The Christmas Books of Mr. M.A. TitmarshThackeray, William Makepeace
General
The Christmas Books of Mr. M.A. Titmarsh
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Christmas stories, English
By the way, I have forgotten to mention the Doctor himself. And what
shall I say of him? Well, he has a very crisp gown and bands, a solemn
aspect, a tremendous loud voice, and a grand air with the boys' parents;
whom he receives in a study covered round with the best-bound books,
which imposes upon many--upon the women especially--and makes them fancy
that this is a Doctor indeed. But law bless you! He never reads the
books, or opens one of them; except that in which he keeps his bands--a
Dugdale's "Monasticon," which looks like a book, but is in reality a
cupboard, where he has his port, almond-cakes, and decanter of wine.
He gets up his classics with translations, or what the boys call cribs;
they pass wicked tricks upon him when he hears the forms. The elder wags
go to his study and ask him to help them in hard bits of Herodotus or
Thucydides: he says he will look over the passage, and flies for refuge
to Mr. Prince, or to the crib.
He keeps the flogging department in his own hands; finding that his
son was too savage. He has awful brows and a big voice. But his roar
frightens nobody. It is only a lion's skin; or, so to say, a muff.
Little Mordant made a picture of him with large ears, like a well-known
domestic animal, and had his own justly boxed for the caricature.
The Doctor discovered him in the fact, and was in a flaming rage, and
threatened whipping at first; but in the course of the day an opportune
basket of game arriving from Mordant's father, the Doctor became
mollified, and has burnt the picture with the ears. However, I have one
wafered up in my desk by the hand of the same little rascal.
THE COCK OF THE SCHOOL.
I am growing an old fellow, and have seen many great folks in the course
of my travels and time: Louis Philippe coming out of the Tuileries; his
Majesty the King of Prussia and the Reichsverweser accolading each other
at Cologne at my elbow; Admiral Sir Charles Napier (in an omnibus
once), the Duke of Wellington, the immortal Goethe at Weimar, the late
benevolent Pope Gregory XVI., and a score more of the famous in this
world--the whom whenever one looks at, one has a mild shock of awe and
tremor. I like this feeling and decent fear and trembling with which a
modest spirit salutes a GREAT MAN.
Well, I have seen generals capering on horseback at the head of their
crimson battalions; bishops sailing down cathedral aisles, with downcast
eyes, pressing their trencher caps to their hearts with their fat white
hands; college heads when her Majesty is on a visit; the doctor in all
his glory at the head of his school on speech-day: a great sight and all
great men these. I have never met the late Mr. Thomas Cribb, but I have
no doubt should have regarded him with the same feeling of awe with
which I look every day at George Champion, the Cock of Dr. Birch's
school.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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