ; pervading every- thing, but having no existence ; recognizable everywhere, but nowhere seen, or touched, or met with face to face, until the sleep is past, and waking agony returns. Barnaby Rudge , Chap. 62. H HABIT— Of reflection. Instead of putting on his coat and waistcoat with anything like the impetuosity that could alone have kept pace with Walter’s mood, he declined to invest himself with those garments at all at present ; and informed Walter, that on such a serious matter, he must be allowed to “ bite his nails a bit.” “ It’s an old habit of mine, Wal’r,” said the Captain, “ any time these fifty year. When you see Ned Cuttle bite his nails, Wal’r, then you may know that Ned Cuttle’s aground.” Thereupon the Captain put his iron hoo HABIT AND DUTY 210 . HAIR between his teeth, as if it were a hand ; and with an air of wisdom and profundity that was the very concentration and sublimation of all philo- sophical reflection and grave inquiry, applied himself to the consideration of the subject in its various branches. — Dombey dr 5 Son, Chap. 15. HABIT AND DUTY. “We go on in our clock-work routine, from day to day, and can’t make out, or follow, these changes. They — they’re a metaphysical sort of thing. We — we haven’t leisure for it. We — we haven’t courage. They’re not taught at schools or colleges, and we don’t know how to set about it. In short, we are so d d business-like,” said the gentleman, walking to the window, and back, and sitting down again, in a state of ex- treme dissatisfaction and vexation. “ I am sure,” said the gentleman, rubbing his forehead again ; and drumming on the table as before, “ I have good reason to believe that a jog-trot life, the same from day to day, would reconcile one to anything. One don’t see any- thing, one don’t hear anything, one don’t know anything ; that’s the fact. We go on taking every- thing for granted, and so we go on, until what- ever we do, good, bad, or indifferent, we do from habit. Habit is all I shall have to report, when I am called upon to plead to my conscience, on my death-bed. ‘ Habit,’ says I ; ‘ I was deaf, dumb, blind, and paralytic, to a million things, from habit.’ 4 Very business-like indeed, Mr. What’s-your-name,’ says Conscience, 4 but it won’t do here ! ’ ” — Dombey 6° Son, Chap. 33. self on one object at a lime, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which I then formed. Heaven knows ( write this in no spirit of self-laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine, in going on here from page to page, had need to have been a good man indeed if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglect- ed, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him. I do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I have not abused. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well ; that whatever I have devoted my • self to, I have devoted myself to completely ; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest. I have never be- lieved it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companion- ship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfillment on this earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that laddei must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear ; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw my whole self ; and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was ; I find, now, to have been my golden rules. David Copperfield, Chap. 42. HABIT- Its influence. It’s this same habit that confirms some of us, who are capable of better things, in Lucifer’s own pride and stubbornness — that confirms and deepens others of us in villainy — more of us in indifference — that hardens us from day to day, according to the temper of our clay, like images, and leaves us as susceptible as images to new impressions and convictions. Dombey Sf Son, Chap. 53. He handed her down to a coach she had in waiting at the door ; and if his landlady had not been deaf, she would have heard him muttering as he went back up stairs, when the coach had driven off, that we were creatures of habit, and it was a sorrowful habit to be an old bachelor. Dombey 6° Son, Chap. 58. HABITS— Of work and life— Dickens, his. I feel as if it were not for me to record, even though this manuscript is intended for no eyes but mine, how hard I worked at that tremen- dous shorthand, and all improvement appertain- ing to it, in my sense of responsibility to Dora and her aunts. I will only add, to what I have already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me, and which I know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any strength at all, that there, on looking back, I find the source of my success. I have been very fortunate in worldly matters ; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well ; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, vithout the determination to concentrate my- HACKMAN-A labelled. “ Here you are, sir,” shouted a strange speci- men of the human race, in a sackcloth coat, and apron of the same, who, with a brass label and number round his neck, looked as if he were catalogued in some collection of rarities. Pickwick, Chap. 2. HAIR- A head of. His message perplexed his mind to that de- gi'ee that he was fain, several times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. Except on the crown, which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedly all over it, and growing down-hill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was so like smith’s work, so much more like the top of a strongly-spiked wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leap- frog might have declined him, as the most dan- gerous man in the world to go over. Tale of Two Cities, Chap. 3. H AIR— U nruly . Excellent fellow as I knew T raddles to be, and warmly attached to him as I was, I could not help wishing, on that delicate occasion, that he had never contracted the habit of brushing his hair so very upright. It gave him a surprised look — not to say a hearth-broomy kind of ex- pression — which, my apprehensions whispered, might be fatal to us. I took the liberty of mentioning it to Trad- dles, as we were walking to Putney : and saying that if he would smooth it down a little — . “ My dear Copperfield,” said T raddles, lifting off his hat, and rubbing his hair all kinds of ways, “ nothing would give me greater pleasure. But it won’t.” HAND 217 HAPPINESS “ Won’t be smoothed down ? ” said I. “ No,” said T raddles. “ Nothing will induce it. If I was to carry a half-hundredweight upon it, all the way to Putney, it would be up again the moment the weight was taken off. You have no idea what obstinate hair mine is, Cop- perfield. I am quite a fretful porcupine.” “ They pretend that Sophy has a lock of it in her desk, and is obliged to shut it in a clasped book, to keep it down. We laugh about it.” David Copperfield , Chap. 41. HAND— Merdle’s style of shaking-. Mr. Merdle was slinking about the hearth-rug, waiting to welcome Mrs. Sparkler. His hand seemed to retreat up his sleeve as he advanced to do so, and he gave her such a superfluity of coat cuff that it was like being received by the popular conception of Guy Fawkes. When he put his lips to hers, besides, he took himself into custody by the wrists, and backed himself among the ottomans and chairs and tables as if he were his own Police officer, saying to himself, “ Now, none of that ! Come ! I’ve got you, you know, and you go quietly along with me ! ” Little Dorr it, Book II., Chap. 16. HAND— Its g-entleness. Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of a woman. I have often thought him since like the steam-hammer, that can crush a man or pat an egg-shell, in his combination of strength with gentleness. “ Pip is that hearty welcome,” said Joe, “to go free with his services, to honor and fortun’, as no words can tell him. But if you think as money can make compensation to me for the loss of the little child — what come to the forge — and ever the best of friends ! — ” O dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and so unthankful to, I see you again, with your muscular blacksmith’s arm before your eyes, and your broad chest heaving, and your voice dying away. O dear good faithful tender Joe, I feel the loving tremble of your hand upon my arm, as solemnly this day as if it had been the rustle of an angel’s wing ! Great Expectations , Chap. 18. HAND— Its character. As he stood, looking at his cap for a little while before beginning to speak, I could not help observing what power and force of charac- ter his sinewy hand expressed, and what a good and trusty companion it was to his honest brow and iron-grey hair. — David Copperfield, Chap. 51. HAND— A resolute. His hand upon the table rested there in per- fect repose, with a resolution in it that might have conquered lions. David Copperfield , Chap. 51. HAND- Dr. Chillip’s style of shaking-. He quite shook hands with me — which was a violent proceeding for him, his usual course being to slide a tepid little fish-slice an inch or two in advance of his hip, and evince the greatest discomposure when anybody grappled with it. Even now, he put his hand in his coat pocket as soon as he could disengage it, and seemed relieved when he had got it safe back. David Copperfield, Chap. 59. HAND-A g-hostly. As I came back, I saw Uriah Heep shutting up the office ; and, feeling friendly towards every- body. went in and spoke to him, and at parting, gave him my hand. But oh, what a clammy hand his was ! as ghostly to the touch as to the sight ! I rubbed mine afterwards, to w'arm it, and to rub his off. It was such an uncomfortable hand, that, when I went to my room, it was still cold and wet upon my memory. Leaning out of window, and seeing one of the faces on the beam-ends looking at me sideways, 1 fancied it was Uriah Heep got up there somehow, and shut him out in a hurry. — David Copperfield, Chap. 15. HAND— Of sympathy. Long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of decision, which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty’s goodness — the delicate fingers that are formed for sensitive- ness and sympathy of touch, and made to min- ister to pain and grief, or the rough, hard, Cap- tain Cuttle hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and softens in a moment. Dombey and Son, Chap. 48. HAPPINESS-Of the unfortunate. It is something to look upon enjoyment, so that it be free and wild and in the face of na- ture, though it is but the enjoyment of an idiot. It is something to know that Heaven has left the capacity of gladness in such a creature’s breast ; it is something to be assured that, how r - ever lightly men may crush that faculty in their fellows, the Great Creator of mankind imparts it even to his despised and slighted work. Who would not rather see a poor idiot happy in the sunlight, than a wise man pining in a darkened jail ! Ye men of gloom and austerity, who paint the face of Infinite Benevolence with an eternal frown ; read in the Everlasting Book, wide open to your view, the lesson it would teach. Its pic- tures are not in black and sombre hues, but bright and glowing tints ; its music — save when ye drown it — is not in sighs and groans, but songs and cheerful sounds. Listen to the mil- lion voices in the summer air, and find one dis- mal as your own. Remember, if ye can, the sense of hope and pleasure which every glad return of day awakens in the breast of all your kind who have not changed their nature ; and learn some wisdom even from the witless, when their hearts are lifted up they know not why, by all the mirth and happiness it brings. Bamaby Rudge, Chap. 25. HAPPINESS- The power of trifles. “ A small matter,” said the Ghost, “ to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.” “ Small ! ” echoed Scrooge. The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig ; and when x he had done so said, ‘ V “Why! Is it not? He has spenNhut a few pounds of your mortal money : three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise ? ” “ It isn’t that,” said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter self. “ It isn’t that, Spirit. HAPPINESS 218 HEART He has the power to render us happy or un- happy ; to make our service light or burden- some ; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks ; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ’em up : what then ? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.” Christmas Caro l , Stave 2. HAPPINESS- True. * * * A strain of rational good-will and cheerfulness, doing more to awaken the sympa- thies of every member of the party in behalf of his neighbor, and to perpetuate their good feel- ing during the ensuing year, than half the homi- lies that have ever been written, by half the Divines that have ever lived. Sketches ( Characters J, Chap. 2. HASTE— The advantages of seeming. More is done, or considered to be done — which does as well — by taking cabs, and “going about,” than the fair Tippins knew of. Many vast vague reputations have been made, solely by taking cabs and going about. This par- ticularly obtains in all Parliamentary affairs. Whether the business in hand be to get a man in, or get a man out, or get a man over, or pro- mote a railway, or jockey a railway, or what else, nothing is understood to be so effectual as scouring nowhere in a violent hurry — in short, as taking cabs and going about. Our Mutual Friend, Book II., Chap. 3. HAT— Sam Weller’s apology for his. “ Sit down.” “ Thank’ee, sir,” said Sam. And down he sat, without further bidding, having previously deposited his old white hat on the landing out- side the door. “ ’Ta’nt a werry good ’un to look at,” said Sam, “ but it’s an astonishin’ ’un to wear ; and afore the brim went, it was a werry handsome tile. Hows’ever its lighter without it, that’s one thing, and every hole lets in some air, that’s another — wentilation gossamer I calls it.” On the delivery of this sentiment, Mr. Weller smiled agreeably upon the assembled Pickwickians. — Pickwick, Chap. 12. HAT— The pursuit of a. There are very few moments in a man’s ex- istence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable com- miseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat. A vast deal of coolness, and a peculiar de- gree of judgment, are requisite in catching a hat. A man must not be precipitate, or he runs over it ; he must not rush into the opposite extreme, or he loses it altogether. The best way is, to keep gently up with the object of pursuit, to be wary and cautious, to watch your opportunity well, get gradually before it, then make a rapid dive, seize it by the crown, and stick it firmly on your head : smiling pleasantly all the time, as if you thought it as good a joke as anybody else. Pickwick , Chap. 4. HEART In the right place. “ Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Chivery, without advancing ; “ it's no odds me coming in. Mr. Clcnnam, don’t you take no notice of my son (if you’ll be so good) in case you find him cut up any wxiys dillicull. My son has a ’art, and my son’s ’art is in the right place. Me and his mother knows where to find it, and we find it sitiwated correct.” Little Doirit, Book II., Chap. 27. HEARTS— Innocent. “If we all had hearts like those which beat so lightly in the bosoms of the young and beautiful, what a heaven this earth would be! If, while our bodies grow old and withered, our hearts could but retain their early youth and freshness, of what avail would be our sorrows and suffer- ings ! But, the faint image of Eden which is stamped upon them in childhood, chafes and rubs in our rough struggles with the world, and soon wears away : too often to leave nothing but a mournful blank remaining.” Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 6. HEARTS-Open. Among men who have any sound and sterling qualities, there is nothing so contagious as pure openness of heart. Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 35. HEART— A loving. If the little Haymaker had been armed with the sharpest of scythes, and had cut at every stroke into the Carrier’s heart, he never could have gashed and wounded it as Dot had done. It was a heart so full of love for her ; so bound up and held together by innumerable threads of winning remembrance, spun from the daily working of her many qualities of endear- ment ; it was a heart in which she had enshrined herself so gently and so closely ; a heart so sin- gle and so earnest in its Truth, so strong in right, so weak in wrong, that it could cherish neither passion nor revenge at first, and had only room to hold the broken image of its Idol. Cricket on the Hearth, Chap. 3. HEART— a pure ; Tom Pinch. Tom, Tom! The man in all this world most confident in his sagacity and shrewdness; the man in all this world most proud of the dis- trust of other men, and having most to show in gold and silver as the gains belonging to his creed ; the meekest favorer of that wise doc- trine, Every man for himself, and God for us all (there being high wisdom in the thought that the Eternal Majesty of Heaven ever was, or can be, on the side of selfish lust and love!) ; shall never find, oh, never find, be sure of that, the time come home to him, when all his wis- dom is an idiot’s folly, weighed against a sim- ple heart ! — Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 39. HEART— The chance revelations of the. There are chords in the human heart — strange, varying strings — which are only struck by accident ; which will remain mute and sense- less to appeals the most passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest casual touch. In the most insensible or childish minds, there is some train of reflection which art can seldom lead, or skill assist, but which will reveal itself, as great truths have done, by chance, and when the discoverer has the plainest end in view. Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. 55. HEART -Afflictions. “ You may file a strong man’s heart away for HEARTS 219 HOMAGE a good many years, but it will tell all of a sud- den at last.” — Bleak House, Chap. 23. HEARTS— The necessity of shutters. “ I speak as I find, Mr. Sweedlepipes,” said Mrs. Gamp. “ Forbid it should be otherways ! But we never knows wot’s hidden in each other’s hearts ; and if we had glass winders there, we’d need keep the shetters up, some on us, I do assure you ! ” Marlin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 29. HEARTS— Light. Light hearts, light hearts, that float so gaily on a smooth stream, that are so sparkling and buoyant in the sunshine — down upon fruit, bloom upon flowers, blush in summer air, life of the winged insect, whose whole existence is a day — how soon ye sink in troubled water ! Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 71. HEART— The coin of the. The heart is not always a royal mint, with patent machinery, to work its metal into cur- rent coin. Sometimes it throws it out in strange forms, not easily recognized as coin at all. But it is sterling gold. It has at least that merit. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 20. HEART— An empty. He was touched in the cavity where his heart should have been — in that nest of addled eggs, where the birds of heaven would have lived, if they had not been whistled away. Hard 7 'imes, Book III., Chap. 2. HEART— Like a bird-cage (Sampson Brass). “ I respect you, Kit,” said Brass, with emo- tion. I saw enough of your conduct at that time, to respect you, though your station is hum- ble, and your fortune lowly. It isn’t the waist- coat that I look at. It is the heart. The checks in the waistcoat are but the wires of the cage. But the heart is the bird. Ah ! How many sich birds are perpetually moulting, and putting their beaks through the wires to peck at all man- kind ! ” This poetic figure, which Kit took to be in special allusion to his own checked waistcoat, quite overcame him ; Mr. Brass’s voice and manner added not a little to its effect, for he discoursed with all the mild austerity of a her- mit, and wanted but a cord round the waist of his rusty surtout, and a skull on the chimney- piece, to be completely set up in that line of business. — Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. 56. HEART— The silent influence of the. There was heart in the room ; and who that has a heart, ever fails to recognise the silent presence of another ! Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 20. HEARTS— Mere mechanisms. “ I was about to speak to you from my heart, sir,” returned Edward, “ in the confidence which should subsist between us ; and you check me in the outset.” “ Now do, Ned, do not,” said Mr. Chester, raising his delicate hand imploringly, “ talk in that monstrous manner. About to speak from yout heart. Don’t you know that the heart is an ingenious part of our formation — the centre of the blood-vessels and all that sort of thing — which has no more to do with what you say or think, than your knees have ? How can you be so very vulgar and absurd ? These anatomical allusions should be left to gentlemen of the medical profession. They are really not agree- able in society. You quite surprise me, Ned.” “ Well ! there are no such things to wound, or heal, or to have regard for. I know your creed, sir, and will say no more,” returned his son. “ There again,” said Mr. Chester, sipping his wine, “ you are wrong. I distinctly say there are such things. We know there are. The hearts of animals — of bullocks, sheep, and so forth — are cooked and devoured, as I am told, by the lower classes, with a vast deal of relish. Men are sometimes stabbed to the heart, shot to the heart ; but as to speaking from the heart, or to the heart, or being warm-hearted, or cold- hearted, or broken-hearted, or being all heart, or having no heart — pah 1 these things are non- sense, Ned.” — Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 32. HEARTS AND HEADS. “ Do you know how pinched and destitute I am ? ” she retorted. “ I do not think you do, or can. If you had eyes, and could look around you on this poor place, you would have pity on me. Oh ! let your heart be softened by your own affliction, friend, and have some sympathy with mine.” The blind man snapped his fingers as he an- swered : “ — Beside the question, ma’am, beside the question. I have the softest heart in the world, but I can’t live upon it. Many a gentleman lives well upon a soft head, who would find a heart of the same quality a very great draw- back.” — Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 45. HEARTLESSNESS. He’d no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold as death, and he had the head of the Devil afore mentioned. Great Expectations , Chap. 42. HEAVEN— The real. The real Heaven is some paces removed from the mock one in the great chandelier of the Theatre. — Somebody s Luggage , Chap. 2. HOLIDAYS— The happy associations of. Oh, these holidays ! why will they leave us some regret ? why cannot we push them back, only a week or two, in our memories, so as to put them at once at that convenient distance whence they may be regarded either with a calm indifference or a pleasant effort of recollection ! why will they hang about us, like the flavor of yesterday’s wine, suggestive of headaches and lassitude, and those good intentions for the future, which, under the earth, form the ever- lasting pavement of a large estate, and, upon it, usually endure until dinner- time or thereabouts ? Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. 40. HOMAGE— To woman. They did homage to Bella as if she were a compound of fine girl, thorough-bred horse, well-built drag, and remarkable pipe. Our Mutual Friend, Book III., Chap. 5. HOME OF DICKENS 220 HOME HOME OF DICKENS— Gadshill. So smooth was the old high-road, and so fresh were the horses, and so fast went I, that it was midway between Gravesend and Rochester, and the widening river was bearing the ships, white- sailed or black-smoked, out to sea, when I noticed by the way-side a very queer small boy. “Halloa!” said I, to the very queer small boy, “ where do you live ? ” “ At Chatham,” says he. “ What do you do there ? ” says I. “ I go to school,” says he. I took him up in a moment, and we went on. Presently, the very queer small boy says, “ This is Gadshill we are coming to, where Falstaff went out to rob those travellers, and ran away.” “You know something about Falstaff, eh?” said I. “ All about him,” said the very queer small boy, “ I am old (I am nine), and 1 read all sorts of books. But do let us stop at the top of the hill, and look at the house there, if you please ! ” “You admire that house? ’’said I. “ Bless you, sir,” said the very queer small boy, “ when I was not more than half as old as nine, it used to be a treat for me to be brought to look at it. And now I am nine I come by myself to look at it. And ever since I can re- collect, my father, seeing me so fond of it, has often said to me, 4 If you were to be very per- severing, and were to work hard, you might some day come to live in it.’ Though that’s impossible 1 ” said the very queer small boy, drawing a low breath, and now staring at the house out of window with all his might. I was rather amazed to be told this by the very queer small boy ; for that house happens to be my house, and I have reason to believe that what he said was true. Well ! I made no halt there, and I soon drop- ped the very queer small boy and went on. Over the road where the old Romans used to march, over the road where the old Canterbury pilgrims used to go, over the road where the travelling trains of the old imperious priests and princes used to jingle on horseback between the continent and this Island, through the mud and water, over the road where Shakespeare hum- med to himself, “ Blow, blow, thou winter wind,” as he sat in the saddle at the gate of the inn- yard noticing the carriers ; all among the cherry orchards, apple orchards, cornfields, and hop- gardens ; so went I, by Canterbury to Dover. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 7. HOME -Of Mr. Dombay. Mr. Dombey’s house was a large one, on the shady side of a tall, dark, dreadfully genteel street in the region between Portland Place and Bryanstone Square. It was a cornerhouse, with great wide areas containing cellars frowned upon by barred windows, and leered at by crooked- eyed doors leading to dust-bins. It was a house of dismal state, with a circular back to it, con- taining a whole suit of drawing-rooms looking upon a gravelled yard, where two gaunt trees, with blackened trunks and branches, rattled rather than rustled, their leaves were so smoke- dried The summer sun was never on the street, but in the morning about breakfast-time, when it came with the water-carts and the old: clothes-men, and the people with geraniums, and the umbrella mender, and the man who trilled the little bell of the Dutch clock as he went along. It was soon gone again to return no more that day ; and the bands of music and the straggling Punch’s shows going after it, left it a prey to the most dismal of organs, and white mice ; and now and then a porcupine, to vary the entertainments ; until the butlers whose families were dining out, began to stand at the house-doors in the twilight, and the lamp-lighter made his nightly failure in attempting to brighten up the stx-eet with gas. — Dombey < 5 r* Son, Chap. 3. HOME— After a funeral. When the funeral was over, Mr. Dombey ordered the furniture to be covered up — perhaps to preserve it for the son with whom his plans were all associated — and the rooms to be un- garnished, saving such as he retained for himself on the ground floor. Accordingly, mysterious shapes were made of tables and chairs, heaped together in the middle of rooms, and covered over with great winding sheets. Bell-handles, window-blinds, and looking-glasses, being paper- ed up in journals, daily and weekly, obtruded fragmentary accounts of deaths and dreadful murders. Every chandelier or lustre, muffled in holland, looked like a monstrous tear depending from the ceiling’s eye. Odors, as from vaults and damp places, came out of the chimneys. The dead and buried lady was awful in a picture- frame of ghastly bandages. Every gust of wind that rose, brought eddying round the corner from the neighboring mews, some fragments of the straw that had been strewn before the house when she was ill, mildewed remains of which were still cleaving to the neighborhood ; and these, being always drawn by some invisible at- traction to the threshold of the dirty house to let immediately opposite, addressed a dismal eloquence»to Mr. Dombey’s windows. Dombey dr 5 Son, Chap. 3. HOME— Of a tourist. It was just large enough, and no more ; was as pretty within as it was without, and was per- fectly well-arranged and comfortable. Some traces of the migratory habits of the family were to be observed in the covered frames and furni- ture, and wrapped up hangings ; but it was easy to see that it was one of Mr. M eagles’s whims to have the cottage always kept, in their absence, as if they were always coming back the day after to-morrow. Of articles collected on his various expeditions, there was such a vast miscellany that it was like the dwelling of an amiable Cor- sair. There were antiquities from Central Italy, made by the best modern houses in that depart- ment of industry ; bits of mummy from Egypt (and perhaps Birmingham) ; model gondolas from Venice ; model villages from Switzerland ; morsels of tesselated pavement from Hercula- neum and Pompeii, like petrified minced veal ; ashes out of tombs, and lava out of Vesuvius ; Spanish fans, Spezzian straw hats, Moorish slip- pers, Tuscan hair-pins, Carrara sculpture, Tr^s- taverini scarfs, Genoese velvets and filagree, Neapolitan coral, Roman cameos, Geneva jew- elry, Arab lanterns, rosaries blest all round by the Pope himself, and an infinite variety of lum- ber. There were views, like and unlike, of a multitude of places ; and there was one little picture-room devoted to a few of the regular sticky old Saints, with sinews like whip-cord. HOME 221 HOME hair like Neptune’s, wrinkles like tattooing, and such coats of varnish that every holy personage served for a fly-trap, and became what is now .called in the vulgar tongue a Catch-em-alive O. Of these pictorial acquisitions Mr. Meagles spoke in the usual manner. He was no judge, he said, except of what pleased himself ; he had picked them up, dirt-cheap, and people had considered them rather fine. One man, who at any rate ought to know something of the subject, had de- clared that “ Sage, Reading ” (a specially oily old gentleman in a blanket, with a swan’s down tippet for a beard, and a web of cracks all over him like rich pie-crust), to be a fine Guercino. As for Sebastian del Piombo there, you would judge for yourself ; if it were not his later man- ner, the question was, Who was it? Titian, that might or might not be — perhaps he had only touched it. Daniel Doyce said perhaps he hadn’t touched it, but Mr. Meagles rather de- clined to overhear the remark. Little Dorrit, Book /., Chap. 16. HOME— The music of crickets at. “ This has been a happy home, John ; and I love the Cricket for its sake ! ” “ Why, so do I then,” said the Carrier. “ So do I, Dot.” “ I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the many thoughts its harmless music has given me. Sometimes, in the twilight, when I have felt a little solitary and down-hearted, John — before baby was here, to keep me company and make the house gay — when I have thought how lonely you would be if I should die ; how lonely I should be, if I could know that you had lost me, dear ; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp, upon the hearth, has seemed to tell me of another little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me, before whose coming sound my trouble vanished like a dream. And when I used to fear — I did fear once, John, I was very young, you know — that ours might prove to be an ill-assorted marriage, I being such a child, and you more like my guardian than my husband ; and that you might not, however hard you tried, be able to learn to love me, as you hoped and prayed you might ; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp, has cheered me up again, and filled me with new trust and confidence. I was thinking of these things to-night, dear, when I sat expecting you ; and I love the Cricket for their sake !” — Cricket on the Hearth , Chap. i. HOME— Of Mrs. Ckickenstalker. Fat company, rosy-cheeked company, com- fortable company. They were but two, but they were red enough for ten. They sat before a bright fire, with a small low table between them ; and unless the fragrance of hot tea and muffins lingered longer in that room than in most others, the table had seen service very lately. But all the cups and saucers being clean, and in their proper places in the corner cupboard ; and the brass toasting-fork hanging in its usual nook, and spreading its four idle fingers out, as if it wanted to be measured for a glove, there remained no other visible tokens of the meal just finished, than such as purred and washed their whiskers in the person of the basking cat, and glistened in the gracious, not to say the greasy, faces of her patrons. Chimes, 4th quarter. HOME. “‘O Home, our comforter and friend when others fall away, to part with whom, at any step between the cradle and the grave ’ — ” * * * * * “ ‘ O Home, so true to us, so often slighted in return, be lenient to them that turn away from thee, and do not haunt their erring footsteps too reproachfully ! Let no kind looks, no well- remembered smiles, be seen upon thy phantom face. Let no ray of affection, welcome, gentle- ness, forbearance, cordiality, shine from thy whitehead. Let no old' loving word or tone rise up in judgment against thy deserter ; but if thou canst look harshly and severely, do, in mercy to the Penitent ! ’ ” Battle of Life, Chap. 2. HOME— Of a female philanthropist. We expressed our acknowledgments, and sat down behind the door, where there was a lame invalid of a sofa. Mrs. Jellyby had very good hair, but was too much occupied with her African duties to brush it. The shawl in which she had been loosely muffled, dropped on to her chair when she advanced to us ; and as she turned to resume her seat, we could not help noticing that her dress didn’t nearly meet up the back, and that the open space was railed across with a lattice-work of stay-lace — like a summer-house. The room, which was strewn with papers, and nearly filled by a great writing-table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not only very untidy, but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of that with our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we fol- lowed the poor child who had tumbled down- stairs : I think into the back-kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him. ❖ * * ❖ * But what principally struck us was a jaded, and unhealthy-looking, though by no means plain giri, at the writing-table, who sat biting the feather of her pen, and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was in such a state of ink. And, from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet, which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden down at heel, she really seemed to have no article of dress upon her, from a pin upwards, that was in its proper con- dition or its right place. “You find me, my dears,” said Mrs. Jellyby, snuffing the two great office candles in tin can- dlesticks, which made the room taste strongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing in the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), “ you find me, my dears, as usual, very busy ; but that you will excuse. The African project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in correspondence with public bodies, and with private individuals anx- ious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy fami- lies cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger.” — Bleak House, Chap. 4. HOME— A solitary. His dwelling was so solitary and vault-like — an old, retired part of an ancient endowment for students, once a brave edifice planted in an HOME 222 HOME open place, but now the obsolete whim of for- gotten architects ; smoke-age-and-weather-dark- ened, squeezed on every side by the overgrowing of the great city, and choked, like an old well, with stones and bricks ; its small quadrangles, lying down in very pits formed by the streets and buildings, which, in course of time, had been constructed above its heavy chimney stacks ; its old trees, insulted by the neighbor- ing smoke, which deigned to droop so low when it was very feeble and the weather very moody ; its grass-plots, struggling with the mildewed earth to be grass, or to win any show of com- promise ; its silent pavement, unaccustomed to the tread of feet, and even to the observation of eyes, except when a stray face looked down from the upper world, wondering what nook it was ; its sun-dial in a little bricked-up corner, where no sun had straggled fora hundred years, but where, in compensation for the sun’s ne- glect, the snow would lie for weeks when it lay nowhere else, and the black east wind would spin like a huge humming-top, when in all other places it was silent and still. His dwelling, at its heart and core — within doors — at his fireside — was so lowering and old, so crazy, yet so strong, with its worm-eaten beams of wood in the ceiling and its sturdy floor shelving downward to the great oak chim- ney-piece ; so environed and hemmed in by the pressure of the town, yet so remote in fashion, age, and custom ; so quiet, yet so thundering with echoes when a distant voice was raised or a door was shut — echoes not confined to the many low passages and empty rooms, but rumbling and grumbling till they were stifled in the heavy air of the forgotten Crypt where the Norman arches were half buried in the earth. Haunted Man , Chap. i. HOME-Of Miss Tox. Miss Tox inhabited a dark little house that had .been squeezed, at some remote period of English History, into a fashionable neighbor- hood at the west end of the town, where it stood in the shade like a poor relation of the great street round the comer, coldly looked down up- on by mighty mansions. It was not exactly in a court, and it was not exactly in a yard ; but it was in the dullest of No-Thoroughfares, rendered anxious and haggard by distant double knocks. * * * * * The greater part of the furniture was of the powdered head and pig-tail period ; comprising a plate-warmer, always languishing and sprawl- ing its four attenuated bow legs in somebody’s way ; and an obsolete harpsichord, illuminated round the maker’s name with a painted garland of sweet peas. * * * * * Miss Tox’s bedroom (which was at the back) commanded a vista of Mews, where hostlers, at whatever sort of work engaged, were continual- ly accompanying themselves with effervescent noises ; and where the most domestic and con- fidential garments of coachmen and their wives and families, usually hung, like Macbeth’s ban- ners, on the outward walls. Dombey Son, Chap. 7. HOME - Of Mrs. Pipchin. The Castle of this ogress and child -queller was in a sleep by-street at Brighton, where the soil was more than usually chalky, flinty, and sterile, and the houses were more than usually brittle and thin ; where the small front-gardens had the unaccountable property of producing nothing but marigolds, whatever was sown in them ; and where snails were constantly dis- covered holding on to the street doors, and other public places they were not expected to ornament, with the tenacity of cupping-glasses. In the winter-time the air couldn’t be got out of the Castle, and in the summer-time it couldn’t be got in. There was such a continual rever- beration of wind in it, that it sounded like a great shell, which the inhabitants were obliged to hold to their ears night and day, whether they liked it or no. It was not, naturally, a fresh-smelling house ; and in the window of the front parlor, which was never opened, Mrs. Pipchin kept a collection of plants in pots, which imparted an earthy flavor of their own to the establishment. However choice exam- ples of their kind, too, these plants were of a kind peculiarly adapted to the embowerment of Mrs. Pipchin. There were half-a-dozen speci- mens of the cactus, writhing round bits of lath, like hairy serpents ; another specimen shooting out broad claws, like a green lobster ; several creeping vegetables, possessed of sticky and ad- hesive leaves ; and one uncomfortable flower-pot hanging to the ceiling, which appeared to have boiled over, and tickling people underneath with its long green ends, reminded them of spiders — in which Mrs. Pipchin’s dwelling was uncommonly prolific, though perhaps it challen- ged competition still more proudly, in the season, in point of earwigs. — Dombey 6° Son, Chap. 8. HOME-The love of. And let me linger in this place for an instant, to remark, if ever household affections and loves are graceful things, they are graceful in the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and the proud to home may be forged on earth, but those which link the poor man to his humble hearth are of the truer metal and bear the stamp of Heaven. The man of high descent may love the halls and lands of his inheritance as a part of him- self; as trophies of his birth and power: his associations with them are associations of pride, and wealth, and triumph : the poor man’s attach- ment to the tenement he holds, which strangers have held before, and may to-morrow occupy again, has a worthier root, struck deep into a purer soil. His household gods are of flesh and blood, with no alloy of silver, gold, or pre- cious stones ; he has no property but in the af- fections of his own heart ; and when they en- dear bare floors and walls, despite of rags and toil and scanty fare, that man has his love of home from God, and his rude hut becomes a solemn place. Oh ! if those who rule the destinies of nations would but remember this — if they would but think how hard it is for the very poor to have engendered in their hearts that love of home from which all domestic virtues spring, when they live in dense and squalid masses where social decency is lost, or rather never found, — if they would but turn aside from the wide thoroughfares and great houses, and strive to improve the wretched dwellings in by-ways, where only Poverty may walk, — many low roofs would point more truly to the sky, than the HOME 223 HOME loftiest steeple that now rears prpudly up from the midst of guilt, and crime, and horrible dis- ease, to mock them by its contrast. In hollow voices from Workhouse, Hospital, and Jail, this truth is preached from day to day, and has been proclaimed for years. It is no light matter — no outcry from the working vulgar — no mere ques- tion of the people’s health and comforts that may be whistled down on Wednesday nights. In love of home, the love of country has its rise ; and who are the truer patriots or the bet- ter in time of need — those who venerate the land, owning its wood, and stream, and earth, and all that they produce — or those who love their country, boasting not a foot of ground in all its wide domain ? Old Curiosity Shop , Chap. 38. HOME— The comforts of (Gabriel Varden). That afternoon, when he had slept off his fatigue ; had shaved, and washed, and dressed, and freshened himself from top to toe ; when he had dined, comforted himself with a pipe, an extra Toby, a nap in the great arm-chair, and a quiet chat with Mrs. Varden on everything that had happened, was happening, or about to hap- pen, within the sphere of their domestic con- cern ; the locksmith sat himself down at the tea-table in the little back parlor ; the rosiest, cosiest, merriest, heartiest, best-contented old buck in Great Britain, or out of it. There he sat, with his beaming eye on Mrs. V., and his shining face suffused with gladness, and his capacious waistcoat smiling in every wrinkle, and his jovial humor peeping from un- der the table in the very plumpness of his legs : a sight to turn the vinegar of misanthropy into purest milk of human kindness. There he sat, watching his wife as she decorated the room with flowers for the greater honor of Dolly and Joseph Willet, who had gone out walking, and for whom the tea-kettle had been singing gaily on the hob full twenty minutes, chirping as never kettle chirped before ; for whom the best ser- vice of real undoubted china, patterned with di- vers round-faced mandarins holding up broad umbrellas, was now displayed in all its glory ; to tempt whose appetites a clear, transparent, juicy ham, garnished with cool, green lettuce- leaves and fragrant cucumber, reposed upon a shady table, covered with a snow-white cloth ; for whose delight, preserves and jams, crisp cakes and other pastry, short to eat, with cun- ning twists, and cottage loaves, and rolls of bread, both white and brown, were all set forth in rich profusion ; in whose youth Mrs. V. her- self had grown quite young, and stood there in a gown of red and white ; symmetrical in fig- ure, buxom in bodice, ruddy in cheek and lip, faultless in ankle, laughing in face and mood, in all respects delicious to behold — there sat the locksmith among all and every these de- lights, the sun that shone upon them all : the centre of the system : the source of light, heat, life, and frank enjoyment in the bright house- hold world. — Barnaby Rudge, Chap. So. HOME— Of confusion and wretchedness. “My dear!” said I, smiling. “Your papa, no doubt, considers his family.” “ O yes, his family is all very fine, Miss Sum- merson,” replied Miss Jellyby ; “but what com- fort is his family to him ? His family is nothing but bills, dirt, waste, noise, tumbles down-stairs, confusion, and wretchedness. His scrambling home, from week’s end to week’s end, is like one great washing-day — only nothing’s washed ! ” Bleak House , Chap. 14. HOME— A rosary of regrets. He was tortured by anxiety for those he had left at home ; and that home itself was but another bead in the long rosary of his regrets. Barnaby Rudge , Chap. 61. HOME— Of Captain Cuttle. Captain Cuttle lived on the brink of a little canal near the India Docks, where there was a swivel bridge, which opened now and then to let some wandering monster of a ship come roaming up the street like a stranded leviathan. The gi'adual change from land to water, on the approach to Captain Cuttle’s lodgings, was curi- ous. It began with the erection of flagstaff's, as appurtenances to public-houses ; then came slop-sellers’ shops, with Guernsey shirts, sou’- wester hats, and canvas pantaloons, at once the tightest and the loosest of their order, hanging up outside. These were succeeded by anchor and chain-cable forges, where sledge-hammers were dinging upon iron all day long. Then came rows of houses, with little vane-surmount- ed masts uprearing themselves from among the scarlet beans. Then., ditches. Then pollard willows. Then more ditches. Then unaccount- able patches of dirty water, hardly to be des- cried, for the ships that covered them. Then, the air was perfumed with chips ; and all other trades were swallowed up in mast, oar, and block-making, and boat-building. Then, the ground grew marshy and unsettled. Then, there was nothing to be smelt but rum and su- gar. Then, Captain Cuttle’s lodgings — at once a first floor and a top story, in Brig Place — were close before you. Dombey dr 3 Son, Chap. 9. HOME— The representative of character. It is not a mansion ; it is of no pretensions as to size ; but it is beautifully arranged, and taste- fully kept. The lawn, the soft, smooth slope, the flow’er-garden, the clumps of trees, where graceful forms of ash and willow are not want- ing, the conservatory, the rustic verandah, with sweet-smelling creeping plants entwined about the pillars, the simple exterior of the house, the well-ordered offices, though all upon the dimin- utive scale proper to a mere cottage, bespeak an amount of elegant comfort within, that might serve for a palace. This indication is not without warrant ; for within it is a house of refinement and luxury. Rich colors, excellently blended, meet the eye at every turn ; in the furniture — its proportions admirably devised to suit the shapes and sizes of the small rooms ; on the walls ; upon the floors ; tingeing and subduing the light that comes in through the odd glass doors and windows here and there. There are a few choice prints and pictures too ; in quaint nooks and recesses there is no want of books ; and there are games of skill and chance set forth on tables — fantastic chess-men, dice, back-gammon, cards, and billiards. And yet, amidst this opulence of comfort, there is something in the general air that is not well. Is it that the carpets and the cushions HOME 224 HOME are too soft and noiseless, so that those who move or repose among them seem to act by stealth ? Is it that the prints and pictures do not com- memorate great thoughts or deeds, or render nature in the poetry of landscape, hall, or hut, but are of one voluptuous cast — mere shows of form and color — and no more? Is it that the books have all their gold outside, and that the titles of the greater part qualify them to be companions of the prints and pictures? Is it that the completeness and the beauty of the place are here and there belied by an affectation of humility, in some unimportant and inexpen- sive regard, which is as false as the face of the too truly painted portrait hanging yonder, or its original at breakfast in his easy-chair below it? Or is it that, with the daily breath of that original and master of all here, there issues forth some subtle portion of himself, which gives a vague expression of himself to every- thing about him ? — Dombey Son, Chap. 33. HOME— In the suburbs. The neighborhood in which it stands has as little of the country to recommend it, as it has of the town. It is neither of the town or coun- try. The former, like the giant in his travel- ling boots, has made a stride and passed it, and has set his brick and mortar heel a long way in advance ; but the intermediate space between the giant’s feet, as yet, is only blighted country, and not town. — Dombey 6° Son , Chap. 33. HOME— Disappointment in a. It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retribu- tive and well deserved ; but, that it is a misera- ble thing, I can testify. Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister’s temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I believed in it. I had believed in the best parlor as a most elegant saloon ; I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State, whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls ; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment ; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year all th's was changed. Great Expectations , Chap. 13. HOME. At sunrise, one fair Monday morning — the twenty-seventh of June, I shall not easily forget the day, — there lay before us old Cape Clear, God bless it, showing, in the mist of early morn- ing, like a cloud ; the brightest and most wel- come cloud to us that ever hid the face of Heaven’s fallen sister, — Home. American Notes , Chap. 16. HOME Adornment of a. But how the graces and elegances which she had dispersed about the poorly furnished room, went to the heart of Nicholas ! Flowers, plants, birds, the harp, the old piano whose notes had sounded so much sweeter in by-gone times ; how many struggles had it cost her to keep these two last links of that broken chain which bound her yet to home! With every slender ornament, the occupation of her leisure hours, replete with that graceful charm which lingers in every little tasteful work of woman’s hands, how much patient endurance and how many gentle affections were entwined ! He felt as though the smile of Heaven were on the little chamber; as though the beautiful devotion of so young and weak a creature had shed a ray of its own on the inanimate things around, and made them beautiful as itself ; as though the halo with which old painters surround the bright angels of a sinless world, played about a being akin in spirit to them, and its light were visibly before him — Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 46. HOME The place of affection. “ When I talk of homes,” pursued Nicholas, “ I talk of mine — which is yours of course. If it were defined by any particular four walls and a roof, God knows I should be sufficiently puzzled to say whereabouts it lay ; but that is not what I mean. When I speak of home, I speak of the place where, in default of a better, those I love are gathered together ; and if that place were a gipsy’s tent, or a barn, I should call it by the same good name notwithstanding. And now, for what is my present home : which, however alarming your expectations may be, will neither terrify you by its extent nor its magnificence!” Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 35. HOME— An abandoned. God knows I had no part in it while they re- mained there, but it pained me to think of the dear old place as altogether abandoned ; of the weeds growing tall in the garden, and the fallen leaves lying thick and wet upon the paths. I imagined how the winds of winter would howl round it, how the cold rain would beat upon the window-glass, how the moon would make ghosts on the walls of the empty rooms, watching their solitude all night. I thought afresh of the grave in the churchyard, underneath the tree : and it seemed as if the house were dead too, now, and all connected with my father and mother were faded away. — David Copperfield , Chap. 17. HOME— A desolate. Florence lived alone in the great dreary house, and day succeeded day, and still she lived alone ; and the blank walls looked down upon her with a vacant stare, as if they had a Gor- gon-like mind to stare her youth and beauty into stone. No magic dwelling-place in magic story, shut up in the heart of a thick wood, was ever more solitary and deserted to the fancy, than was her father’s mansion in its grim reality, as it stood lowering on the street : always by night, when lights were shining from neighboring windows, a blot upon its scanty brightness ; always by day, a frown upon its never-smiling face. There were not two dragon sentries keeping ward before the gate of this abode, as in magic legend are usually found on duty over the wronged innocence imprisoned ; but besides a glowering visage, with its thin lips parted wicked- ly, that surveyed all comers from above the arch- way of the door, there was a monstrous fantasy of rusty iron, curling and twisting like a petrifaction of an arbor over the threshold, budding in spikes and corkscrew points, and bearing, one on either side, two ominous extinguishers that seemed to say, “Who enter here, leave light behind!” HOME 225 HOME There were no talismanic characters engraven on the portal, but the house was now so neglected in appearance, that boys chalked the railings and the pavement — particularly round the corner where the side wall was — and drew ghosts on the stable door ; and being sometimes driven off by Mr. Towlinson, made portraits of him in return, with his ears growing out horizontally from under his hat. Noise ceased to be within the shadow of the roof. The brass band that came into the street once a week, in the morning, never brayed a note in at those windows ; but all such com- pany, down to a poor little piping organ of weak intellect, with an imbecile party of automaton dancers, waltzing in and out of folding-doors, fell off from it with one accord, and shunned it as a hopeless place. The spell upon it was more wasting than the spell that used to set enchanted houses sleeping once upon a time, but left their waking fresh- ness unimpaired. The passive desolation of disuse was every- where silently manifest about it. Within doors, curtains, drooping heavily, lost their old folds and shapes, and hung like cumbrous palls. Hecatombs of furniture, still piled and covered up, shrunk like imprisoned and forgotten men, and changed insensibly. Mirrors were dim as with the breath of years. Patterns of carpets faded and became perplexed and faint, like the memory of those years’ trifling incidents. Boards, starting at unwonted footsteps, creaked and shook. Keys rusted in the locks of doors. Damp started on the walls, and as the stains came out, the pictures seemed to go in and secrete themselves. Mildew and mould began to lurk in closets. Fungus trees grew in corners of the cellars. Dust accumulated, nobody knew whence or how : spiders, moths, and grubs were heard of every day. An exploratory black-beetle now and then was found immovable upon the stairs, or in an upper room, as wondering how he got there. Rats began to squeak and scuffle in the night-time, through dark galleries they mined behind the panelling. The dreary magnificence of the state-rooms, seen imperfectly by the doubtful light admitted through closed shutters, would have answered well enough for an enchanted abode. Such as the tarnished paws of gilded lions, stealthily put out from beneath their wrappers ; the marble lineaments of busts on pedestals, fearfully re- vealing themselves through veils ; the clocks that never told the time, or, if wound up by any chance, told it wrong, and struck unearthly numbers, which are not upon the dial ; the acci- dental tinklings among the pendant lustres, more startling than alai'm-bells ; the softened sounds and laggard air that made their way among these objects, and a phantom crowd of others, shrouded and hooded, and made spectral of shape. But, besides, there was the great staircase, where the lord of the place so rarely set his foot, and by which his little child had gone up to Heaven. There were other staircases and passages where no one went for weeks to- gether ; there were two closed rooms associated with dead members of the family, and with whispered recollections of them ; and to all the house but Florence, there was a gentle figure moving through the solitude and gloom, that gave to every lifeless thing a touch of present human interest and wonder. For Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded day, and still she lived alone, and the cold walls looked down upon her with a vacant stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare her youth and beauty into stone. The grass began to grow upon the roof, and in the crevices of the basement paving. A scaly, crumbling vegetation sprouted round the win- dow-sills. Fragments of mortar lost their hold upon the inside of the unused chimneys, and came dropping down. The two trees with the smoky trunks were blighted high up, and the withered branches domineered above the leaves. Through the whole building white had turned yellow, yellow nearly black : and since the time when the poor lady died, it had slowly become a dark gap in the long monotonous street. But Florence bloomed there, like the king’s fair daughter in the story. Dombey & Son, Chap. 23. HOME— A fashionable. The saying is, that home is home, be it never so homely. If it hold good in the opposite contingency, and home is home be it never so stately, what an altar to the Household Gods is raised up here. — Dombey dr 5 Son, Chap. 35. HOME— Family reunion at Toodle’s. Mr. Toodle had only three stages of existence. He was either taking refreshment in the bosom just mentioned, or he was tearing through the country at from twenty-five to fifty miles an hour, or he was sleeping after his fatigues. He was always in a whirlwind or a calm, and a peace- able, contented, easy-going man Mr. Toodle was in either state, Avho seemed to have made over all his own inheritance of fuming and fret- ting to the engines with which he was connected, which panted, and gasped, and chafed, and wore themselves out, in a most unsparing man- ner, while Mr. Toodle led a mild and equable life. “Polly, my gal,” said Mr. Toodle, with a young Toodle on each knee, and two more making tea for him, and plenty more scattered about — Mr. Toodle was never out of children, but always kept a good supply on hand — “ you an’t seen our Biler lately, have you ? ” “ No,” replied Polly, “ but he’s almost certain to look in to-night. It’s his right evening, and he’s very regular.” “ I suppose,” said Mr. Toodle, relishing his meal infinitely, “ as our Biler is a doin’ now about, as well as a boy can do, eh, Polly ? ” “ Oh ! he’s a doing beautiful !” responded Polly. “ He an’t got to be at all secret-like — has he, Polly? ” inquired Mr. Toodle. “ No ! ” said Mrs. Toodle, plumply. * * * * * “You see, my boys and gals,” said Mr. Too- dle, looking round upon his family, “ wotever you’re up to in a honest way, it’s my opinion as you can’t do better than be open. If you find yourselves in cuttings or in tunnels, don’t you play no secret games. Keep your whistles going, and let’s know where you are.” This profound reflection Mr. Toodle washed down with a pint mug of tea, and proceeded to solidify with a great weight of bread and but- ter ; charging his young daughters, meanwhile, to keep plenty of hot water in the pot, as he HOME 220 HONOR was uncommon dry, and should take the indefi- nite quantity of “ a sight of mugs,” before his thirst was appeased. In satisfying himself, however, Mr. Toodle was not regardless of the younger branches about him, who, although they had made their own evening repast, were on the look-out for irregular morsels as possessing a relish. These he distributed now and then to the expectant circle, by holding out great wedges of bread and butter, to be bitten at by the family in law- ful succession, and by serving out small doses of tea in like manner with a spoon ; which snacks had such a relish in the mouths of these young Toodles, that, after partaking of the same, they performed private dances of ecstasy among themselves, and stood on one leg a piece, and hopped, and indulged in other saltatory tokens of gladness. These vents for their excitement found, they gradually closed about Mr. Toodle again, and eyed him hard as he got through more bread and butter, and tea ; affecting, however, to have no further expectations of their own in reference to those viands, but to be conversing on foreign subjects, and whisper- ing confidentially. Mr. Toodle, in the midst of this family group, and setting an awful example to his children in the way of appetite, was conveying the two young Toodles on his knees to Birmingham by special engine, and was contemplating the rest over a barrier of bread and butter, when Rob the Grinder, in his sou’wester hat and mourning slops, presented himself. “ Why, Polly ! ” cried Jemima. “ You ! what a turn you have given me ! who’d have thought it ! come along in, Polly ! How well you do look to be sure ! The children will go half wild to see you, Polly, that they will.” That they did, if one might judge from the noise they made, and the way in which they dashed at Polly and dragged her to a low chair in the chimney corner, where her own honest apple-face became immediately the centre of a bunch of smaller pippins, all laying their rosy cheeks close to it, and all evidently the growth of the same tree. — Dombey 6° Son, Chap. 38. HOME— Of Miss Tox. Miss Tox, all unconscious of any such rare appearances in connection with Mr. Dombey’s house, as scaffoldings and ladders, and men with their heads tied\up in pocket-handkerchiefs, glar- ing in at the windows like flying genii or strange birds — having breakfasted one morning at about this eventful period of time, on her customary viands: to wit, one French roll rasped, one egg, new laid (or warranted to be), and one little pot of tea, wherein was infused one little silver scoop-full of that herb on behalf of Miss Tox, and one little silver scoop-full on behalf of the teapot — a flight of fancy in which good house- keepers delight ; went up-stairs to set forth the bird waltz on the harpsichord, to water and ar- range the plants, to dust the nick-nacks, and, according to her daily custom, to make her little drawing-room the garland of Princess's Place. Miss Pox endued herself with the pair of an- cient gloves, like dead leaves, in which she was accustomed to perform these avocations — hidden from human sight at other times in a table drawer — and went methodically to work ; be- ginning with the bird waltz ; passing, by a natu- ral association of ideas, to her bird — a very high- shouldered canary, stricken in years, and much rumpled, but a piercing singer, as Princess’s Place well knew ; taking, next in order, the lit- tle china ornaments, paper fly-cages, and so forth ; and coming round, in good time, to the plants, which generally required to be snipped here and there with a pair of scissors, for some botanical reason that was very powerful with Miss Tox. — Dombey dr 3 Son , Chap. 29. HOME Its peace and consolation. Florence felt that, for her, there was greater peace within it than elsewhere. It was better and easier to keep her secret shut up there, among the tall dark walls, than to carry her abroad into the light, and try to hide it from a crowd of happy eyes. It was better to pursue the study of her loving heart, alone, and find no new discouragements in loving hearts about her. It was easier to hope, and pray, and love on, all uncared for, yet with constancy and patience, in the tranquil sanctuary of such remembrances, although it moulded, rusted, and decayed about her ; than in a new scene, let its gayety be what it would. She welcomed back her old enchanted dream of life, and longed for the old dark door to close upon her, once again. Dombey dr 3 Son, Chap. 28. HOMELESSNESS. In the wildness of her sorrow, shame, and terror, the forlorn girl hurried through the sun- shine of a bright morning, as if it were the dark- ness of a winter night. Wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, insensible to everything but the deep wound in her breast, stunned by the loss of all she loved, left like the sole sur- vivor on a lonely shore from the wreck of a great vessel, she fled without a thought, without a hope, without a purpose, but to fly somewhere — anywhere. The cheerful vista of the long street, burnished by the morning light, the sight of the blue sky and airy clouds, the vigorous freshness of the day, so flushed and rosy in its conquest of the night, awakened no responsive feelings in her so hurt bosom. Somewhere, anywhere, to hide her head ! somewhere, anywhere, for refuge, never more to look upon the place from which she fled ! But there were people going to and fro ; there were opening shops, and servants at the doors of houses ; there was the rising clash and roar of the day’s struggle. Florence saw surprise and curiosity in the faces flitting past her, saw long shadows coming back upon the pave- ment ; and heard voices that were strange to her asking her where she went, and what the matter was ; and though these frightened her the more at first, and made her hurry on the faster, they did her the good service of recalling her in some degree to herself, and reminding her of the necessity of greater composure. | * Where to go? Still somewhere, anywhere! still going on ; but where? She thought of the only other time she had been lost in the wide wilderness of London— though not lost as now — and went that way. To the home of Walter s uncle. — Dombey or 3 Son , Chap, 4S. HONOR -The true path of. “ Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from HONOR 227 HOPES the broad path of honor, on the plausible pre- tence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means. Those that cannot, are bad ; and may be counted so at once, and left alone.” Barnaby Budge , Chap . 