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
“A woman, my love,” answers the gentleman, behind whom we have been in
imagination walking out from Charles Honeyman’s church on a Sunday in
June: as the whole pavement blooms with artificial flowers and fresh
bonnets; as there is a buzz and cackle all around regarding the sermon;
as carriages drive off; as lady-dowagers walk home; as prayer-books and
footmen’s sticks gleam in the sun; as little boys with baked mutton and
potatoes pass from the courts; as children issue from the public-houses
with pots of beer; as the Reverend Charles Honeyman, who has been
drawing tears in the sermon, and has seen, not without complacent
throbs, a Secretary of State in the pew beneath him, divests himself of
his rich silk cassock in the vestry, before he walks away to his
neighbouring hermitage—where have we placed it?—in Walpole Street. I
wish St. Pedro of Alcantara could have some of that shoulder of mutton
with the baked potatoes, and a drink of that frothing beer. See, yonder
trots little Lord Dozeley, who has been asleep for an hour with his
head against the wood, like St. Pedro of Alcantara.
An East Indian gentleman and his son wait until the whole chapel is
clear, and survey Lady Whittlesea’s monument at their leisure, and
other hideous slabs erected in memory of defunct frequenters of the
chapel. Whose was that face which Colonel Newcome thought he
recognised—that of a stout man who came down from the organ-gallery?
Could it be Broff the bass singer, who delivered the “Red Cross Knight”
with such applause at the Cave of Melody, and who has been singing in
this place? There are some chapels in London, where, the function over,
one almost expects to see the sextons put brown hollands over the pews
and galleries, as they do at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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