William Makepeace Thackeray

“ When Lady Knightsbridge went down, down went Kicklebury. Milliken and his wife stayed, and were ill together on deck. A palm of glory ought to be awarded to that man for his angelic patience, energy, and suffering. It was he who went for Mrs. Milliken's maid, who wouldn't come to her mistress; it was he, the shyest of men, who stormed the ladies' cabin—that maritime harem—in order to get her mother's bottle of salts; it was he who went for the brandy-and-water, and begged, and prayed, and besought his adored Lavinia to taste a leetle drop. ”

“ But as he lay there stretched on the pink satin sofa, Angelica still persisted in thinking him the most beautiful of human beings. No doubt the magic rose which Bulbo wore caused this infatuation on Angelica's part; but is she the first young woman who has thought a silly fellow charming?
Giglio must go and sit by Gruffanuff, whose old face he, too, every moment began to find more lovely. He paid the most outrageous compliments to her:—There never was such a darling. Older than he was?—Fiddle-de-dee! He would marry her—he would, have nothing but her!
To marry the heir to the throne! ”

“ Deign to be mine, and I swear to bring to your bridal table the head of King Padella, the eyes and nose of his son Prince Bulbo, the right hand and ears of the usurping Sovereign of Paflagonia, which country shall thenceforth be an appanage to your—to OUR Crown! Say yes; Hogginarmo is not accustomed to be denied. Indeed I cannot contemplate the possibility of a refusal; for frightful will be the result; dreadful the murders; furious the devastations; horrible the tyranny; tremendous the tortures, misery, taxation, which the people of this realm will endure, if Hogginarmo's wrath be aroused! ”

“ And in token of his fealty, he rubbed his venerable nose three times on the ground, and put the Princess's foot on his head.
"Why," said she, "my good woodman, you must be a nobleman of my royal father's Court!" For in her lowly retreat, and under the name of Betsinda, HER MAJESTY, ROSALBA, Queen of Crim Tartary, had read of the customs of all foreign courts and nations.
"Marry, indeed, am I, my gracious liege—the poor Lord Spinachi once—the humble woodman these fifteen years syne—ever since the tyrant Padella (may ruin overtake the treacherous knave!) ”

“ Yes, dear, he is better," says the Queen. "Angelica's little maid, Betsinda, told me so when she came to my room this morning with my early tea."
"You are always drinking tea," said the monarch, with a scowl.
"It is better than drinking port or brandy-and-water," replies her Majesty.
"Well, well, my dear, I only said you were fond of drinking tea," said the King of Paflagonia, with an effort as if to command his temper. "Angelica! I hope you have plenty of new dresses; your milliners' bills are long enough. My dear Queen, you must see and have some parties. ”

“ The Prince is a prisoner in our army, and the most terrific tortures await him if a hair of the Princess Rosalba's head is injured."
"Do they?" exclaimed the furious Padella, who was now perfectly LIVID with rage. "Do they indeed? So much the worse for Bulbo. I've twenty sons as lovely each as Bulbo. Not one but is as fit to reign as Bulbo. Whip, whack, flog, starve, rack, punish, torture Bulbo—break all his bones—roast him or flay him alive—pull all his pretty teeth out one by one! But justly dear as Bulbo is to me,—joy of my eyes, fond treasure of my soul!—Ha, ha, ha, ha! ”

“ Fancy Betsinda's condition, who had been in love with the Prince ever since she first saw him in the palace garden, when she was quite a little child.
"Oh, divine Betsinda!" says the Prince, "how have I lived fifteen years in thy company without seeing thy perfections? What woman in all Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, nay, in Australia, only it is not yet discovered, can presume to be thy equal? Angelica? Pish! Gruffanuff? Phoo! The Queen? Ha, ha! Thou art my Queen. Thou art the real Angelica, because thou art really angelic." ”

“ I say; "he is a captain of dragoons, and his father an attorney in Bedford Row. The whiskers of a roturier, my good Lankin, grow as long as the beard of a Plantagenet. It don't require much noble blood to learn the polka. If you were younger, Lankin, we might go for a shilling a night, and dance every evening at M. Laurent's Casino, and skip about in a little time as well as that fellow. Only we despise the kind of thing you know,—only we're too grave, and too steady." ”

“ Turn thy eyes on a middle-aged autocrat, who has been considered not ill-looking in his time."
"Oh, sir! what will her Majesty say?" cries Betsinda.
"Her Majesty!" laughs the monarch. "Her Majesty be hanged. Am I not Autocrat of Paflagonia? Have I not blocks, ropes, axes, hangmen—ha? Runs not a river by my palace wall? Have I not sacks to sew up wives withal? Say but the word, that thou wilt be mine own,—your mistress straightway in a sack is sewn, and thou the sharer of my heart and throne." ”