79. I I HONOR -The word of. “ My good fellow,” retorted Mr. Boffin, “you have my word ; and how you can have that, without my honor too, I don’t know. I’ve sorted a lot of dust in my time, but I never knew the two things go into separate heaps.” Our Mutual Friend, Book III., Chap. 14. HONESTY— The luxury of. “ A man,” says Sampson, “ who loses forty- seven pound ten in one morning by his honesty, is a man to be envied. If it had been eighty pound, the luxuriousness of feeling would have been increased. Every pound lost, would have been a hundredweight of happiness gained. The still small voice, Christopher,” cries Brass, smiling, and tapping himself on the bosom, “ is a-singing comic songs within me, and all is hap- piness and joy ! ” — Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. 57. HONEST MAN-An. “ I tell you, ma’am,” said Mr. Witherden, “what I think as an honest man, which, as the poet observes, is the noblest work of God. I agree with the poet in every particular, ma’am. The mountainous Alps on the one hand, or a humming-bird on the other, is nothing, in point of workmanship, to an honest man — or woman.” Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. 14. HOPE —Disappointed. Most men will be found sufficiently true to themselves to be true to an old idea. It is no proof of an inconstant mind, but exactly the opposite, when the idea will not bear close com- parison with the reality, and the contrast is a fatal shock to it. Such was Clennam’s case. In his youth he had ardently loved this woman, and had heaped upon her all the locked-up wealth of his affection and imagination. That wealth had been, in his desert home, like Robin- son Crusoe’s money ; exchangeable with no one, lying idle in the dark to rtist, until he poured it out for her. Ever since that memorable time, though he had, until the night of his arrival, as completely dismissed her from any association with his Present and Future as if she had been dead (which she might easily have been for any- thing he knew), he had kept the old fancy of the Past unchanged, in its old sacred place. And now, after all, the last of the Patriarchs coolly walked into the parlor, saying in effect, “ Be good enough to throw it down and dance upon it.” — Little Dorrit, Book /., Chap. 13. HOPES— Disappointed. When he had walked on the river’s brink in the peaceful moonlight, for some half-an-hour, he put his hand in his breast, and tenderly took out the handful of roses. Perhaps he put them to his heart, perhaps he put them to his lips, but certainly he bent down on the shore, and gently launched them on the flowing river. Pale and unreal in the moonlight, the river floated them away. The lights were bright within doors when he entered, and the faces on which they shone, his own face not excepted, were soon quietly cheer- ful. They talked of many subjects (his partner never had had such a ready store to draw upon for the beguiling of the time), and so to bed, and to sleep. While the flowers, pale and unreal in the moonlight, floated away upon the river ; and thus do greater things that once were in our breasts, and near our hearts, flow from us to the eternal seas . — Little Dorrit, Book I., Chap. 28. HOPES-Of Captain Cuttle. Captain Cuttle, addressing his face to the sharp wind and slanting rain, looked up at the heavy scud that was flying fast over the wilder- ness of house-tops, and looked for something cheery there in vain. The prospect near at hand was no better. In sundry tea-chesfs and other rough boxes at his feet, the pigeons of Rob the Grinder were cooing like so many dismal breezes getting up. Upon the Captain’s coarse blue vest the cold rain-drops started like steel beads ; and he could hardly maintain himself aslant against the stiff Nor’wester that came pressing against him, importunate to topple him over the parapet, and throw him on the pavement below. If there were any Hope alive that evening, the Captain thought, as he held his hat on, it cer- tainly kept house, and wasn’t out of doors ; so the Captain, shaking his head in a despondent manner, went in to look for it. Captain Cuttle descended slowly to the little back parlor, and, seated in his accustomed chair, looked for it in the fire ; but it was not there, though the fire was bright. He took out his tobacco-box and pipe, and composing himself to smoke, looked for it in the red glow from the bowl, and in the wreaths of vapor that curled upward from his lips ; but there was not so much as an atom of the rust of Hope’s anchor in either. He tried a glass of grog ; but melan- choly truth was at the bottom of that well, and he couldn’t finish it. He made a turn or two in the shop, and looked for Hope among the instru- ments ; but they obstinately worked out reckon- ings for the missing ship, in spite of any oppo- sition he could offer, that ended at the bottom of the lone sea . — Dombey &■' Son, Chap. 32. “ Hope, you see, Wal’r,” said the Captain, sagely, “ Hope. It’s that as animates you. Hope is a buoy, for which you overhaul your Little Warbler, sentimental diwision, but Lord, my lad, like any other buoy, it only floats ; it can’t be steered nowhere. Along with the figure-head of Hope,” said the Captain, “ there’s a anchor ; but what’s the good of my having a anchor, if I can’t find no bottom to let it go in ? ” Captain Cuttle said this rather in his charac- ter of a sagacious citizen and householder, bound to impart a morsel from his stores of wisdom to an inexperienced youth, than in his own proper person. Indeed, his face was quite luminous as he spoke, with new hope, caught from Walter ; and he appropriately concluded by slapping him on the back, and saying, with enthusiasm, “ Hooroar, my lad ! Indiwidually, I’m o’ your opinion .” — Dombey dr 5 Son, Chap. 50. Captain Cuttle, like all mankind, little knew how much hope had survived within him under discouragement, until he felt its death-shock. Dombey Sf Son, Chap. 32. HOPES 228 HORSEBACK HOPES— Unrealized. It is when our budding hopes are nipped be- yond recovery by some rough wind, that we are the most disposed to picture to ourselves what flowers they might have borne, if they had flour- ished. — Dombcy Son, Chap . io. HOPE— A subtle essence. Such is Hope, Heaven’s own gift to struggling mortals ; pervading, like some subtle essence from the skies, all things, both good and bad ; as universal as death, and more infectious than disease ! — Nicholas Nickleby , Chap. 19. HORSES AND DOGS. “ There ain’t no sort of orse that I. ain’t bred, and no sort of dorg. Orses and dorgs is some men’s fancy. They’re wittles and drink to me — lodging, wife, and children — reading, writing, and ’rithmetic — snuff, tobacker, and sleep.” “ That ain’t the sort of man to see sitting be- hind a coach-box, is it though?” said William in my ear, as he handled the reins. I construed this remark into an indication of a wish that he should have my place, so I blush- ingly offered to resign it. “ Well, if you don’t mind, sir,” said William, “ I think it would be more correct.” David Copperjield , Chap. 19. HORSE— The carrier’s. The carrier’s horse was the laziest horse in the world, I should hope, and shuffled along, with his head down, as if he liked to keep peo- ple waiting to whom the packages were directed. I fancied, indeed, that he sometimes chuckled audibly over this reflection, but the carrier said he was only troubled with a cough. David Copperjield, Chap. 3. HORSE-Mr. Pecksniff’s. The best of architects and land surveyors kept a horse, in whom the enemies already men- tioned more than once in these pages, pretended to detect a fanciful resemblance to his master. Not in his outward person, for he was a raw- boned. haggard horse, always on a much shorter allowance of corn than Mr. Pecksniff; but in his moral character, wherein, said they, he was full of promise, but of no performance. He was always, in a manner, going to go, and never going. When at his slowest rate of travelling, he would sometimes lift up his legs so high, and display such mighty action, that it was difficult to believe he was doing less than fourteen miles an hour ; and he was forever so perfectly satis- fied with his own speed, and so little discon- certed by opportunities of comparing himself with the fastest trotters, that the illusion was the more difficult of resistance. He was a kind of animal who infused into the breasts of strangers a lively sense of hope, and possessed all those who knew him better with a grim despair. In what respect, having these points of character, he might be fairly likened to his master, that good man’s slanderers only can explain. Put it is a melancholy truth, and a deplorable in- stance of the uncharitableness of the world, that they made the comparison. In this horse, and the hooded vehicle, what- ever its proper name might lie, to which he was usually harnessed— it was more like a gig with a tumor, than anything else — all Mr. Pinch’s thoughts and wishes centred, one bright frosty morning: for with this gallant equipage he was about to drive to Salisbury alone, there to meet with the new pupil, and thence to bring him home in triumph. — Marlin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 5. HORSE— Tenacity of life in a. “ How old is that horse, my friend ? ” in- quired Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his nose with the shilling he had reserved for the fare. “ Forty-two,” replied the driver, eying him askant. “ What ! ” ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, laying his hand upon his note-book. The driver reiterated his former statement. Mr. Pickwick looked very hard at the man’s face, but his features were im- movable, so he noted down the fact forthwith. “And how long do you keep him out at a time?” inquired Mr. Pickwick searching for further information. “ Two or three veeks,” replied the man. “Weeks!” said Mr. Pickwick in astonish- ment — and out came the note-book again. “ He lives at Pentonwil when he’s at home,” observed the driver, coolly, “ but we seldom takes him home, on account of his veakness.” “On account of his weakness!” reiterated the perplexed Mr. Pickwick. “He always falls down when he’s took out of the cab,” continued the driver ; “but when he’s in it, we bears him up wery tight, and takes him in wery short, so as he can’t wery well fall down ; and we got a pair o’ precious large wheels on, so ven he does move, they run after him, and he must go on — he can’t help it.” Mr. Pickwick entered every word of this statement in his note-book, with the view of communicating it to the club, as a ^ingular in- stance of the tenacity of life in horses, under trying circumstances. — Pickwick, Chap. 2. HORSE-A fast. “Here’s the gen’lm’n at lv_>t V* said one, touching his hat w'ith mock politeness. “ Wery glad to see you, sir, — been a-waiting for you these six weeks. Jump in, if you please, sir!” “ Nice light fly and fast trotter, sir,” said another : “ fourteen miles a hour, and surround- in’ objects rendered inwisible by ex-treme we- locity ! ” “ Large fly for your luggage, sir,” cried a third. “ Wery large fly here, sir — reg’lar blue- bottle ! ” “ Here’s your fly, sir ! ” shouted another aspir- ing charioteer, mounting the box, and inducing an old gray horse to indulge in some imperfect reminiscences of a canter. “ Look at him, sir ! — temper of a lamb and haction of a steam- ingein ! ” — Tales, Chap. 4. HORSEBACK— Mr. Winkle on. “ Bless my soul !” said Mr. Pickwick, as they stood upon the pavement while the coats were being put in. “ Bless my soul ! who’s to drive? I never thought of that.” “Oh! you, of course,” said Mr. Tupman. “ Of course,” said Mr. Snodgrass. “ I !” exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. “Not the slightest fear, sir,” interposed the hostler. “ Warrant him quiet, sir ; a hinfant in arms might drive him.” “ He don’t shy, does he ? ” inquired Mr. Pick- wick. HOSPITAL 229 HOSPITAL “Shy, sir? — He wouldn’t shy if he was to meet a vaggin-load of monkeys with their tails burnt off.” The last recommendation was indisputable. Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass got into the bin ; Mr. Pickwick ascended to his perch, and deposited his feet on a floor-clothed shelf, erected beneath it for that purpose. “Now, Shiny Villiam,” said the hostler to the deputy hostler, “give the gen’lm’n the ribbins.” “ Shiny Villiam” — so called, probably from his sleek hair and oily countenance — placed the reins in Mr. Pickwick’s left hand ; and the upper hostler thrust a whip into his right. “ Wo — o 1 ” cried Mr. Pickwick, as the tall quadruped evinced a decided inclination to back into the coffee-room window. “Wo — o!” echoed Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass, from the bin. “ Only his playfulness, gen’lm’n,” said the head hostler encouragingly ; “ jist kitch hold on him, Villiam.” The deputy restrained the ani- mal’s impetuosity, and the principal ran to assist Mr. Winkle in mounting. “ T’other side, sir, if you please.” “ Blowed if the gen’lm’n worn’t a gettin’ up on the wrong side,” whispered a grinning post-boy to the inexpressibly gratified waiter. Mr. Winkle, thus instructed, climbed into his saddle, with about as much difficulty as he would have experienced in getting up the side of a first-rate man-of-war. “All right?” inquired Mr. Pickwick, with an inward presentiment that it was all wrong. “All right,” replied Mr. Winkle, faintly. “Let ’em go,” cried the hostler, — “ Hold him in, sir,” and away went the chaise, and the sad- dle-horse, with Mr. Pickwick on the box of the one, and Mr. Winkle oh the back of the other, to the delight and gratification of the whole inn- yard. “What makes him go sideways?” said Mr. Snodgrass in the bin, to Mr. Winkle in the saddle. “I can’t imagine,” replied Mr. Winkle. His horse was drifting up the street in the most mysterious manner — side first, with his head towards one side of the way, and his tail to- wards the other. Mr. Pickwick had no leisure to observe either this or any other particular, the whole of his fac- ulties being concentrated in the management of the animal attached to the chaise, who displayed various peculiarities, highly interesting to a by- stander, but by no means equally amusing’ to any one seated behind him. Besides constantly jerking his head up, in a very unpleasant and uncomfortable manner, and tugging at the reins to an extent which rendered it a matter of great difficulty for Mr. Pickwick to hold them, he had a singular propensity for darting suddenly every now and then to the side of the road, then stop- ping short, and then rushing forward for some minutes, at a speed which it was wholly impos- sible to control. — Pickwick , Chap. 5. HOSPITAL— The patients in a. We went into a large ward containing some twenty or five-and-twenty beds. We went into several such wards, one after another. I find it very difficult to indicate what a shocking sight I saw in them without frightening the reader from the perusal of these lines, and defeat- ing my object of making it known. O the sunken eyes that turned to me as I walked between the rows of beds, or — worse still — that glazedly looked at the white ceiling, and saw nothing and cared for nothing ! Here lay the skeleton of a man, so lightly covered with a thin, unwholesome skin, that not a bone in the anatomy was clothed, and I could clasp the arm above the elbow in my finger and thumb. Here lay a man with the black scurvy eating his legs away, his gums gone, and his teeth all gaunt and bare. This bed was empty because gangrene had set in, and the patient had died but yesterday. That bed was a hopeless one, because its occupant was sinking fast, and could only be roused to turn the poor pinched mask of face upon the pillow, with a feeble moan. The awful thinness of the fallen cheeks, the awful brightness of the deep-set eyes, the lips of lead, the hands of ivory, the recumbent human images lying in the shadow of death with a kind of solemn twilight on them, like the siyty who had died aboard the ship and were lying at the bot- tom of the sea, O Pangloss, God forgive you ! In one bed lay a man whose life had been saved (as it was hoped) by deep incisions in the feet and legs. While I was speaking to him, a nurse came up to change the poultices which this operation had rendered necessary, and I had an instinctive feeling that it was not well to turn away merely to spare myself. Pie was sorely wasted and keenly susceptible, but the efforts he made to subdue any expression of impatience or suffering were quite heroic. It was easy to see in the shrinking of the figure, and the drawing of the bedclothes over the head, how acute the endurance was, and it made me shrink too, as if / were in pain ; but when the new bandages were on, and the poor feet were composed again, he made an apology for him- self (though he had not uttered a word), and said plaintively, “ I am so tender and weak, you see, sir ! ” Neither from him. nor from any one sufferer of the whole ghastly number, did I hear a com- plaint. Of thankfulness for present solicitude and care, I heard much ; of complaint, not a word. