The Fitz-Boodle PapersThackeray, William Makepeace
General
The Fitz-Boodle Papers
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Imaginary letters; Satire, English
This last epigram especially was voted so killing that it flew
like wildfire; and I know for a fact that our Charge-d'Affaires at
Kalbsbraten sent a courier express with it to the Foreign Office in
England, whence, through our amiable Foreign Secretary, Lord P-lm-rston,
it made its way into every fashionable circle: nay, I have reason to
believe caused a smile on the cheek of R-y-lty itself. Now that Time has
taken away the sting of these epigrams, there can be no harm in giving
them; and 'twas well enough then to endeavor to hide under the lash of
wit the bitter pangs of humiliation: but my heart bleeds now to think
that I should have ever brought a tear on the gentle cheek of Dorothea.
Not content with this--with humiliating her by satire, and with wounding
her accepted lover across the nose--I determined to carry my revenge
still farther, and to fall in love with somebody else. This person was
Ottilia v. Schlippenschlopp.
Otho Sigismund Freyherr von Schlippenschlopp, Knight Grand Cross of
the Ducal Order of the Two-Necked Swan of Pumpernickel, of the
Porc-et-Siflet of Kalbsbraten, Commander of the George and Blue-Boar of
Dummerland, Excellency, and High Chancellor of the United Duchies, lived
in the second floor of a house in the Schwapsgasse; where, with his
private income and his revenues as Chancellor, amounting together to
some 300L. per annum, he maintained such a state as very few other
officers of the Grand-Ducal Crown could exhibit. The Baron is married to
Marie Antoinette, a Countess of the house of Kartoffelstadt, branches
of which have taken root all over Germany. He has no sons, and but one
daughter, the Fraulein OTTILIA.
The Chancellor is a worthy old gentleman, too fat and wheezy to preside
at the Privy Council, fond of his pipe, his ease, and his rubber. His
lady is a very tall and pale Roman-nosed Countess, who looks as gentle
as Mrs. Robert Roy, where, in the novel, she is for putting Baillie
Nicol Jarvie into the lake, and who keeps the honest Chancellor in the
greatest order. The Fraulein Ottilia had not arrived at Kalbsbraten when
the little affair between me and Dorothea was going on; or rather had
only just come in for the conclusion of it, being presented for the
first time that year at the ball where I--where I met with my accident.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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