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
And yet, somehow, the British doggedness does not always answer. "Do
you know that old woman in the drab jacket, Titmarsh?" my hereditary
legislator asks of me. "What the devil is she bothering ME for, about
my aunts, and setting her daughter at me? I ain't such a fool as that.
I ain't clever, Titmarsh; I never said I was. I never pretend to be
clever, and that--but why does that old fool bother ME, hay? Heigho!
I'm devilish thirsty. I was devilish cut last night. I think I must have
another go-off. Hallo you! Kellner! Garsong! Ody soda, Oter petty vare
do dyvee de Conac. That's your sort; isn't it, Leader?"
"You will speak French well enough, if you practise," says Leader with
a tender voice; "practice is everything. Shall we dine at the
table-d'hote? Waiter! put down the name of Viscount Talboys and Mr.
Leader, if you please."
The boat is full of all sorts and conditions of men. For'ard, there are
peasants and soldiers: stumpy, placid-looking little warriors for the
most part, smoking feeble cigars and looking quite harmless under their
enormous helmets. A poor stunted dull-looking boy of sixteen, staggering
before a black-striped sentry-box, with an enormous musket on his
shoulder, does not seem to me a martial or awe-inspiring object. Has it
not been said that we carry our prejudices everywhere, and only admire
what we are accustomed to admire in our own country?
Yonder walks a handsome young soldier who has just been marrying a wife.
How happy they seem! and how pleased that everybody should remark their
happiness. It is a fact that in the full sunshine, and before a couple
of hundred people on board the Joseph Miller steamer, the soldier
absolutely kissed Mrs. Soldier; at which the sweet Fanny Kicklebury was
made to blush.
We were standing together looking at the various groups: the pretty
peasant-woman (really pretty for once,) with the red head-dress and
fluttering ribbons, and the child in her arms; the jolly fat old
gentleman, who was drinking Rhine-wine before noon, and turning his back
upon all the castles, towers, and ruins, which reflected their crumbling
peaks in the water; upon the handsome young students who came with
us from Bonn, with their national colors in their caps, with their
picturesque looks, their yellow ringlets, their budding moustaches, and
with cuts upon almost every one of their noses, obtained in duels at the
university: most picturesque are these young fellows, indeed--but ah,
why need they have such black hands?
Near us is a type, too: a man who adorns his own tale, and points his
own moral. "Yonder, in his carriage, sits the Count de Reineck, who
won't travel without that dismal old chariot, though it is shabby,
costly, and clumsy, and though the wicked red republicans come and smoke
under his very nose. Yes, Miss Fanny, it is the lusty young Germany,
pulling the nose of the worn-out old world."
"Law, what DO you mean, Mr. Titmarsh?" cries the dear Fanny.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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