Charles Dickens

“ And there, the while she sat all alone revolving how ill she was used, and how much better she was than the people who were not alone, the wedding breakfast was going on: no question of it! With a nasty great bride–cake, and with those ridiculous orange–flowers, and with that conceited bride, and that hideous bridegroom, and those heartless bridesmaids, and Miss Pupford stuck up at the table! They thought they were enjoying themselves, but it would come home to them one day to have thought so. They would all be dead in a few years, let them enjoy themselves ever so much. ”

“ Traveller, “I was made to ask myself that very question only a few minutes ago—by a Tinker too.”
As he glanced towards the gate in saying it, the Hermit glanced in that direction likewise.
“Yes. He is lying on his back in the sunlight outside,” said Mr, Traveller, as if he had been asked concerning the man, “and he won’t come in; for he says—and really very reasonably—‘What should I come in for? I can see a dirty man anywhere.’”
“You are an insolent person. Go away from my premises. Go!” said the Hermit, in an imperious and angry tone. ”

“ When Miss Pupford and her assistant first foregathered, is not known to men, or pupils. But, it was long ago. A belief would have established itself among pupils that the two once went to school together, were it not for the difficulty and audacity of imagining Miss Pupford born without mittens, and without a front, and without a bit of gold wire among her front teeth, and without little dabs of powder on her neat little face and nose. ”

“ But, the home–adorning, self–denying qualities of Grace, and her sweet temper, so gentle and retiring, yet including so much constancy and bravery of spirit, seemed all expressed to him in the contrast between her quiet household figure and that of his younger and more beautiful child; and he was sorry for her sake—sorry for them both—that life should be such a very ridiculous business as it was.
The Doctor never dreamed of inquiring whether his children, or either of them, helped in any way to make the scheme a serious one. But then he was a Philosopher. ”

“ The lines of her placid little nose are so undecided in it that strangers to the work of art are observed to be exceedingly perplexed as to where the nose goes to, and involuntarily feel their own noses in a disconcerted manner. Miss Pupford being represented in a state of dejection at an open window, ruminating over a bowl of gold fish, the pupil-mind has settled that the bowl was presented by G, and that he wreathed the bowl with flowers of soul, and that Miss Pupford is depicted as waiting for him on a memorable occasion when he was behind his time. ”

“ As to harm, you more than sweetest, if not a liberty,” exclaimed the housemaid, in a rapture, “your Bella could trust you anywhere, being so steady, and so answerable. The oldest head in this house (me and Cook says) , but for its bright hair, is Miss Kimmeens. But no, I will not leave you; for you would think your Bella unkind.”
“But if you are my Bella, you must go,” returned the child.
“Must I?” said the housemaid, rising, on the whole with alacrity. “What must be, must be, Miss Kimmeens. Your own poor Bella acts according, though unwilling. ”

“ So altered was the battle–ground, where thousands upon thousands had been killed in the great fight.
Nowhere more altered, perhaps, about a hundred years ago, than in one little orchard attached to an old stone house with a honeysuckle porch; where, on a bright autumn morning, there were sounds of music and laughter, and where two girls danced merrily together on the grass, while some half–dozen peasant women standing on ladders, gathering the apples from the trees, stopped in their work to look down, and share their enjoyment. ”

“ The notion of wishing happy returns in such a farce as this,’ said the Doctor to himself, ‘is good! Ha! ha! ha!’
Doctor Jeddler was, as I have said, a great philosopher, and the heart and mystery of his philosophy was, to look upon the world as a gigantic practical joke; as something too absurd to be considered seriously, by any rational man. His system of belief had been, in the beginning, part and parcel of the battle–ground on which he lived, as you shall presently understand.
‘Well! But how did you get the music?’ asked the Doctor. 'Poultry–stealers, of course! ”

“ Their streaming hair and fluttering skirts, the elastic grass beneath their feet, the boughs that rustled in the morning air—the flashing leaves, the speckled shadows on the soft green ground—the balmy wind that swept along the landscape, glad to turn the distant windmill, cheerily—everything between the two girls, and the man and team at plough upon the ridge of land, where they showed against the sky as if they were the last things in the world—seemed dancing too. ”