“ Perhaps they become croupiers at night. What can such a fabulous prince want with anything but a sham army? My favorite walk was in the ancient quarter of the town—the dear old fabulous quarter, away from the noisy actualities of life and Prince Lenoir's new palace—out of eye and earshot of the dandies and the ladies in their grand best clothes at the promenades—and the rattling whirl of the roulette wheel—and I liked to wander in the glum old gardens under the palace wall, and imagine the Sleeping Beauty within there. ”

“ She has no idea but that everything she says, and thinks, and does is right. And no doubt she never did rob a church: and was a faithful wife to Sir Thomas, and pays her tradesmen. Confound her virtue! It is that which makes her so wonderful—that brass armor in which she walks impenetrable—not knowing what pity is, or charity; crying sometimes when she is vexed, or thwarted, but laughing never; cringing, and domineering by the same natural instinct—never doubting about herself above all. Let us rise, and revolt against those people, Lankin. ”

“ Lady Kicklebury at this gave three screams, so loud that even the resolute Lavinia stopped in her speech. Her ladyship looked wildly: "Lavinia! Horace! Fanny my child," she said, "come here, and listen to your mother's shame."
"What?" cried Horace, aghast.
"I am ruined! I am a beggar! Yes; a beggar. I have lost all—all at yonder dreadful table."
"How do you mean all? How much is all?" asked Horace. ”

“ The Prince of Trente et Quarante has quite overcome the old serene sovereign of Noirbourg, whom one cannot help fancying a prince like a prince in a Christmas pantomime—a burlesque prince with twopence-halfpenny for a revenue, jolly and irascible, a prime-minister-kicking prince, fed upon fabulous plum-puddings and enormous pasteboard joints, by cooks and valets with large heads which never alter their grin. Not that this portrait is from the life. Perhaps he has no life. Perhaps there is no prince in the great white tower, that we see for miles before we enter the little town. ”

“ So you see she works as much as three maid-servants for the wages of one. She is as thankful when the Doctor gives her a new gown, as if he had presented her with a fortune; laughs at his stories most good-humoredly, listens to Zoe's scolding most meekly, admires Rosa with all her heart, and only goes out of the way when Jack Birch shows his sallow face: for she can't bear him, and always finds work when he comes near.
How different she is when some folks approach her! ”

“ Though a quadrille seems to me as dreary as a funeral, yet to look at a polka, I own, is pleasant. See! Brown and Emily Bustleton are whirling round as light as two pigeons over a dovecot; Tozer, with that wicked whisking little Jones, spins along as merrily as a May-day sweep; Miss Joy is the partner of the happy Fred Sparks; and even Miss Ranville is pleased, for the faultless Captain Grig is toe and heel with her. Beaumoris, with rather a nonchalant air, takes a turn with Miss Trotter, at which Lord Methuseleh's wrinkled chops quiver uneasily. ”

“ Near us is a type, too: a man who adorns his own tale, and points his own moral. "Yonder, in his carriage, sits the Count de Reineck, who won't travel without that dismal old chariot, though it is shabby, costly, and clumsy, and though the wicked red republicans come and smoke under his very nose. Yes, Miss Fanny, it is the lusty young Germany, pulling the nose of the worn-out old world."
"Law, what DO you mean, Mr. Titmarsh?" cries the dear Fanny. ”

“ I will live and die unmarried like Queen Elizabeth, and, of course, I shall leave my crown to Giglio when I quit this world. Let us go and see them married, my dear Fairy, let me say one last farewell to him; and then, if you please, I will return to my own dominions."
So the Fairy kissed Rosalba with peculiar tenderness, and at once changed her wand into a very comfortable coach-and-four, with a steady coachman, and two respectable footmen behind, and the Fairy and Rosalba got into the coach, which Angelica and Bulbo entered after them. ”

“ A great prince is Lenoir in his way; a generous and magnanimous prince. You may come to his feast and pay nothing, unless you please. You may walk in his gardens, sit in his palace, and read his thousand newspapers. You may go and play at whist in his small drawing-rooms, or dance and hear concerts in his grand saloon—and there is not a penny to pay. His fiddlers and trumpeters begin trumpeting and fiddling for you at the early dawn—they twang and blow for you in the afternoon, they pipe for you at night that you may dance—and there is nothing to pay—Lenoir pays for all. ”

“ Has it not been said that we carry our prejudices everywhere, and only admire what we are accustomed to admire in our own country?
Yonder walks a handsome young soldier who has just been marrying a wife. How happy they seem! and how pleased that everybody should remark their happiness. It is a fact that in the full sunshine, and before a couple of hundred people on board the Joseph Miller steamer, the soldier absolutely kissed Mrs. Soldier; at which the sweet Fanny Kicklebury was made to blush. ”

