Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
This proper name, so used by Mr. Snagsby, has before now sharpened the
wit of the Cook's-Courtiers to remark that it ought to be the name of
Mrs. Snagsby; seeing that she might with great force and expression be
termed a Guster, in compliment to her stormy character. It is, however,
the possession, and the only possession, except fifty shillings per
annum and a very small box indifferently filled with clothing, of
a lean young woman from a workhouse (by some supposed to have been
christened Augusta); who, although she was farmed or contracted for,
during her growing time, by an amiable benefactor of his species
resident at Tooting, and can not fail to have been developed under
the most favorable circumstances, "has fits"--which the parish can't
account for.
Guster, really aged three or four and twenty, but looking a round ten
years older, goes cheap with this unaccountable drawback of fits; and
is so apprehensive 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 any thing else that happens to be
near her at the time of her seizure, she is always 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 satisfaction 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 believes 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 apartment in
Christendom. The view it commands of Cook's Court, at one end (not to
mention a squint into Cursitor Street), and of Coavins's the Sheriff's
Officer's backyard at the other, she regards as a prospect of unequaled
beauty. The portraits it displays in oil--and plenty of it too--of Mr.
Snagsby looking at Mrs. Snagsby, and of Mrs. Snagsby looking at Mr.
Snagsby, are in her eyes as achievements of Raphael or Titian. Guster
has some recompense for her many privations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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