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 8. HOSPITAL— Associations of a. In our rambles through the streets of London after evening has set in, we often pause beneath the windows of some public hospital, and pic- ture to ourselves the gloomy and mournful scenes that are passing within. The sudden moving of a taper as its feeble ray shoots from window to window, until its light gradually disappears, as if it were carried farther back into the room to the bedside of some suffering patient, is enough to awaken a whole crowd of reflections ; the mere glimmering of the low-burning lamps, which, when all other habitations are wrapped in darkness and slumber, denote the chamber where so many forms are writhing with pain, or wasting with disease, is sufficient to check the most boisterous merriment. Who can tell the anguish of those weary hours, when the only sound the sick man hears, is the disjointed wanderings of some feverish slumberer near him, the low moan of pain, or perhaps the muttered, long-forgotten prayer of a dying man ? Who, but they who have felt it, can imagine the sense of loneliness and desolation which must be the portion of those who in the hour of dangerous illness are HOSPITAL 230 HOTEL left to be tended by strangers ; for what hands, be they ever so gentle, can wipe the clammy brow, or smooth the restless bed, like those of mother, wife, or child ? Characters {Sketches), Chap. 6. HOSPITAL-A female. In ten minutes I had ceased to believe in such fables of a golden time as youth, the prime of life, or a hale old age. In ten minutes all the lights of womaiikind seemed to have been blown out, and nothing in that way to be left this vault to brag of but the flickering and ex- piring snuffs. And what was very curious was, that these dim old women had one company notion which was the fashion of the place. Every old woman who became aware of a- visitor, and was not in bed, hobbled over a form into her accustomed seat, and became one of a line of dim old women confronting another line of dim old women across a narrow table. There was no obliga- tion whatever upon them to range themselves in this way ; it was their manner of “ receiv- ing.” As a rule, they made no attempt to talk to one another, or to look at the visitor, or to look at anything, but sat silently working their mouths, like a sort of poor old Cows. Among the bedridden there was great pa- tience, great reliance on the books under the pillow, great faith in God. All cared for sym- pathy, but none much cared to be encouraged with hope of recovery ; on the whole, I should say, it was considered rather a distinction to have a complication of disorders, and to be in a worse way than the rest. Unco?nmercial Traveller , Chap. 3. HOSPITAL— Magrgy’s experience in a. “ My history ? ” cried Maggy. “ Little mother.” “ She means me,” said Dorrit, rather con- fused ; “ she is very much attached to me. Her old grandmother was not so kind to her as she should have been ; was she, Maggy? ” Maggy shook her head, made a drinking-ves- sel of her clenched left-hand, drank out of it, and said, “‘Gin.” Then beat an imaginary child, and said, “ Broom-handles and pokers.” “ When Maggy was ten years old,” said Dor- rit, watching her face while she spoke, “ she had a bad fever, sir, and she has never grown any older ever since.” “ Ten years old,” said Maggy, nodding her head. “ But what a nice hospital ! So com- fortable, wasn’t it ? Oh, so nice it was. Such a Ev’nly place !” “She had never been at peace before, sir,” said Dorrit, turning towards Arthur for an in- stant and speaking low, “and she always runs off upon that.” “Such beds there is there!” cried Maggy. “Such lemonades! Such oranges! Such deli- cious broth and wine ! Such Chicking ! Oh, ain’t it a delightful place to go and stop at ? ” “So Maggy stopped there as long as she could,” said Dorrit, in her former tone of tell- ing a child’s story ; the tone designed for Mag- gy’s ear, “ and at last when she could stop there no longer, she came out.” Little Don'it, Book /., Chap. 9. HOSPITALS-The sick in. Abed in these miserable rooms, her*, on bed- steads, there (for a change, as I understood it) on the floor, were women in every stage of dis- tress and disease. None but those who have attentively observed such scenes can conceive the extraordinary variety of expression still la- tent under the general monotony and uniform- ity of color, attitude, and condition. The form a little coiled up and turned away, as though it had turned its back on this world forever ; the uninterested face, at once lead-colored and yel- low, looking passively upward from the pillow ; the haggard mouth a little dropped ; the hand outside the coverlet, so dull and indifferent, so light and yet so heavy — 'these were on every pallet ; but when I stopped beside a bed, and said ever so slight a word to the figure lying there, the ghost of the old character came into the face, and made the Foul ward as various as the fair world. No one appeared to care to live, but no one complained ; all who could speak said that as much was done for them as could be done there — that the attendance was kind and patient — that their suffering was very heavy, but they had nothing to ask for. Uncommercial Traveller, Chap. 3. HOTEL— A fashionable. Now, Jairing’s being an hotel for families and gentlemen, in high repute among the midland counties, Mr. Grazinglands plucked up a great spirit when he told Mrs. Grazinglands she should have a chop there. That lady likewise felt that she was going to see Life. Arriving on that gay and festive scene, they found the second waiter, in a flabby undress, cleaning the windows of the empty coffee-room ; and the first waiter, denuded of his white tie, making up his cruets behind the Post-Office Directory. The latter (who took them in hand) was greatly put out by their patronage, and showed his mind to be troubled by a sense of the pressing necessity of instantly smuggling Mrs. Grazinglands into the obscurest corner of the building. This slighted lady (who is the pride of her division of the county) was immediately conveyed, by several dark passages, and up and down several steps, into a penitential apartment at the back of the house, where five invalided old plate- warmers leaned up against one another under a discarded old melancholy sideboard, and where the wintry leaves of all the dining-tables in the house lay thick. Also, a sofa, of incomprehen- sible form regarded from any sofane point of view, murmured, “ Bed ; ” while an air of min- gled fluffiness and heeltaps added, “ Second Waiter’s.” Secreted in this dismal hold, ob- jects of a mysterious distrust and suspicion, Mr. Grazinglands and his charming partner wait- ed twenty minutes for the smoke (for it never came to a fire), twenty-five minutes for the sherry, half an hour for the table-cloth, forty minutes for the knives and forks, three quarters of an hour for the chops, and an hour for the potatoes. On settling the little bill — which was not much more than the day’s pay of a Lieutenant in the navy — Mr. Grazinglands took heart to remonstrate against the general quality and cost of his reception. To whom the waiter replied, substantially, that Jairing’s made it a merit to have accepted him on any terms, “ For,” added the waiter (unmistakably coughing HOTELS 231 HOUSE at Mrs. Grazinglands, the pride of her division of the county) “ when indiwiduals is not staying in the ’Ouse, their favors is not as a rule looked upon as making it worth Mr. Jairing’s while ; nor is it, indeed, a style of business Mr. J airing wishes.” Finally, Mr. and Mrs. Grazinglands passed out of J airing’s hotel for Families and Gentlemen in a state of the greatest depression, scorned by the bar, and did not recover their self-respect for several days. Uncommercial Traveller ; Chap. 6. HOTELS— Their characteristics. We all know the new hotel near the station, where it is always gusty, going up the lane which is always muddy, where we are sure to arrive at night, and where we make the gas start awfully when we open the front door. We all know the flooring of the passages and staircases that is too new, and the walls that are too new, and the house that is haunted by the ghost of mortar. We all know the doors that have cracked, and the cracked shutters through which we get a glimpse of the disconsolate moon. We all know the new people who have come to keep the new hotel, and who wish they had never come, and who (inevitable result) wish we had never come. We all know how much too scant and smooth and bright the new furniture is, and how it has never settled down, and cannot fit itself into right places, and will get into wrong places. We all know how the gas, being lighted, shows maps of Damp upon the walls. We all know how the ghost of mortar passes into our sandwich, stirs our negus, goes up to bed with us, ascends the. pale bedroom chimney, and prevents the smoke from following. We all know how a leg of our chair comes off at break- fast in the morning, and how the dejected waiter attributes the accident to a general greenness pervading the establishment, and informs us, in reply to a local inquiry, that he is thankful to say he is an entire stranger in that part of the country, and is going back to his own connec- tion on Saturday. We all know, on the other hand, the great station hotel, belonging to the company of pro- prietors, which has suddenly sprung up in the back outskirts of any place we like to name, and where we look out of our palatial windows at little back-yards and gardens, old summer- houses, fowl-houses, pigeon-traps, and pigsties. We all know this hotel, in which we can get anything we want, after its kind, for money ; but where nobody is glad to see us, or sorry to see us, or minds (our bill paid) whether we come or go, or how, or when, or why, or cares about us. We all know this hotel, where we have no in- dividuality, but put ourselves into the general post, as it were, and are sorted and disposed of according to our division. We all know that we can get on very well indeed at such a place, but still not perfectly well ; and this may be because the place is largely wholesale, and there is a lingering personal retail interest within us that asks to be satisfied. To sum up. My uncommercial travelling has not yet brought me to the conclusion that we are close to perfection in these matters. And just as I do not believe that the end of the world will ever be near at hand, so long as any of the very tiresome and arrogant people who constantly predict that catastrophe are left in it, so I shall have small faith in the Hotel Millennium, while any of the uncomfortable superstitions I have glanced at remain in existence. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 6. HOUSE— Of a Barnacle. Arthur Clennam came to a squeezed house, with a ram-shackle bowed front, little dingy windows, and a little dark area like a damp waistcoat-pocket, which he found to be number twenty-four Mews Street Grosvenor Square. To the sense of smell, the house was like a sort of bottle filled with a strong distillation of mews ; and when the footman opened the door, he seemed to take the stopper out. The footman was to the Grosvenor Square footmen, what the house was to the Grosvenor Square houses. Admirable in his way, his way was a back and a bye way. His gorgeousness was not unmixed with dirt ; and both in com- plexion and consistency, he had suffered from the closeness of his pantry. A sallow flabbiness was upon him, when he took the stopper out, and presented the bottle to Mr. Clennam’s nose. “ Be so good as to give that card to Mr. Tite Barnacle, and to say that I have just now seen the younger Mr. Barnacle, who recommended me to call here.’ The footman (who had as many large buttons with the Barnacle crest upon them, on the flaps of his pockets, as if he were the family strong box, and carried the plate and jewels about with him, buttoned up) pondered over the card a little ; then said, “ Walk in.” It required some judgment to do it without butting the inner hall- door open, and in the consequent mental con- fusion and physical darkness slipping down the kitchen stairs. The visitor, however, brought himself up safely on the door-mat. Still the footman said “Walk in,” so the vis- itor followed him. At the inner hall-door, another bottle seemed to be presented, and another stopper taken out. This second vial appeared to be filled with concentrated provis- ions, and extract of Sink from the pantry. After a skirmish in the narrow passage, occasioned by the footman’s opening the door of the dismal dining-room with confidence, finding some one there with consternation, and backing on the visitor with disorder, the visitor was shut up, pending his announcement, in a close back parlor. There he had an opportunity of re- freshing himself with both the bottles at once, looking out at a low blinding back wall three feet off, and speculating on the number of Bar- nacle families within the bills of mortality who lived in such hutches of their own free flunkey choice . — Little Dor? it, Book /., Chap. io. HOUSE— A sombre. He stepped into the sober, silent, air-tight house — one might have fancied it to have been stifled by Mutes in the Eastern manner — and the door, closing again, seemed to shut out sound and motion. The furniture was formal, grave, and qualcer-like, but well kept ; and had as prepossessing an aspect as anything, from a human creature to a wooden stool, that is meant for much use and is preserved for little, can ever wear. There was a grave clock, tick- ing somewhere up the staircase ; and there was a songless bird in the same direction, pecking at his cage as if he were ticking too. The par- HOUSE 232 HOUSE lor-fire ticked in the grate. There was only one person on the parlor-hearth, and the loud watch in his pocket ticked audibly. Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 13. HOUSE- An old. Passing, now the mouldy hall of some obsolete Worshipful Company, now the illuminated win- dows of a Congregationless Church, that seemed to be waiting for some adventurous Belzoni to dig it out and discover its history ; passing silent warehouses and wharves, and here and there a narrow alley leading to the river, where a wretched little bill. Found Drowned, was weeping on the wet wall ; he came at last to the house he sought. An old brick house, so dingy as to be all but black, standing by itself within a gateway. Before it, a square court- yard where a shrub or two and a patch of grass were as rank (which is saying much) as the iron railings inclosing them were rusty ; behind it, a jumble of roots. It was a double house, with long, narrow, heavily-framed windows. Many years ago it had had it in its mind to slide down sideways ; it had been propped up, how- ever, and was leaning on some half-dozen gi- gantic crutches ; which gymnasium for the neighboring cats, weather-stained, smoke-black- ened, and overgrown with weeds, appeared in these latter days to be no very sure reliance. Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap. 3. In the course of the day too, Arthur looked through the whole house. Dull and dark he found it. The gaunt rooms, deserted for years upon years, seemed to have settled down into a gloomy lethargy from which nothing could rouse them again. The furniture, at once spare and lumbering, hid in the rooms rather than fur- nished them, and there was no color in all the house ; such color as had ever been there, had long ago started away on lost sunbeams — got itself absorbed, perhaps, into flowers, butterflies, plumage of birds, precious stones, what not. There was not one straight floor, from the foun- dation to the roof ; the ceilings were so fantas- tically clouded by smoke and dust, that old women might have told fortunes in them, better than in grouts of tea ; the dead-cold hearths showed no traces of having ever been warmed, but in heaps of soot that had tumbled down the chimneys, and eddied about in little dusky whirlwinds when the doors were opened. In what had once been a drawing-room, there were a pair of meagre mirrors, with dismal proces- sions of black figures carrying black garlands, walking round the frames ; but even these were short of heads and legs, and one undertaker-like Cupid had swung round on his own axis and got upside down, and another had fallen off al- together . — Little Dorrit, Book /., Chap. 5. HOUSE— A tenement. The house was very close, and had an un- wholesome smell. The little staircase windows looked in at the back windows of other houses as unwholesome as itself, with poles and lines thrust out of them, on which unsightly linen hung: as if the inhabitants were angling for clothes, and had had some wretched bites not worth attending to. In the back garret — a sickly- room, with a turn-up bedstead in it, so hastily and recently turned up that the blankets were boiling over, as it were, and keeping the lid open — a half-finished breakfast of coffee and toast, for two persons, was jumbled down any- how on a rickety table. Little Dorrit, Book /., Chap. 9. HOUSE — And surrounding-s (of Mrs. Go wan). The house, on a little desert island, looked as if it had broken away from somewhere else, and had floated by chance into its present anchorage, in company with a vine almost as much in want of training as the poor wretches who were lying under its leaves. The features of the surround- ing picture were, a church with boarding and scaffolding about it, which had been under sup- posititious repair so long that the means of repair looked a hundred years old, and had themselves fallen into decay ; a quantity of washed linen, spread to dry in the sun ; a number of houses at odds with one another and grotesquely out of the perpendicular, like rotten pre-Adamite cheeses cut into fantastic shapes and full of mites ; and a feverish bewilderment of windows, with their lattice-blinds all hanging askew, and something draggled and dirty dangling out of most of them. On the first-floor of the house was a Bank — a surprising experience for any gentleman of com- mercial pursuits bringing laws for all mankind from a British city — where the two spare .clerks, like dried dragoons, in green velvet caps adorned with golden tassels, stood, bearded, behind a small counter in a small room, containing no other visible objects than an empty iron safe, with the door open, a jug of water, and a paper- ing of garlands of roses ; but who, on lawful requisition, by mei'ely dipping their hands out of sight, could produce exhaustless mounds of five-franc pieces. Below the Bank was a suite of three or four rooms with barred windows, which had the appearance of a jail for criminal rats. Above the Bank was Mrs. Gowan’s residence. Notwithstanding that its walls were blotched, as if missionary maps were bursting out of them to impart geographical knowledge ; notwith- standing that its weird furniture was forlornly faded and musty, and that the prevailing Vene- tian odor of bilge water and an ebb-tide on a weedy shore was very strong ; the place was better within than it promised. The door was opened by a smiling man like a reformed assas- sin — a temporary servant — who ushered them into the room where Mrs. Gowan sat. Little Dorrit, Book II., Chap. 6. HOUSE— A gloomy. A dead sort of house, with a dead wall over the way and a dead gateway at the side, where a pendant bell-handle produced two dead tinkles, and a knocker produced a dead, flat, surface tap- ping, that seemed not to have depth enough in it to penetrate even the cracked door. However, the door jarred open on a dead sort of spring ; and he closed it behind him as he entered a dull yard, soon brought to a close at the back by another dead wall, where an attempt had been made to train some creeping shrubs, which were dead ; and to make a little fountain in a grotto, which was dry ; and to decorate that with a little statue, which was gone. Little Doirit, Book II., Chap. 20. HOUSE 233 HOUSE HOUSE— In fashionable locality. Like unexceptionable society, the opposing rows of houses in Harley Street were very grim with one another. Indeed, the mansions and their inhabitant^ were so much alike in that re- spect, that the people were often to be found drawn up on opposite sides of dinner-tables, in the shade of their own loftiness, staring at the other side of the way with the dullness of the houses. Everybody knows how like the street, the two dinner-rows of people who take their stand by the street will be. The expressionless uni- form twenty houses, all to be knocked at and rung at in the same form, all approachable by the same dull steps, all fended off by the same pat- tern of railing, all with the same impracticable fire-escapes, the same inconvenient fixtures in their heads, and everything, without exception, to be taken at a high valuation — who ha^ not dined with these? The house so drearily out of re pair, the occasional bow-window, the stuccoed house, the newly-fronted house, the corner house with nothing but angular rooms, the house with the blinds always down, the house with the hatchment always up, the house where the col- lector has called for one quarter of an Idea, and found nobody at home — who has not dined with these? The house that nobody will take, and is to be had a bargain — who does not know her ? The showy house that was taken for life by the disappointed gentleman, and which doesn’t suit him at all — who is unacquainted with that haunted habitation ? Little Dorr it, Book /., Chap. 21. HOUSE— A debilitated. The debilitated old house in the city, wrapped in its mantle of soot, and leaning heavily on the crutches that had partaken of its decay and worn out with it, never knew a healthy or cheer- ful interval, let what would betide. If the sun ever touched it, it was but with a ray, and that was gone in half an hour ; if the moonlight ever fell upon it, it was only to put a few patches on its doleful cloak, and make it look more wretched. The stars, to be sure, coldly watched it when the nights and the smoke were clear enough ; and all bad weather stood by it with a rare fidelity. You should alike find rain, hail, frost, and thaw lingering in that dismal enclosure, when they had vanished from other places ; and as to snow, you should see it there for weeks, long after it had changed from yellow to black, slowly weeping away its grimy life. The place had no other adherents. As to street noises, the rumbling of wheels in the lane merely rushed in at the gateway in going past, and rushed out again ; making the listening Mistress Affery feel as if she were deaf, and recovered the sense of hearing by instantaneous flashes. So with whistling, singing, talking, laughing, and all pleasant human sounds. They leaped the gap in a moment, and went upon their way. Little Dorr it, Book /., Chap. 15. HOUSE— Illuminated by love. She reserved it for me to restore the desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark rooms, set the clocks a going and the cold hearths a blazing, tear down the cobwebs, destroy the vermin— in short, do all the shining deeds of the young Knight of romance, and marry the Princess. I had stopped to look at the house as I passed ; and its seared red brick walls, blocked windows, and strong green ivy, clasp- ing even the stacks of chimneys with its twigs and tendons, as if with sinewy old arms, had made up a rich attractive mystery, of which I was the hero. — Great Expectations , Chap. 29. HOUSE— A fierce-looking-. They lived at Camberwell ; in a house so big and fierce, that its mere outside, like the outside of a giant’s castle, struck terror into vulgar minds and made bold persons quail. There was a great front gate ; with a great bell, whose handle was in itself a note of admiration ; and a great lodge ; which, being close to the house, rather spoilt the look out certainly, but made the look- in tremendous. At this entry, a great porter kept constant watch and ward ; and when he gave the visitor high leave to pass, he rang a second great bell, responsive to whose note a great footman appeared in due time at the great hall-door, with such great tags upon his liveried shoulder that he was perpetually entangling and hooking himself among the chairs and tables, and led a life of torment which could scarcely have been surpassed, if he had been a blue-bot- tle in a world of cobwebs. Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 9. HOUSE— An ancient, renovated. Some attempts had been made, I noticed, to infuse new blood into this dwindling frame, by repairing the costly old wood-work here and there with common deal ; but it was like the marriage of a reduced old noble to a plebeian pauper, and each party to the ill assorted union shrunk away from the other. David Copper field. Chap. 50. HOUSE— An old-fashioned. At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the road ; a house with long, low, lattice-windows bulging out still farther, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door, ornament- ed with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star ; the two stone steps de- scending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen ; and all the angles and corners, and carvings and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, though as old as the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hills. David Copper field, Chap. 15. HOUSE— A stiff looking-. The Town Hall stands like a brick and mor- tar private on parade. — Reprinted Pieces. HOUSE^Of a Southern planter. The planter’s house was an airy, rustic dwell- ing, that brought Defoe’s description of such places strongly to my recollection. The day was very warm, but, the blinds all being closed, and the windows and doors set wide open, a shady coolness rustled through the rooms, which was ex- quisitely refreshing after the glare and heat with- out. Before the windows was an open piazza, H0U3E 234 HOUSE where, in what they call the hot weather — what- ever that may be — they sling hammocks, and drink and doze luxuriously. I do not know how their cool refections may taste within the ham- mocks, but, having experience, I can report that, out of them, the mounds of ices and the bowls of mint-julep and sherry-cobbler they make in these latitudes are refreshments never to be thought of afterwards, in summer, by those who would preserve contented minds. American Notes, Chap. g. HOUSE— A monotonous pattern. An indescribable character of faded gentility that attached to the house I sought, and made it unlike all the other houses in the street — though they were all built on one monotonous pattern, and looked like the early copies of a blundering boy who was learning to make houses, and had not yet got out of his cramped brick -and-mortar pothooks — reminded me still more of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. David Copperjield , Chap. 27. HOUSE— Of Caleb Plummer. Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves, in a little cracked nut- shell of a wooden house, which was, in truth, no better than a pimple on the prominent red-brick nose of Gruff and Tacldeton. The premises of Gruff and Tackleton were the great feature of the street ; but you might have knocked down Caleb Plummer’s dwelling with a hammer or two, and carried off the pieces in a cart. * * * * * It stuck to the premises of Gruff and Tackle- ton, like a barnacle to a ship’s keel, or a snail to a door, or a little bunch of toadstools to the stem of a tree. But it was the germ from which the full-grown trunk of Gruff and Tackleton had sprung ; and under its crazy roof, the Gruff be- fore last had, in a small way,* made toys for a generation of old boys and girls, who had play- ed with them, and found them out, and broken them, and gone to sleep. Cricket on the Hearth , Chap. 2. HOUSE— A shy looking-. In one of these streets, the cleanest of them all, and on the shady side of the way — for good housewives know that sunlight damages their cherished furniture, and so choose the shade rather than its intrusive glare — there stood the house with which we have to deal. It was a modest building, not very straight, not large, not tall ; not bold-faced, with great staring windows, but a shy, blinking house, with a conical roof going up into a peak over its garret window of four small panes - of glass, like a cocked hat on the head of an elderly gentleman wuh one eye. It was not built of brick or lofty stone, but of wood and plaster ; it was not planned with a dull and wearisome regard to regularity, for no one window matched the other, or seemed to have the slightest reference to anything besides itself. — Barnaby Budge, Chap. 4. HOUSE Description of Bleak House and furniture. It was one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up and down steps out of one room into another, and where you come upon more rooms when you think you have seen all there are, and where there is a bounti- ful provision of little halls and passages, and where you find still older cottage-rooms in un- expected places, with lattice* windows and green growth pressing through them? Mine, which we entered first, was of this kind, with an up- and-down roof, that had more corners in it than I ever counted afterwards, and a chimney (there was a wood-fire on the hearth) paved all around with pure white tiles, in every one of which a bright miniature of the fire was blazing. Out of this room you went down two steps, into a charming little sitting-room, looking down upon a flower-garden, which room was henceforth to belong to Ada and me. Out of this you went up three steps, into Ada’s bed-room, which had a fine broad window, commanding a beautiful view (we saw a great expanse of darkness lying underneath the stars), to which there was a hol- low window-seat, in which, with a spring-lock, three dear Adas might have been lost at once. Out of this room you passed into a little gallery, with which the other best rooms (only two) com- municated, and so, by a little staircase of shallow steps, with a number of corner stairs in it, con- sidering its length, down into the hall. But if, instead of going out at Ada’s door, you came back into my room, and went out at the door by which you had entered it, and turned up a few crooked steps that branched off in an unex- pected manner from the stairs, you lost yourself in passages, with mangles in them, and three- cornered tables, and a Native-Hindoo chair, which was also a sofa, a box, and a bedstead, and looked, in every form, something between a bamboo skeleton and a great bird-cage, and had been brought from India nobody knew by whom or when. From these you came on Richard’s room, which was part library, part sitting-room, part bed-room, and seemed indeed a comforta- ble compound of many rooms. Out of that, you went straight, with a little interval of pas- sage, to the plain room where Mr. Jarndyce slept, all the year round, with his window open, his bedstead, without any furniture, standing in the middle of the floor for more air, and his cold-bath gaping for him in a smaller room adjoining. Out of that, you came into another passage, where there were back-stairs, and where you could hear the horses being rubbed down, outside the stable, and being told to Hold up, and Get over, as they slipped about very much on the uneven stones. Or you might, if you came out at another door (every room had at least two doors), go straight down to the hall again by half-a-dozen steps and a low archway, wondering how you got back there, or had ever got out of it. The furniture,- old-fashioned rather than old, like the house, was as pleasantly irregular. Ada’s sleeping-room was all flowers — in chintz and pa- per, in velvet, in needlework, in the brocade of two stiff courtly chairs, which stood, each at- tended by a little page of a stool for greater state, on either side of the fire-place. Our sit- ting-room was green ; and had, framed and glazed, upon the walls, numbers of surprising and surprised birds, staring out of pictures at a real trout in a case, as brown and shining as if it had been served with gravy ; at the death of Captain Cook ; and at the whole process of pre- paring tea in China, as depicted by Chinese art- ists. In my room there were oval engravings HOUSE 235 HOUSE AND GARDEN of the months — ladies haymaking, in short waists, and large hats tied under the chin, for June — smooth-legged noblemen, pointing, with cocked-hats, to village steeples, for October. Half-length portraits, in crayons, abounded all through the house ; but were so dispersed that I found the brother of a youthful officer of mine in the china-closet, and the gray old age of my pretty young bride, with a flower in her bodice, in the breakfast-room. As substitutes I had four angels, of Queen Anne’s reign, taking a com- placent gentleman to heaven, in festoons, with some difficulty ; and a composition in needle- work, representing fruit, a kettle, and an alpha- bet. All the movables, from the wafdrojpes to the chairs and tables, hangings, glasses, even to the pin-cushions and scent-bottles on the dress- ing-tables, displayed the same quaint variety. They agreed in nothing but their perfect neat- ness, their display of the whitest linen, and their storing- up, wheresoever the existence of a draw- er, small or large, rendered it possible, of quan- tities of rose-leaves and sweet lavender. Such, with its illuminated windows, softened here and there by shadows of curtains, shining out upon the starlight night ; with its light, and warmth, and comfort ; with its hospitable jingle, at a distance, of preparations for dinner ; with the face of its generous master brightening every- thing we saw ; and just wind enough without to sound a low accompaniment to everything we heard ; were our first impressions of Bleak House. — Bleak House, Chap . 6. HOUSE— A sombre. It was a dreary, silent building, with echoing courtyards, desolated turret-chambers, and whole suites of rooms shut up and mouldering to ruin. The terrace-garden, dark with the shades of overhanging trees, had an air of melancholy that was quite oppressive. Great iron gates, disused for many years, and red with rust, drooping on their hinges and overgrown with long rank grass, seemed as though they tried to sink into the ground, and hide their fallen state among the friendly weeds. The fantastic monsters on the walls, green with age and damp, and covered here and there with moss, looked grim and de- solate. There was a sombre aspect even on that part of the mansion which was inhabited and kept in good repair, that struck the beholder with a sense of sadness ; of something forlorn and failing, whence cheerfulness was banished. It would have been difficult to imagine a bright fire blazing in the dull and darkened rooms, or to picture any gaiety of heart or revelry that the frowning walls shut in. It seemed a place where such things had been, but could be no more — the very ghost of a house, haunting the old spot in its old outward form, and that was all. Barnaby Rudge , Chap. 13. HOUSE— A dissipated-looking-. She stopped at twilight, at the door of a mean little public house, with dim red lights in it. As haggard and as shabby, as if, for want of cus- tom, it had itself taken to drinking, and had gone the way all drunkards go, and was very near the end of it. — Hard Times , Book /., Chap. 5. rooms, bright damask does penance in brown holland, carving and gilding puts on mortifica- tion, and the Dedlock ancestors retire from the light of day again. Around and around the house the leaves fall thick — but never fast, for they come circling down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow. Let the gardener sweep and sweep the turf as he will, and press the leaves into full barrows, and wheel them off, still they lie ankle-deep. Howls the shrill wind round Chesney Wold ; the sharp rain beats, the windows rattle, and the chimneys growl. Mists hide in the avenues, veil the points of view, and move in funeral- wise across the rising grounds. On all the house there is a cold, blank smell, like the smell of a little church, though some- thing dryer : suggesting that the dead and buried Dedlocks walk there, 'in the long nights, and leave the flavor of their graves behind them. Bleak House , Chap. 29. HOUSE— A dull fashionable. For the rest, Lincolnshire life to Volumnia is a vast blank of overgrown house looking out upon trees, sighing, wringing their hands, bow- ing their heads, and casting their tears upon the window-panes in monotonous depression. A labyrinth of grandeur, less the property of an old family of human beings and their ghostly likenesses, than of an old family of echoings and thunderings which start out of their hundred graves at every sound, and go resounding through the building. A waste of unused passages and staircases, in which to drop a comb upon a bed- room floor at night is to send a stealthy footfall on an errand through the house. A place where few people care to go about alone ; where a maid screams if an ash drops from the fire, takes to crying at all times and seasons, becomes the victim of a low disorder of the spirits, and gives warning and departs. Thus Chesney Wold. With so much of itself abandoned to darkness and vacancy ; with so little change under the summer shining or the wintry lowering ; so sombre and motionless al- ways — no flag flying now by day, no rows of lights sparkling by night ; with no family to come and go, no visitors to be the souls of pale cold shapes of rooms, no stir of life about it ; — - passion and pride, even to the stranger’s eye, have died away from the place in Lincolnshire, and yielded it to dull repose. Bleak House , Chap. 66. HOUSE AND GARDEN-A country. He lived in a pretty house, formerly the Par- sonage-house, with a lawn in front, a bright flower-garden at the side, and a well-stocked orchard and kitchen-garden in the rear, enclosed with a venerable wall that had of itself a ripened, ruddy look. But, indeed, everything about the place wore an aspect of maturity and abundance. The old lime-tree walk was like green cloisters, the very shadows of the cherry- trees and apple-trees were heavy with fruit, the gooseberry-bushes were so laden that their branches arched and rested on the earth, the strawberries and raspberries grew in like profusion, and the peaches basked by the hun- dred on the wall. Tumbled about among the spread nets and the glass frames sparkling and winking in the sun, there were such heaps- of and cucumbers, HOUSE— In winter. Chesney Wold is shut up, carpets are rolled into great, scrolls in corners of comfortless I drooping pods, and marrow II0TJ3E-FR0NT 230 HOUSE-AGENT that every foot of ground appeared a vegetable treasury, while the smell of sweet kerbs and all kinds of wholesome growth (to say nothing of the neighboring meadows, where the hay was carrying) made the whole air a great nosegay. Such stillness and composure reigned within the orderly precincts of the old red wall, that even the feathers, hung in garlands to scare the birds, hardly stirred ; and the wall had such a ripen- ing influence that where, here and there, high up a disused nail and scrap of list still clung to it, it was easy to fancy that they had mellowed with the changing seasons, and that they had rusted and decayed according to the common fate . — Bleak House, Chap. 18. HOUSE-FRONT— Like an old beau. The house-front is so old and worn, and the brass plate is so shining and staring, that the general result has reminded imaginative stran- gers of a battered old beau with a large modern eye-glass stuck in his blind eye. Edwin Drood, Chap. 3. HOUSE— Mr. Gradgrind’s. A very regular feature on the face of the country, Stone Lodge was. Not the least dis- guise toned down or shaded off that uncompro- mising fact in the landscape. A. great square house, with a heavy portico darkening the prin- cipal windows, as its master’s heavy brows over- shadowed his eyes. A calculated, cast up, bal- anced, and proved house. Six windows on this side of the door, six on that side ; a total of twelve in this wing, a total of twelve in the other wing ; four-and-twenty carried over to the back wings. A lawn and garden and an infant avenue, all ruled straight like a botanical ac- count-book, Gas and ventilation, drainage and water-service, all of the primest quality. Iron clamps and girders, fireproof from top to bot- tom ; mechanical lifts for the housemaids, with all their brushes and brooms ; everything that heart could desire. Everything? Well, I suppose so. The little Gradgrinds had cabinets in various departments of science, too. They had a little conchologi- cal cabinet, and a little metallui*gical cabinet, and a little mineralogical cabinet ; and the specimens were all arranged and labelled, and the bits of stone and ore looked as though they might have been broken from the parent sub- stances by those tremendously hard instruments, their own names. Hard Times, Book I., Chap. 3. HOUSES— Old. On either side of him, there shot up against the ciark sky, tall, gaunt, straggling houses, with time-stained fronts, and windows that seemed to have shared the lot of eyes in mortals, and to have grown dim and sunken with age. Six, seven, eight stories high, were the houses ; story piled above story, as children build with cards — throwing their dark shadows over the roughly paved road, and making the dark night darker. Pickwick , Chap. 49. HOUSES- A neighborhood of. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a low- ering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the way out again.— Christmas Carol, Stave I. HOUSES In St. Louis. In the old French portion of the town the thoroughfares are narrow and crooked, and some of the houses are very quaint and picturesque, being built of wood, with tumble-down galler- ies before the windows, approachable by stairs, or rather ladders, from the street. There are queer little barbers’ shops and drinking-houses too, in this quarter ; and abundance of cra/.y old tenements with blinking casements, such as may be seen in Flanders. Some of these an- cient habitations, with high garret gable-win- dows perking into the roofs, have a kind of French shrug about them ; and being lop-sided with age, appear to hold their heads askew, be- sides, as if they were grimacing in astonishment at the American Improvements. American Notes, Chap. 12. HOUSES Isolated in a city. But it is neither to old Almshouses in the country, nor to new Almshouses by the railroad, that these present Uncommercial notes relate. They refer back to journeys made among those commonplace smoky-fronted London Alms- houses, with a little paved court-yard in front enclosed by iron railings, which have got snowed up, as it were, by bricks and mortar ; which were once in a suburb, but are now in the densely populated town, — gaps in the busy life around them, parentheses in the close and blotted texts of the streets. Uncommercial Traveller, Chap. 27. HOUSES- Involved in law. “ I told you this was the Growlery, my dear. Where was I ? ” I reminded him, at the hopeful change he had made in Bleak House. “ Bleak House : true. There is, in that city of London there, some property of ours, which is much at this day what Bleak House was then, — I say property of ours, meaning of the Suit’s, but I ought to call it the property of Costs ; for Costs is the only power on earth that will ever get anything out of it now, or will ever know it for anything but an eyesore and a heartsore. It is a street of perishing blind houses, with their eyes stoned out ; without a pane of glass, with- out so much as a window-frame, with the bare blank shutters tumbling from their hinges and falling asunder ; the iron rails peeling away in flakes of rust; the chimneys sinking in; the stone steps to every door (and every door might be Death’s Door) turning stagnant green ; the very crutches on which the ruins are propped, decaying. Although Bleak House was not in Chancery, its master was, and it was stamped with the same seal. These are the Great Seal’s impressions, my dear, all over England — the children know them ! ” — Bleak House, Chap. 8. HOUSE-AGENT -Casby, the. A heavy, selfish, drifting Booby, who, having stumbled, in the course of his unwieldy jostlings against other men, on the discovery that to get through life with ease and credit, he had but to hold ids tongue, keep the bald part of his head I well polished, and leave his hair alone, hud had H0U3E-T3P 237 HOUSE-KEEPER just cunning enough to seize the idea and stick to it. It was said that his being town-agent to Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle was referable, not to his having the least business capacity, but to his looking so supremely benignant that nobody could suppose the property screwed or jobbed under such a man ; also, that for similar reasons he now got more money out of his own wretched lettings, unquestioned, than anybody with a less knobby and less shining crown could possibly have done. In a word, it was represented (Clennam called to mind, alone in the ticking parlor) that many people select their models, much as the painters, just now mentioned, select theirs ; and that, whereas in the Royal Academy some evil old ruffian of a Dog-stealer will an- nually be found embodying all the cardinal vir- tues, on account of his eyelashes, or his chin, or his legs (thereby planting thorns of confusion in the breasts of the more observant students of nature), so in the great social Exhibition, accessories are often accepted in lieu of the in- ternal character. Calling these things to mind, and ranging Mr. Pancks in a row with them,. Arthur Clen- nam leaned this day to the opinion, without quite deciding on it, that the last of the Patri- archs was the drifting Booby aforesaid, with the one idea of keeping the bald part of his head highly polished ; and that, much as an unwieldy ship in the Thames river may sometimes be seen heavily driving with the tide, broadside on, stern first, in its own way and in the way of everything else, though making a great show of navigation, when all of a sudden, a little coaly steam-tug will bear down upon it, take it in tow, and bustle off with it ; similarly, the cumbrous Patriarch had been taken in tow by the snorting Pancks, and was now following in the wake of that dingy little craft. Little Dorrit , Book /., Chap . 