“ Both the sisters listened keenly.
‘Well, well!’ said the Doctor, ‘I am too old to be converted, even by my friend Snitchey here, or my good spinster sister, Martha Jeddler; who had what she calls her domestic trials ages ago, and has led a sympathising life with all sorts of people ever since; and who is so much of your opinion (only she's less reasonable and more obstinate, being a woman) , that we can't agree, and seldom meet. I was born upon this battle–field. I began, as a boy, to have my thoughts directed to the real history of a battle–field. ”

“ Snitchey,’ said Alfred, ‘there are quiet victories and struggles, great sacrifices of self, and noble acts of heroism, in it—even in many of its apparent lightnesses and contradictions—not the less difficult to achieve, because they have no earthly chronicle or audience—done every day in nooks and corners, and in little households, and in men's and women's hearts—any one of which might reconcile the sternest man to such a world, and fill him with belief and hope in it, though two–fourths of its people were at war, and another fourth at law ”

“ Snitchey, diverting himself at her expense. ‘And what does the thimble say?’
‘It says,’ replied Clemency, reading slowly round as if it were a tower, ‘For–get and For–give.’
Snitchey and Craggs laughed heartily. ‘So new!’ said Snitchey. ‘So easy!’ said Craggs. ‘Such a knowledge of human nature in it!’ said Snitchey. ‘So applicable to the affairs of life!’ said Craggs. ”

“ Snitchey, standing a small professional blue bag against one leg of the table, ‘cut the great farce short for this actress, at all events, Doctor Jeddler.’
‘No,’ returned the Doctor. ‘God forbid! May she live to laugh at it, as long as she CAN laugh, and then say, with the French wit, “The farce is ended; draw the curtain.”'
‘The French wit,’ said Mr. Snitchey, peeping sharply into his blue bag, ‘was wrong, Doctor Jeddler, and your philosophy is altogether wrong, depend upon it, as I have often told you. Nothing serious in life! ”

“ A kind and generous man by nature, he had stumbled, by chance, over that common Philosopher's stone (much more easily discovered than the object of the alchemist's researches) , which sometimes trips up kind and generous men, and has the fatal property of turning gold to dross and every precious thing to poor account.
‘Britain!’ cried the Doctor. ‘Britain! Holloa!’
A small man, with an uncommonly sour and discontented face, emerged from the house, and returned to this call the unceremonious acknowledgment of ‘Now then!’
‘Where's the breakfast table?’ said the Doctor. ”

“ For he was a great philosopher, Doctor Jeddler, and not very musical.
‘Music and dancing TO–DAY!’ said the Doctor, stopping short, and speaking to himself. ‘I thought they dreaded to–day. But it's a world of contradictions. Why, Grace, why, Marion!’ he added, aloud, ‘is the world more mad than usual this morning?’
‘Make some allowance for it, father, if it be,’ replied his younger daughter, Marion, going close to him, and looking into his face, ‘for it's somebody's birth–day.’
‘Somebody's birth–day, Puss!’ replied the Doctor. ‘Don't you know it's always somebody's birth–day? ”

“ Grace, my dear! Marion! Here are Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs. Where's Alfred!’
‘He'll be back directly, father, no doubt,’ said Grace. ‘He had so much to do this morning in his preparations for departure, that he was up and out by daybreak. Good morning, gentlemen.’
‘Ladies!’ said Mr. Snitchey, ‘for Self and Craggs,’ who bowed, ‘good morning! Miss,’ to Marion, ‘I kiss your hand.’ Which he did. ”

“ A nice old family, the Hermit family. Hah!”
Mr. Traveller thought this, as he silently confronted the sooty object in the blanket and skewer (in sober truth it wore nothing else) , with the matted hair and the staring eyes. Further, Mr. Traveller thought, as the eye surveyed him with a very obvious curiosity in ascertaining the effect they produced, “Vanity, vanity, vanity! Verily, all is vanity!”
“What is your name, sir, and where do you come from?” asked Mr. Mopes the Hermit—with an air of authority, but in the ordinary human speech of one who has been to school. ”

“ Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the sights the moon beheld upon that field, when, coming up above the black line of distant rising–ground, softened and blurred at the edge by trees, she rose into the sky and looked upon the plain, strewn with upturned faces that had once at mothers' breasts sought mothers' eyes, or slumbered happily. ”