“ Among the travellers in Europe, who are daily multiplying in numbers and increasing in splendor, the United States' dandies must not be omitted. They seem as rich as the Milor of old days; they crowd in European capitals; they have elbowed out people of the old country from many hotels which we used to frequent; they adopt the French fashion of dressing rather than ours, and they grow handsomer beards than English beards: as some plants are found to flourish and shoot up prodigiously when introduced into a new soil. The ladies seem to be as well dressed as Parisians, and as handsome ”

“ And all the courtiers exhibited by their countenances and expressions, marks of surprise, or ridicule, or incredulity, or wonder.
"I should like to know who else is going to be married, if I am not?" shrieks out Gruffanuff. "I should like to know if King Giglio is a gentleman, and if there is such a thing as justice in Paflagonia? Lord Chancellor! my Lord Archbishop! will your Lordships sit by and see a poor, fond, confiding, tender creature put upon? Has not Prince Giglio promised to marry his Barbara? Is not this Giglio's signature? ”

“ Come, sir, cosmopolite as you are, passing all your winters at Rome or at Paris; exiled by choice, or poverty, from your own country; preferring easier manners, cheaper pleasures, a simpler life: are you not still proud of your British citizenship? and would you like to be a Frenchman?
Kicklebury has a great acquaintance at Noirbourg, and as he walks into the great concert-room at night, introducing his mother and sisters there, he seemed to look about with a little anxiety, lest all of his acquaintance should recognize him. ”

“ Pleasure-seekers from every nation in the world are here, sharpers of both sexes, wearers of the stars and cordons of every court in Europe; Russian princesses, Spanish grandees, Belgian, French, and English nobles, every degree of Briton, from the ambassador, who has his conge, to the London apprentice who has come out for his fortnight's lark. Kicklebury knows them all, and has a good-natured nod for each. ”

“ One day, Lorenzo showed the Princess a portrait of a young man in armor, with fair hair and the loveliest blue eyes, and an expression at once melancholy and interesting.
"Dear Signor Lorenzo, who is this?" asked the Princess. "I never saw anyone so handsome," says Countess Gruffanuff (the old humbug) .
"That," said the painter, "that, Madam, is the portrait of my august young master, his Royal Highness Bulbo, Crown Prince of Crim Tartary, Duke of Acroceraunia, Marquis of Poluphloisboio, and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Pumpkin. ”

“ As for Blackstick, she, according to her custom, had flown out of the coach window in some inscrutable manner, and was now standing at the palace door.
Giglio came up the steps with his horrible bride on his arm, looking as pale as if he was going to execution. He only frowned at the Fairy Blackstick—he was angry with her, and thought she came to insult his misery.
"Get out of the way, pray," says Gruffanuff haughtily. "I wonder why you are always poking your nose into other people's affairs?" ”

“ Captain Hicks bursts into a laugh at the sight of the fat Freyschutz, and says, "By Jove, Titmarsh, you must cawickachaw him." And we take our seats at length and at leisure, and the railway trumpets blow, and (save for a brief halt) we never stop till night, trumpeting by green flats and pastures, by broad canals and old towns, through Liege and Verviers, through Aix and Cologne, till we are landed at Bonn at nightfall.
We all have supper, or tea—we have become pretty intimate—we look at the strangers' book, as a matter of course, in the great room of the "Star Hotel." ”

“ That opinion no man can ask his honor to alter; but (the beer being the question) , why make unpleasant allusions to the Gazette, and hint at the probable bankruptcy of the brewer? Why twit me with my poverty; and what can the Times' critic know about the vacuity of my exchequer? Did he ever lend me any money? Does he not himself write for money? (and who would grudge it to such a polite and generous and learned author?) If he finds no disgrace in being paid, why should I? If he has ever been poor, why should he joke at my empty exchequer? ”

“ YOU, Giglio, had you been bred in prosperity, would scarcely have learned to read or write—you would have been idle and extravagant, and could not have been a good King as now you will be. You, Rosalba, would have been so flattered, that your little head might have been turned like Angelica's, who thought herself too good for Giglio. ”

“ There was a shabby set of clean old rooms, which looked as if they had belonged to a prince hard put to it for money, and whose tin crown jewels would not fetch more than King Stephen's pantaloons. A fugitive prince, a brave prince struggling with the storms of fate, a prince in exile may be poor; but a prince looking out of his own palace windows with a dressing-gown out at elbows, and dunned by his subject washerwoman—I say this is a painful object. When they get shabby they ought not to be seen. "Don't you think so, Lady Kicklebury?" ”