13. Plis turning of his smooth thumbs over one another as he sat there, was so. typical to Clen- nam of the way in which he would make the subject revolve if it were pursued, never show- ing any new part of it, nor allowing it to make the smallest advance, that it did much to help to convince him of his labor having been in vain. He might have taken any time to think about it, for Mr. Casby, well accustomed to get on anywhere by leaving everything to his bumps and his white hair, knew his strength to lie in silence. So there Casby sate, twirling and twirl- ing, and making his polished head and fore- head look largely benevolent in every knob. Little Dorrit , Book //., Chap. 9. HOUSE-TOP— Scene from Todg-ers’s. The top of the house was worthy of notice. There was a sort of terrace on the roof, with posts and fragments of rotten lines, once in- tended to dry clothes upon ; and there were two or three tea-chests out there, full of earth, with forgotten plants in them, like old walking- sticks. Whoever climbed to this observatory, was stunned at first from having knocked his head against the little door in coming out ; and after that, was for the moment choked from having looked, perforce, straight down the kitchen chimney ; but these two stages over, there were things to gaze at from the top of Todgers’s, well worth your seeing too. For, first and foremost, if the day were bright, you ol>- j served upon the house-tops, stretching far away, a long dark path — the shadow of the Monu- ment : and turning round, the tall original was close beside you, with every hair erect upon his golden head, as if the doings of the city fright- ened him. Then there were steeples, towers, belfries, shining vanes, and masts of ships ; a very forest. Gables, house-tops, garret-win- dows, wilderness upon wilderness. Smoke and noise enough for all the world at once. After the first glance, there were slight fea- tures in the 1 idst of this crowd of objects, which sprung out from the mass without any reason, as it were, and took hold of the atten- tion whether the spectator would or no. Thus, the revolving chimney-pots on one great stack of buildings, seemed to be turning gravely to each other every now and then, and whispering the result of their separate observation of what was going on below. Others, of a crook-backed shape, appeared to be maliciously holding them- selves askew, that they might shut the prospect out and baffle Todgers’s. The man who was mending a pen at an upper window over the way, became of paramount importance in the scene, and made a blank in it, ridiculously dis- proportionate in its extent, when he retired. The gambols of a piece of cloth upon the dyer’s pole had far more interest for the moment than all the changing motion of the crowd. Yet even while the looker-on felt angry with himself for this, and wondered how it was, the tumult swelled into a roar; the hosts of objects seemed to thicken and expand a hundredfold ; and after gazing round him, quite scared, he turned into Todgers’s again, much more rapidly than he came out ; and ten to one he told M. Todgers afterwards that if he hadn’t done so, he would certainly have come into the street by the short- est cut : that is to say, head foremost. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 9. HOUSE-KEEPER-Ruth as a. “ Oh, you are going to work in earnest, are you ? ” Ayes aye ! That she was. And in such pleas- ant earnest, moreover, that Tom’s attention wandered from his writing every moment. First, she tripped down stairs into the kitchen for the flour, then for the pie-board, then for the eggs, then for the butter, then for a jug of water, then for the rolling-pin, then for a pudding-basin, then for the pepper, then for the salt, making a separate journey for everything, and laughing every time she started off afresh. When all the materials were collected, she was horrified to find she had no apron on, and so ran up stairs, by way of variety, to fetch it. She didn’t put it on upstairs, but came dancing down with it in her hand ; and being one of those little women to whom an apron is a most becoming little vanity, it took an immense time to arrange ; having to be carefully smoothed down beneath — Oh, heaven, what a wicked little stomacher ! and to be gathered up into little plaits by the strings before it could be tied, and to be tapped, rebuked, and wheedled, at the pockets, before it would set right, which at last it did, and when it did — but never mind ; this is a sober chronicle. And then, there were cuffs to be tucked up, for fear of flour ; and she had a little ring to pull off her finger, which wouldn’t come off (foolish HOUSE-KEEPER 238 HOUSE-KEEPER little ring ! ) : and during the whole of these preparations she looked demurely every now and then at Tom, from under her dark eye-lashes, as if they were all a part of the pudding, and in- dispensable to its composition. * * x * * Such a busy little woman as she was ! So full of self-importance, and trying so hard not to smile, or seem uncertain about anything ! It was a perfect treat to Tom to see her with her brows knit, and her rosy lips pursed up, kneading away at the crust, rolling it out, cut- ting it up into strips, lining the basin with it, shaving it off fine round the rim, chopping up the steak into small pieces, raining down pepper and salt upon them, packing them into the basin, pouring in cold water for gravy, and never ven- turing to steal a look in his direction, lest her gravity should be disturbed ; until, at last, the basin being quite full, and only wanting the top crust, she clapped her hands, all covered with paste and flour, at Tom, and burst out heartily into such a charming little laugh of triumph, that the pudding need have had no other sea- soning to- commend it to the taste of any rea- sonable man on earth. Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 39. HOUSE-KEEPER-Ruth. Well ! she was a cheerful little thing ; and had a quaint, bright quietness about her, that was infinitely pleasant. Surely she was the best sauce for chops ever invented. The potatoes seemed to take a pleasure in sending up their grateful steam before her ; the froth upon the pint of porter pouted to attract her notice. But .t was all in vain. She saw nothing but Tom. Tom was the first and last thing in the world. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 37. Pleasant little Ruth ! Cheerful, tidy, bust- ling, quiet little Ruth ! No doll’s house ever yielded greater delight to its young mistress, than little Ruth derived from her glorious do- minion over the triangular parlor and the two small bedrooms. To be Tom’s housekeeper. What dignity ! Housekeeping, upon the commonest terms, as- sociated itself with elevated responsibilities of all sorts and kinds ; but housekeeping for Tom implied the utmost complication of grave trusts and mighty charges. Well might she take the keys out of the little chiffonnier which held the tea and sugar ; and out of the two little damp cupboards down by the fire-place, where the very black beetles got mouldy, and had the shine taken out of their backs by envious mildew ; and jingle them upon a ring before Tom’s eyes when he came down to breakfast ! Well might she, laughing musically, put them up in that blessed little pocket of hers with a merry pride ! For it was such a grand novelty to be mistress of anything, that if she had been the most re- 1- ntless and despotic of all little housekeepers, she might have pleaded just that much for her excuse, and have been honorably acquitted. Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. 39. HOUSE-KEEPER Servants a curse to the. After several varieties of experiment, wc had given up the housekeeping as a bad job. The house kept itself, and we kept a page. The principal f':;:tion of this retainer was to quarrel with the cook ; in which respect he was a per- fect Whittington, without his cat, or the remotest chance of being made Lord Mayor. lie appears to me to have lived in a hail of saucepan-lids. 1 1 is whole existence was a scuffle, lie would shriek for help on the most improper occasions, — as when we had a little dinner party, or a few friends in the evening, — and would come tumbling out of the kitchen, with iron missiles flying after him. We wanted to get rid of him, but he was very much attached to us, and wouldn’t go. He was a tearful boy, and broke into such deplorable lamentations, when a cessation of our connection was hinted at, that we were obliged to keep him. He had no mother — no anything in the way of a relative, that I could discover, except a sister, who fled to America the moment we had taken him off her hands — and he became quartered on us like a horrible young changeling. He had a lively perception of his own unfortunate state, and was always rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket, or stooping to blow his nose on the extreme corner of a little pocket-handkerchief, which he never would take completely out of his pocket, but always economised and secreted. This .un- lucky page, engaged in an evil hour at six pounds ten per annum, was a source of contin- ual trouble to me. I watched him as he grew — and he grew like scarlet beans— with painful apprehensions of the time when he would begin to shave ; even of the days when he would be bald or grey. I saw no prospect of ever get- ting rid of him ; and, projecting myself into the future, used to think what an inconvenience he would be when he was an old man. David Copper field, Chap. 48. HOUSE-KEEPER -The neatness of Mrs. Tibbs. Mrs. Tibbs was, beyond all dispute, the most tidy, fidgety, thrifty little personage, that ever inhaled the smoke of London : and the house of Mrs. Tibbs was, decidedly, the neatest in all Great Coram Street. The area and the area steps, and the street-door, and the street-door steps, and the brass handle, and the door-plate, and the knocker, and the fan-light, were all as clean and bright as indefatigable white-washing, hearth-stoning, and scrubbing and rubbing could make them. The wonder was, that the brass door-plate, with the interesting inscription, “ Mrs. Tibbs,” had never caught fire from con- stant friction, so perseveringly was it polished. There were meat-safe-looking blinds in the par- lor windows, blue and gold curtains in the drawing-room, and spring-roller blinds, as Mrs. Tibbs was wont in the pride of her heart to boast, “ all the way up.” The bell-lamp in the passage looked as clear as a soap-bubble ; you could see yourself in all the tables, and French- polish yourself on any one of the chairs. The banisters were bees’-waxed ; and the very stair- wires made your eyes wink, they were so glit- tering. — Talcs. The Boarding-House, Chap. 1. HOUSE-KEEPER— Mrs. Sweeney. The genuine laundress, too, is an institution not to be had in its entirety out of and away from the genuine Chambers. ' Again, it is not denied that you may be robbed elsewhere. Elsewhere you may have — for money — dishonesty, drunk- enness, dirt, laziness, and profound incapacity. HOUSE-KEEPER 239 HUCKSTER But the veritable shining-recl-faced, shameless laundress ; the true Mrs. Sweeney, — in figure, rotor, texture, and smell like the old damp fam- ily umbrella ; the tip-top complicated abomina- tion of stockings, spirits, bonnet, limpness, loose- ness, and larceny, — is only*to be drawn at the fountain-head. Mrs. Sweeney is beyond the reach of individual art. It requires the united efforts of several men to insure that great result, and it is only developed in perfection under an Honorable Society and in an Inn of Court. Uncommercial Traveller , Chap. 14. HOUSE-KEEPER-Of Dedlock Hall. Mrs. Rouncewell might have been sufficiently assured by hearing the rain, but that she is rather deaf, which nothing will induce her to believe. She is a fine old lady, handsome, stately, wonderfully neat, and has such a back and such a stomacher, that if her stays should turn out when she dies to have been a broad old-fashioned family fire-grate, nobody who knows her would have cause to be surprised. Weather affects Mrs. Rouncewell little. The house is there in all weathers, and the house, as she expresses if, “is what she looks at.” She sits in her room (in a side passage on the ground floor, with an arched window commanding a smooth quadrangle, adorned at regular intervals with smooth round trees and smooth round blocks of stone, as if the trees were going to play at bowls with the stones), and the whole house imposes on her mind. She can open it on occasion, and be busy and fluttered ; but it is shut up now, and lies on the breadth of Mrs. Rouncewell’s iron-bound bosom, in a majestic sleep. — Bleak House , Chap. 7. HOUSE-KEEPER-Mrs. Billickin, the. Personal faintness and an overpowering per- sonal candor were the distinguishing features of Mrs. Billickin’s organization. She came lan- guishing out of her own exclusive back-parlor, with the air of having been expressly brought to for the purpose from an accumulation of sev- eral swoons. “ I hope I see you well, sir,” said Mrs. Bil- lickin, recognizing her visitor with a bend. “ Thank you, quite well. And you, ma’am ? ” returned Mr. Gi'ewgious. “ I am as well,” said Mrs. Billickin, becoming aspirational with excess of faintness, “ as I hever ham.” “ My ward and an eldei'ly lady,” said Mr. Grewgious, “wish to find a genteel lodging for a month or so. Have you any apartments available, ma’am ? ” “ Mr. Grewgious,” returned Mrs. Billickin, “ I will not deceive you, far from it. I have apartments available.” * * * # * “ Coals is either by the fire, or per\hQ scuttle.” She emphasized the prepositions as marking a subtle but immense difference. “Dogs' is not viewed with favior. Besides litter, they gets stole, and sharing suspicions is apt to creep in, and unpleasantness takes place.” Edwin D/ood, Chap. 22. HUCKSTER -The stall of Silas Wegg. Assuredly, this stall of Silas Wegg’s was the hardest little stall of all the sterile little stalls in London. It gave you the face-ache to look at his apples, the stomach-ache to look at his oranges, the tooth-ache to look at his nuts. Of the latter commodity he had always a grim little heap, on which lay a littfle wooden measure which had no discernible inside, and was con- sidered to represent the penn’orth appointed by Magna Charta. Whether from too much east wind or no — it was an easterly corner — the stall, the stock, and the keeper, were all as dry as the desert. Wegg was a knotty man, and a close- grained, with a face carved out of very hard ma- terial, that had just as much play of expression as a watchman’s rattle. When he laughed, cer- tain jerks occurred in it, and the rattle sprung. Sooth to say, he was so wooden a man that he seemed to have taken his wooden leg naturally, and rather suggested to the fanciful observer, that he might be expected — if his development re- ceived no untimely check — to be completely set up with a pair of wooden legs in about six months. Mr. Wegg was an observant person, or, as he himself said, “ took a powerful sight of notice.” He saluted all his regular passers-by every day, as he sat on his stool backed up by the lamp- post ; and on the adaptable character of these salutes he greatly plumed himself. Thus, to the rector, he addressed a bow, compounded of lay deference, and a slight touch of the shady pre- liminary meditation at church ; to the doctor, a confidential bow, as to a gentleman whose acquaintance with his inside he begged respect- fully to acknowledge ; before the Quality he de- lighted to abase himself ; and for Uncle Parker, who was in the army (at least so he had settled it), he put his open hand to the side of his hat, in a military manner which that angry eyed, buttoned up, inflammatory-faced old gentleman appeared but imperfectly to appreciate. The only article in which Silas dealt, that was not hard, was gingerbread. On a certain day, some wretched infant having purchased the damp gingerbread-horse (fearfully out of condi- tion), and the adhesive bird-cage, which had been exposed for the day’s sale, he had taken a tin box from under his stool to produce a relay of those dreadful specimens, and was going to look in at the lid, when he said to himself, paus- ing : “ Oh ! here you are again ! ” The words referred to a broad, round-shoul- dered, one-sided old fellow in mourning, coming comically ambling towards the corner, dressed in a pea over-coat, and carrying a large stick. He wore thick shoes, and thick leather gaiters, and thick gloves like a hedger’s. Both as to his dress and to himself, he was of an overlap- ping rhinoceros build, with folds in his cheeks, and his forehead, and his eyelids, and his lips, and his ears ; but with bright, eager, childishly- inquiring, grey eyes, under his ragged eyebrows and broad-brimmed hat. A very odd-looking old fellow altogether. “ Here you are again,” repeated Mr. Wegg, musing. “ And what are you now ? Are you in the Funns, or where are you? Have you lately come to settle in this neighborhood, or do you own to another neighborhood? Are you in independent circumstances, or is it wasting, the motions of a bow on you? Come; I’ll speculate ! I’ll invest a bow in you.” Which Mr. Wegg, having replaced his tin box, accordingly did, as he rose to bait his ginger- bread-trap for some other devoted infant. Our Mutual Friend^ Book /., Chap. 5. HUCKSTER 210 HUMBUG3 HUCKSTER- Mr. Wegg as a. All weathers saw the man at the post. This is to be accepted in a double sense, for he con- trived a back to his wooden stool, by placing it against the lamp-post. When the weather was wet, he put up his umbrella over his stock in trade, not over himself ; when the weather was dry, he furled that faded article, tied it round with apiece of yarn, and laid it cross-wise under the trestles ; where it looked like an unwhole- somely-forced lettuce that had lost in color and crispness what it had gained in size. He had established his right to the corner, by imperceptible prescription. He had never varied his ground an inch, but had in the begin- ning diffidently taken the corner upon which the side of the house gave. A howling corner in the winter time, a dusty corner in the summer time, an undesirable corner at the best of times. Shelterless fragments of straw and paper got up revolving storms there, when the main street was at peace ; and the water-cart, as if it were drunk or short-sighted, came blundering and jolting round it, making it muddy when all else was clean. Our Mictual Friend , Book /., Chap. 5. HUMAN ILLS — “ The world full of wisita- tions.” “ Why, sir,” said Mr. Squeers, “ I’m pretty well. So’s the family, and so’s the boys, except for a sort of rash as is a running through the school, and rather puts ’em off their feed. But it’s a ill wind as blows no good to nobody; that’s what I always say when them lads has a wisitation. A wisitation, sir, is the lot of mor- tality. Mortality itself, sir, is a wisitation. The world is chock full of wisitations ; and if a boy repines at a wisitation and makes you uncom- fortable with his noise, he must have his head punched. That’s going according to the scripter, that is.” — Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 56. HUMANITY— Its extremes. Were this miserable mother, and this miser- able daughter, only the reduction to their lowest grade, of certain social vices sometimes prevail- ing higher up? In this round world of many circles within circles, do we make a weary jour- ney from the high grade to the low, to find at last that they lie close together, that the two ex- tremes touch, and that our journey’s end is but our starting-place? Allowing for great difference of stuff and texture, was the pattern of this woof repeated among gentle blood at all ? Dombey 6° Son , Chap. 35. HUMAN HELP— And God’s forgiveness. “ I have been where convicts go,” she added, looking full upon her entertainer. “ I have been one myself.” “ Heaven help you and forgive you ! ” was the gentle answer. “ Ah ! Heaven help me and forgive me ! ” she returned, nodding her head at the fire. “ If man would help some of us a little more, God would forgive us all the sooner perhaps.” Dombey 6° Son, Chap. 33. HUMBUGS— Official. “And the invention?” said Clennam. “My good fellow,” returned Ferdinand, “if you’ll excuse the freedom of that form of address, nobody wants to know of the invention, and no- body cares twopence-halfpcnny about it.” “ Nobody in the Office, that is to say ? ” “ Nor out of it. Everybody is ready to dis- like and ridicule any invention. You have no idea how many people want to be left alone. You have no idea how the Genius of the country (overlook the Parliamentary nature of the phrase, and don’t be bored by it) tends to being left alone. Believe me, Mr. Clennam,” said the sprightly young Barnacle, in his pleasantest manner, “our plate is not a wicked Giant to be charged at full tilt ; but only a windmill, show- ing you, as it grinds immense quantities of chaff, which way the country wind blows.” “If I could believe that,” said Clennam, “ it would be a dismal prospect for all of us.” “Oh! don’t say so!” returned Ferdinand. “ It's all right. We must have humbug, we all like humbug, we couldn’t get on without hum- bug. A little humbug, and a groove, and every thing goes on admirably, if you leave it alone.” Little Dorrit , Book If., Chap. 28. HUMBUGS— Social— Miss Mowcher’s opin- ion of. “Face like a peach!” standing on tiptoe to pinch my cheek as I sat. “Quite tempting! I’m very fond of peaches. Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I’m sure.” I said that I congratulated myself on having the honor to make hers, and that the happiness was mutual. “ Oh, my goodness, how polite we are ! ” ex- claimed Miss Mowcher, making a preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her morsel of a hand. “ What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain’t it ! ” This was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the morsel of a hand came away from the face, and buried itself, arm and all, in the bag again. “What do you mean, Miss Mowcher?” said Steerforth. “ Ha ! ha ! ha ! What a refreshing set of hum- bugs we are, to be sure, ain’t we, my sweet child ? ” replied that morsel of a woman, feeling in the bag with her head on one side and her eye in the air. “ Look here ! ” taking something out. “ Scraps of the Russian Prince’s nails ! Prince Alphabet turned topsy-turvy, / call him, for his name’s got all the letters in it, higgledy- piggledy.” “ The Russian Prince is a client of yours, is he ? ” said Steerforth. “ I believe you, my pet,” replied Miss Mow- cher. “ I keep his nails in order for him. Twice a week ! Fingers and toes.” “ He pays well, I hope? ” said Steerforth. “ Pays as he speaks, my dear child — through the nose,” replied Miss Mowcher. “None of your close shavers the Prince ain’t. You’d say so, if you saw his moustachios. Red by nature, black by art.” “ By your art, of course,” said Steerforth. Miss Mowcher winked assent. “Forced to send for me. Couldn’t help it. The climate affected his dye ; it did very well in Russia, but it was no go here. You never saw such a rusty Prince in all your born days as he was. Like old iron ! ” “ Is that why you called him a humbug, just now?” inquired Steerforth. HUMILITY 241 HUMILITY “ Ob, you’re a broth of a boy, ain’t you ? ” re- turn 2d Miss Movvcher, shaking her head violently. “ I {.aid, what a set of humbugs we were in gen- eral, and 1 showed you the scraps of the Prince’s nails to prove it. The Prince’s nails do more for me in private families of the genteel sort, than all my talents put together, i always carry ’em about. They’re the best introduction. If Miss Movvcher cuts the Prince’s nails, she must be all right. I give ’em away to the young ladies. They put ’em in albums, I believe. Ha ! ha ! ha ! Upon my life, ‘ the whole social system’ (as the men call it when they make speeches in Parliament) is a system of Prince’s nails ! ” said this least of women, trying to fold her short arms, and nodding her large head. David Copper field , Chap. 22. HUMILITY— Of Uriah. Keep. My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I watched him reading on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the lines with his fore-finger, I observed that his nostrils, which were thin and pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncom- fortable way of expanding and contracting them- selves ; that they seemed to twinkle instead of his eyes, which hardly ever twinkled at all. “I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?” I said, after looking at him for some time. “ Me, Master Copperfield ? ” said Uriah. “ Oh, no ! I’m a very umble person.” It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed ; for he frequently ground the palms against each other as if to squeeze them dry and warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his pocket-handkerchief. “ I am well aware that I am the umblest per- son going,” said Uriah Heep, modestly; “let the other be where he may. My mother is like wise a very umble person. We live in a um- ble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for. My father’s former calling was umble. He was a sexton.” “ What is he now?” I asked. “ He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah Heep. “But we have much to be thankful for. How much have I to be thankful for in living with Mr. Wickfield !” ***** “ Perhaps you’ll be a partner in Mr. Wick- field’s business, one of these days,” I said, to make myself agreeable ; “and it will be Wick- field and Heep, or Heep late Wickfield.” “ Oh no, Master Copperfield,” returned Uriah, shaking his head, “ I am much too umble for that ! ” He certainly did look uncommonly like the carved face on the beam outside my window, as he sat, in his humility, eying me sideways, with his mouth widened, and the creases in his cheeks. “ Mr. Wickfield is a most excellent man, Mas- ter Copperfield,” said Uriah. “If you have known him long, you know it, I am sure, much better than I can inform you.” I replied that I was certain he was ; but that I had not known him long myself, though he was a friend of my aunt’s. “ Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah. “Your aunt is a sweet lady. Master Copper- field ! ” He had a way of writhing when he wanted to express enthusiasm, which was very ugly ; and which diverted my attention from the compli- ment he had paid my relation, to the snaky twistings of his throat and body. David Copperfield , Chap. 16. “ I am not fond of professions of humility,” I returned, “ or professions of anything else.” “There now!” said Uriah, looking flabby and lead-colored in the moonlight. “ Didn’t I know it ! But how little you think of the right- ful umbleness of a person in my station, Master Copperfield ! Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys ; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness — not much else that I know of, from morning to night. We was to be um- ble to this person, and umble to that ; and to pull off our caps here, and to make bows there ; and always to know our place, and abase our- selves before our betters. And we had such a lot of betters ! Father got the monitor-medal by being umble. So did I. Father got made a sexton by being umble. He had the charac- ter, among the gentlefolks, of being such a well- behaved man, that they were determined to bring him in. ‘Be umble, Uriah,’ says father to me, ‘and you’ll get on. It was what was always being dinned into you and me at school ; it’s what goes down best. Be umble,’ ssys father, ‘and you’ll do!’ And really it ain’t done bad ! ” It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed. “ When I was quite a young boy,” said Uriah, “ I got to know what umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble pie with an appetite. I stopped at the umble point of my learning, and says I, ‘ Hold hard !’ When you offered to teach me Latin, I knew better. ‘ People like to be above you,’ says father ; * keep yourself down.’ I am very umble to the present moment, Master Copperfield, but I've got a little power!'” And he said all this — I knew,, as I saw his face in the moonlight — that I might understand he was resolved to recompense himself by using his power. I had never doubted his meanness, his craft and malice ; but I fully comprehended now, for the first time,, what a base, unrelenting, and revengeful spirit must have been engen- dered by this early, and this long, suppression. David Copperfield , Chap. 39. HUMILITY— Description of Carker, Jr. He was not old, but his hair was white ; his body was bent, or bowed as if by the weight of some great trouble ; and there were deep lines in his worn and melancholy face. The fire of his eyes, the expression of his features, the very voice in which he spoke, were all sub- dued and quenched, as if the spirit within him lay in ashes. He was respectably, though very plainly dressed, in black ; but his clothes* moulded to the general character of his figure, seemed to shrink and abase themselves upon him, and to join in the sorrowful solicitation which the whole man from head to foot ex pressed, to be left unnoticed, and alone in his humility. — Dombey & Son , Chap. 6. HUNGER 242 HUNGER HUNftEE-In an English workhouse. I wish some well-fed philosopher, whose meat and drink turn to gall within him, whose blood is ice, whose heart is iron, could have seen Oliver Twist clutching at the dainty viands that the dog had neglected. I wish he could have witnessed the horrible avidity with which Oliver tore the bits asunder with all the ferocity of famine. There is only one thing I should like better ; and that would be to see the philoso- pher making the same sort of meal himself, with the same relish . — Oliver Twist , Chap. 4. The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again ; and when they had performed this oper- ation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed ; employing them- selves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with a view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent appe- tites, Oliver Twist and his companions suf- fered the tortures of slow starvation for three months ; at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for his age, and hadn’t been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small cook’s shop), hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem , he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age. He had a wild, hungry eye ; and they implicitly believed him. A council was held ; lots were cast who should walk up to the master after supper that even- ing:, and ask for more; and it fell to Oliver Twist. The evening arrived ; the boys took their places. The master, in his cook’s uniform, sta- tioned himself at the copper ; his pauper assist- ants ranged themselves behind him ; the gruel was served out ; and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared ; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oli- ver ; while his next neighbors nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table ; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity, — “ Please, sir, I want some more.” The master was a fat, healthy man ; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied aston- ishment on the small rebel for some seconds ; and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralyzed with wonder ; the boys with fear. “What!” said the master at length, in a faint voice. “Please, sir,” replied Oliver, “ I want some more.” '['he master aimed a blow at Oliver’s head with the ladle ; pinioned him in his arms ; and shrieked aloud for the beadle. The board was sitting in solemn conclave, : < 1 Mi Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said, — “ Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oli- ver Twist has asked for more ! There was a general start. Horror was de- picted on every countenance. “For more!" said Mr. Limbkins. “Com- pose yourself, Bumble, and answer me dis- tinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?” “ lie did, sir,” replied Bumble. “That boy will be hung,” said the gentle- man in the white waistcoat. “ I know that boy will be hung.” — Oliver Twist , Chap. 2. HUNGER— Before the French Revolution. And now that the cloud settled on Saint An- toine, which a momentary gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, the darkness of it was heavy — cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want, were the lords in waiting on the saintly presence— nobles of great power all of them ; but most especially the last. Samples of a people that had undergone a terrible grinding and re-grinding in the mill, and certainly not in the fabulous mill which ground old people young, shivered at every corner, passed in and out at every doorway, looked from every win- dow, fluttered in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook. The mill which had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old ; the children had ancient faces and grave voices ; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sign, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines ; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper ; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off ; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chim- neys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker’s shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty Mock of bad bread ; at the sausage shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder ; Hun- ger was shred into atomies in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil. Its abiding-place was in all things fitted to it. A narrow, winding street, full of offence and stench, with other narrow winding streets di- verging, all peopled by rags and nightcaps, and all smelling of rags and nightcaps, and all visi- ble things with a brooding look upon them that looked ill. In the hunted air of the people there was yet some wild-beast thought of the possi-j bility of turning at bay. Depressed and slink- ing though they were, eyes of fire were nob wanting among them ; nor compressed lips, white with what they suppressed, nor foreheads knitted into the likeness of the gallows-ropej they mused about enduring, or inflicting. The trade signs (and they were almost as many as the shops) were all grim illustrations of Want, 'flic butcher and the porkman painted up only the leanest scrags of meat ; the baker, the coarse sj of meagre loaves. The people rudely piCturrc| as drinking in the wine shops, croaked ovd HUSBANDS 243 HYPOCRITE their scanty measures of thin wine and beer, and were gloweringly confidential together. Nothing was represented in a flourishing con- dition, save tools and weapons ; but the cutler’s knives and axes were sharp and bright, the smith’s hammers were heavy, and the gun- maker’s stock was murderous. The crippling stones of the pavement, with their many little reservoirs of mud and water, had no footways, but broke off abruptly at the doors. The ken- nel, to make amends, ran down the middle of the street— when it ran at all ; which was only after heavy rains, and then it ran, by many eccentric fits, into the houses. Across the streets, at wide intervals, one clumsy lamp was slung by a rope and pulley ; at night, when the lamplighter had let these down, and lighted, and hoisted them again, a feeble grove of dim wicks swung in a sickly manner overhead, as if they were at sea. Indeed, they were at sea, and the ship and crew were in peril of tempest. For the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of that region should have watched the lamplighter, in their idleness and hunger, so long, as to conceive the idea of improving on his method, and hauling up men by those ropes and pulleys, to flare upon the darkness of then- condition. But the time was not come vet ; and every wind that blew over France shook the rags of the scarecrows in vain, for the birds, fine of song and feather, took no warning. Tale of Two Cities , Chap. 5. HUSBANDS— A tea-party opinion of. “ Before I’d let a man order me about as Quilp orders her,” said Mrs. George ; “ before I’d consent to stand in awe of a man as she does of him, I’d— I’d kill myself, and write a letter first to say he did it ! "—Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. 4. HUSBANDS— Mrs. Jiniwin’s treatment of. All the ladies then sighed in concert, shook their heads gravely, and looked at Mrs. Quilp as at a martyr. Ah ! ” said the spokeswoman, “ I wish you’d give her a little of your advice, Mrs. Jiniwin,” — Mrs. Quilp had been a Miss Jiniwin, it should be observed — “ nobody knows better than you, 1 ma am, what us women owe to ourselves.” t Owe indeed, maam !” replied Mrs. Jiniwin. 1 “ When my poor husband, her dear father, was alive, if he had ever ventur’d a cross word to me, I’d have ” the good old lady did not finish the sentence, but she twisted off the head of a shrimp with a vindictiveness which seemed to imply that the action was in some degree a S substitute for words. In this light it was clearly understood by the other party, who immediately replied with great approbation, “ You quite enter into my feelings, ma’am, and it’s jist what I’d do myself.” — Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. 4. HUSBAND- A surly. 1 ^ a billing thing to have one’s husband sulking and falling asleep directly he comes ■ home— to have him freezing all one’s warm- heartedness, and throwing cold water over the fireside ? ” — Barnahy Budge, Chap. 7. HUSBAND— Pott, the subjugated. “Upon my word, sir,” said the astonished ; Mrs. I ott, stooping to pick up the paper. I Upon my word, sir ! ” Mr. Pott winced beneath the contemptuous gaze of his wife. He had made a desperate struggle to screw up his courage, but it was fist coming unscrewed again. There appears nothing very tremendous in this little sentence, “ Upon my word, sir,” when it comes to be read ; but the tone of voice in which it was delivered, and the look that ac- companied it, both seeming to bear reference to some revenge to be thereafter visited upon the head of Pott, produced their full effect upon him. The most unskillful observer could have detected in his troubled countenance, a readi- ness to resign his Wellington boots to any effi- cient substitute who would have consented to stand in them at that moment. Pott looked very frightened. It was time to finish him. “And now,” sobbed Mrs. Pott, “ now, after all, to be treated in this way ; to be reproached and insulted in the presence of a third party, and that party almost a stranger. But I will not submit to it ! Goodwin,” continued Mrs. Pott, raising herself in the arms of her atten- dant, “my brother, the Lieutenant, shall inter- fere. I’ll be separated, Goodwin ! ” It would certainly serve him right, ma’am,” said Goodwin. Whatever thoughts the threat of a separation might have awakened in Mr. Pott’s mind, he forebore to give utterance to them, and con- tented himself by saying, with great humility : “ My dear, will you hear me ? ” A fresh train of sobs was the only reply, as Mrs. Pott grew more hysterical, requested to be informed why she was ever born, and required sundry other pieces of information of a similar description. — Pickwick, Chap. 18. HYPOCRITES — Their moral book-keeping. There are some men who, living with the one object of enriching themselves, no matter by what means, and being perfectly conscious of the baseness and rascality of the means which they will use every day towards this end, affect nevertheless — even to themselves— a high tone of moral rectitude, and shake their heads and sigh over the depravity of the world. Some of the craftiest scoundrels that ever walked this earth, or rather— for walking implies, at least, an erect position and the bearing of a man — that ever crawled and crept through life by its dirtiest and narrowest ways, will gravely jot down in diaries the events of every day, and keep a regular debtor and creditor account with Heaven, which shall always show a floating bal- ance in their own favor. Whether this is a gra- tuitous (the only gratuitous) part of the falsehood and trickery of such men’s lives, or whether they really hope to cheat Heaven itself, and lay up treasuie in the next world by the same process which has enabled them to lay up treasure in this— not to question how it is, so it is. And, doubtless, such book-keeping (like certain auto- biographies which have enlightened the world) cannot fail to prove serviceable, in the one re- spect of sparing the recording Angel some time and labor . — Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 44. HYPOCRITE-The. Mr. Carker the Manager rose with the lark, and went out walking in the summer day. His HYPOCRISY AND CONCEIT 244 HYPOCHONDRIACS meditations — and he meditated with contracted I brows while he strolled along— hardly seemed to soar as high as the lark, or to mount in that direction ; rather they kept close to their nest upon the earth, and looked about, among the dust and worms. But there was not a bird in the air, singing unseen, farther beyond the reach of human eye than Mr. Carker’s thoughts. He had | his face so perfectly under control, that few could say more, in distinct terms, of its expression, than that it smiled or that it pondered. It pon- dered now, intently. As the lark rose higher, he sank deeper in thought. As the lark poured out her melody clearer and stronger, he fell into a graver and profounder silence. At length when the lark came headlong down, with an accumulating stream of song, and dropped among the gieen wheat near him, rippling in the breath of the morning like a river, he sprang up from his reverie, and looked around with a sudden smile, as coui'teous and as soft as if he had had numerous observers to propitiate : nor did he relapse, after being thus awakened ; but clear- ing his face, like one who bethought himself that it might otherwise wrinkle and tell tales, went smiling on, as if for practice. Dombey