The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable FamilyThackeray, William Makepeace
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The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Domestic fiction; Families -- England -- Fiction
By his bedside are slippers lined with blue silk and worked of an
ecclesiastical pattern, by some of the faithful who sit at his feet.
They come to him in anonymous parcels: they come to him in silver
paper: boys in buttons (pages who minister to female grace!) leave them
at the door for the Rev. C. Honeyman, and slip away without a word.
Purses are sent to him—penwipers—a portfolio with the Honeyman arms;
yea, braces have been known to reach him by the post (in his days of
popularity); and flowers, and grapes, and jelly when he was ill, and
throat comforters, and lozenges for his dear bronchitis. In one of his
drawers is the rich silk cassock presented to him by his congregation
at Leatherhead (when the young curate quitted that parish for London
duty), and on his breakfast-table the silver teapot, once filled with
sovereigns and presented by the same devotees. The devo-teapot he has,
but the sovereigns, where are they?
What a different life this is from our honest friend of Alcantara, who
eats once in three days! At one time if Honeyman could have drunk tea
three times in an evening, he might have had it. The glass on his
chimneypiece is crowded with invitations, not merely cards of ceremony
(of which there are plenty), but dear little confidential notes from
sweet friends of his congregation. “Ob, dear Mr. Honeyman,” writes
Blanche, “what a sermon that was! I cannot go to bed to-night without
thanking you for it.” “Do, _do_, dear Mr. Honeyman,” writes Beatrice,
“lend me that delightful sermon. And can you come and drink tea with me
and Selina, and my aunt? Papa and mamma dine out, but you know I am
always your faithful Chesterfield Street.” And so on. He has all the
domestic accomplishments; he plays on the violoncello: he sings a
delicious second, not only in sacred but in secular music. He has a
thousand anecdotes, laughable riddles, droll stories (of the utmost
correctness, you understand) with which he entertains females of all
ages; suiting his conversation to stately matrons, deaf old dowagers
(who can hear his clear voice better than the loudest roar of their
stupid sons-in-law), mature spinsters, young beauties dancing through
the season, even rosy little slips out of the nursery, who cluster
round his beloved feet. Societies fight for him to preach their charity
sermon. You read in the papers, “The Wapping Hospital for Wooden-legged
Seamen.—On Sunday the 23rd, Sermons will be preached in behalf of this
charity, by the Lord Bishop of Tobago in the morning, in the afternoon
by the Rev. C. Honeyman, A.M., Incumbent of,” etc. “Clergymen’s
Grandmothers’ Fund.—Sermons in aid of this admirable institution will
be preached on Sunday, 4th May, by the Very Rev. the Dean of Pimlico,
and the Rev. C. Honeyman, A.M.” When the Dean of Pimlico has his
illness, many people think Honeyman will have the Deanery; that he
ought to have it, a hundred female voices vow and declare: though it is
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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