“ On this ground where we now sit, where I saw my two girls dance this morning, where the fruit has just been gathered for our eating from these trees, the roots of which are struck in Men, not earth,—so many lives were lost, that within my recollection, generations afterwards, a churchyard full of bones, and dust of bones, and chips of cloven skulls, has been dug up from underneath our feet here. ”

“ Traveller, lounging easily on his billet of wood, took out a pocket pipe and began to fill it. “Now, that a man,” he said, appealing to the summer sky as he did so, “that a man—even behind bars, in a blanket and skewer—should tell me that he can see, from day to day, any orders or conditions of men, women, or children, who can by any possibility teach him that it is anything but the miserablest drivelling for a human creature to quarrel with his social nature—not to go so far as to say, to renounce his common human decency, for that is an extreme case ”

“ Thus delightfully ushered in, the holidays began. Five of the six pupils kissed little Kitty Kimmeens twenty times over (round total, one hundred times, for she was very popular) , and so went home. Miss Kitty Kimmeens remained behind, for her relations and friends were all in India, far away. A self–helpful steady little child is Miss Kitty Kimmeens: a dimpled child too, and a loving.
So, the great marriage–day came, and Miss Pupford, quite as much fluttered as any bride could be (G! thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens) , went away, splendid to behold, in the carriage that was sent for her. ”

“ If it don't happen to be good for my work to–day, it's good for some other man's to–day, and will come round to me to–morrow. We must all live."
"Pray shake hands," said Mr. Traveller.
"Take care, sir," was the Tinker's caution, as he reached up his hand in surprise; "the black comes off."
"I am glad of it," said Mr. Traveller. "I have been for several hours among other black that does not come off."
"You are speaking of Tom in there?"
"Yes."
"Well now," said the Tinker, blowing the dust off his job: which was finished. "Ain't it enough to disgust a pig, if he could give his mind to it?" ”

“ Mopes, that you are not only a Nuisance—”
“A Nuisance?” repeated the Hermit, fiercely.
“What is a place in this obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance? What is a man in your obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance? Then, as you very well know, you cannot do without an audience, and your audience is a Nuisance. ”

“ Snitchey.
‘I don't understand,’ retorted Clemency, shaking her head vaguely. ‘I an't no lawyer.’
‘I am afraid that if she was, Doctor,’ said Mr. Snitchey, turning to him suddenly, as if to anticipate any effect that might otherwise be consequent on this retort, ‘she'd find it to be the golden rule of half her clients. They are serious enough in that—whimsical as your world is—and lay the blame on us afterwards. We, in our profession, are little else than mirrors after all, Mr. Alfred ”

“ Marion had stood apart, with her eyes fixed upon the ground; but, this warning being given, her young lover brought her tenderly to where her sister stood, and gave her into her embrace.
‘I have been telling Grace, dear Marion,’ he said, ‘that you are her charge; my precious trust at parting. And when I come back and reclaim you, dearest, and the bright prospect of our married life lies stretched before us, it shall be one of our chief pleasures to consult how we can make Grace happy; how we can anticipate her wishes; how we can show our gratitude and love to her ”

“ She shared her room with her dearest little friend among the other five pupils, and why then should she now conceive a lurking dread of the little friend’s bedstead? But she did. There was a stealthy air about its innocent white curtains, and there were even dark hints of a dead girl lying under the coverlet. The great want of human company, the great need of a human face, began now to express itself in the facility with which the furniture put on strange exaggerated resemblances to human looks. ”

“ Come!” apostrophising the gate. “Open Sesame! Show his eyes and grieve his heart! I don’t care who comes, for I know what must come of it!”
With that, he faced round a little on his billet of wood towards the gate; and Mr. Mopes, the Hermit, after two or three ridiculous bounces of indecision at his bed and back again, submitted to what he could not help himself against, and coiled himself on his window-ledge, holding to his bars and looking out rather anxiously. ”

“ Affectionate tears are invariably seen in Miss Pupford's meek little eyes when this is the case; and the pupil–mind, perceiving that its order has distinguished itself—though the fact is never mentioned by Miss Pupford—becomes elevated, and feels that it likewise is reserved for greatness.
Miss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian accent has a little more bone than Miss Pupford, but is of the same trim orderly diminutive cast, and, from long contemplation, admiration, and imitation of Miss Pupford, has grown like her. ”