The Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush — John Shaqi
The Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. YellowplushThackeray, William Makepeace
General
The Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Didactic fiction; England -- Fiction; Household employees -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Master and servant -- Fiction
In the fust place, and in coarse, they hated each other. My lady was
twenty-seven--a widdo of two years--fat, fair, and rosy. A slow, quiet,
cold-looking woman, as those fair-haired gals generally are, it seemed
difficult to rouse her either into likes or dislikes; to the former,
at least. She never loved any body but ONE, and that was herself. She
hated, in her calm, quiet way, almost every one else who came near
her--every one, from her neighbor, the duke, who had slighted her at
dinner, down to John the footman, who had torn a hole in her train. I
think this woman's heart was like one of them lithograffic stones, you
CAN'T RUB OUT ANY THING when once it's drawn or wrote on it; nor could
you out of her ladyship's stone--heart, I mean--in the shape of an
affront, a slight, or real, or phansied injury. She boar an exlent,
irreprotchable character, against which the tongue of scandal never
wagged. She was allowed to be the best wife posbill--and so she was; but
she killed her old husband in two years, as dead as ever Mr. Thurtell
killed Mr. William Weare. She never got into a passion, not she--she
never said a rude word; but she'd a genius--a genius which many women
have--of making A HELL of a house, and tort'ring the poor creatures of
her family, until they were wellnigh drove mad.
Miss Matilda Griffin was a good deal uglier, and about as amiable as
her mother-in-law. She was crooked, and squinted; my lady, to do her
justice, was straight, and looked the same way with her i's. She was
dark, and my lady was fair--sentimental, as her ladyship was cold. My
lady was never in a passion--Miss Matilda always; and awfille were the
scenes which used to pass between these 2 women, and the wickid, wickid
quarls which took place. Why did they live together? There was the
mistry. Not related, and hating each other like pison, it would surely
have been easier to remain seprat, and so have detested each other at a
distans.
As for the fortune which old Sir George had left, that, it was clear,
was very considrabble--300 thousand lb. at the least, as I have heard
say. But nobody knew how it was disposed of. Some said that her ladyship
was sole mistriss of it, others that it was divided, others that she had
only a life inkum, and that the money was all to go (as was natral) to
Miss Matilda. These are subjix which are not praps very interesting to
the British public, but were mighty important to my master, the
Honrable Algernon Percy Deuceace, esquire, barrister-at-law, etsettler,
etsettler.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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