Amelia Osborne

“ And you had better send that woman some money," Mr. Osborne said before he went out. "She shan't want for nothing. Send her a hundred pound. But she don't come in here, mind. No, not for all the money in London."
A few days are past, and the great event of Amelia's life is consummated. The child is sacrificed and offered up to fate, and the widow is quite alone.
It was about this time when the Rawdon Crawleys, after contriving to live well on nothing a year, for a considerable period, came to smash. ”

“ Out of the small residue of her income, which Amelia kept back for herself, the widow had need of all the thrift and care possible in order to enable her to keep her darling boy dressed in such a manner as became George Osborne's son, and to defray the expenses of the little school to which, after much misgiving and reluctance, and many secret pangs and fears on her own part, she had been induced to send the lad. She had sate up of nights conning lessons and spelling over crabbed grammars and geography books in order to teach them to Georgy. ”

“ That night, when Amelia kissed her father, she put a bill for a hundred pounds into his hands, adding, "And—and, mamma, don't be harsh with Georgie. He—he is not going to stop with us long." She could say nothing more, and walked away silently to her room.
Miss Osborne came the next day, according to the promise contained in her note, and saw Amelia. The meeting between them was friendly. A look and a few words from Miss Osborne showed the poor widow that there need be no fear lest she should take the first place in her son's affection. She was cold, sensible, not unkind. ”

“ If she took your son away from you, she gave hers to you; and however much you loved your George, depend on it, she loved hers ten times more."
"By God, you are a good feller, Sir," was all Mr. Osborne said. It had never struck him that the widow would feel any pain at parting with the boy, or that his having a fine fortune could grieve her. A reconciliation was announced as speedy and inevitable; and Amelia's heart already began to beat at the notion of the awful meeting with George's father. ”

“ Dobbin took most kindly to Mr. Stubble from that day, and encouraged him to talk about Amelia in their private walks, and at each other's quarters. It became the fashion, indeed, among all the honest young fellows of the —th to adore and admire Mrs. Osborne. Her simple artless behaviour, and modest kindness of demeanour, won all their unsophisticated hearts; all which simplicity and sweetness are quite impossible to describe in print. ”

“ George Osborne rose in the estimation of the people forming her circle of acquaintance; even Jos himself paid her and her rich little boy, his nephew, the greatest respect, and began to show her much more attention than formerly.
As George's guardian, Amelia begged Miss Osborne to live in the Russell Square house, but Miss Osborne did not choose to do so. And Amelia also declined to occupy the gloomy old mansion. But one day, clad in deep sables, she went with George to visit the deserted house which she had not entered since she was a girl. ”

“ But it must be understood that the child would live entirely with his grandfather in Russell Square, and that he would be occasionally permitted to see Mrs. George Osborne at her own residence.
At first Amelia rejected the offer with indignation. It was only on the knowledge that her father, in his speculations, had made away with the annuity from Joseph that poverty and misery made her capitulate. Her own, pittance would barely enable her to support her parents, and would not suffice for her son.
"What! Mrs. Pride has come down, has she?" ”

“ Such a one is sure to be the dupe of a Becky Sharp, should a Becky Sharp come in her way,—as is the case with so many sweet Amelias whom we have known. But in a matter of love she is sound enough and sensible enough,—and she is as true as steel. I know no trait in Amelia which a man would be ashamed to find in his own daughter.
She marries her George Osborne, who, to tell the truth of him, is but a poor kind of fellow, though he is a brave soldier. He thinks much of his own person, and is selfish. Thackeray puts in a touch or two here and there by which he is made to be odious. ”

“ I do not mean to say that all females are so. My dear Miss Bullock, I do not think your heart would break in this way. You are a strong-minded young woman with proper principles. I do not venture to say that mine would; it has suffered, and, it must be confessed, survived. But there are some souls thus gently constituted, thus frail, and delicate, and tender.
Whenever old John Sedley thought of the affair between George and Amelia, or alluded to it, it was with bitterness almost as great as Mr. Osborne himself had shown. He cursed Osborne and his family as heartless, wicked, and ungrateful. ”

“ The pleased painter executed it for a small price, and old Osborne himself, when he heard of the incident, growled out his satisfaction and gave the boy twice as many sovereigns as he paid for the miniature.
But what was the grandfather's pleasure compared to Amelia's ecstacy? That proof of the boy's affection charmed her so that she thought no child in the world was like hers for goodness. For long weeks after, the thought of his love made her happy. ”

“ A most wonderful sketch, for the perpetration of which all Thackeray's power of combined indignation and humour was necessary!
The story of Amelia and her two lovers, George Osborne and Captain, or as he came afterwards to be, Major, and Colonel Dobbin, is less interesting, simply because goodness and eulogy are less exciting than wickedness and censure. Amelia is a true, honest-hearted, thoroughly English young woman, who loves her love [Pg 105] because he is grand,—to her eyes,—and loving him, loves him with all her heart. Readers have said that she is silly, only because she is not heroic. ”

“ I shall often play upon the piano—your piano. It was like you to send it.
Dobbin was very soft-hearted. The sight of women and children in pain always used to melt him. The idea of Amelia broken-hearted and lonely tore that good-natured soul with anguish. And he broke out into an emotion, which anybody who likes may consider unmanly. He swore that Amelia was an angel, to which Osborne said aye with all his heart. ”

“ Mrs. Sedley said: at which speech Miss Amelia only made a smile and a blush; and looking at Mr. George Osborne's pale interesting countenance, and those beautiful black, curling, shining whiskers, which the young gentleman himself regarded with no ordinary complacency, she thought in her little heart that in His Majesty's army, or in the wide world, there never was such a face or such a hero. "I don't care about Captain Dobbin's complexion," she said, "or about his awkwardness. I shall always like him, I know," her little reason being, that he was the friend and champion of George. ”

“ Osborne to Amelia. "Why, your friend has worked miracles."
"The more the better," said Miss Amelia; who, like almost all women who are worth a pin, was a match-maker in her heart, and would have been delighted that Joseph should carry back a wife to India. She had, too, in the course of this few days' constant intercourse, warmed into a most tender friendship for Rebecca, and discovered a million of virtues and amiable qualities in her which she had not perceived when they were at Chiswick together. ”

“ And going to her Papa, that generous British merchant, who had promised to give her as many guineas as she was years old—she begged the old gentleman to give the money to dear Rebecca, who must want it, while she lacked for nothing.
She even made George Osborne contribute, and nothing loth (for he was as free-handed a young fellow as any in the army) , he went to Bond Street, and bought the best hat and spenser that money could buy.
"That's George's present to you, Rebecca, dear," said Amelia, quite proud of the bandbox conveying these gifts. "What a taste he has! There's nobody like him." ”

“ Captain George Osborne, the son of a London merchant, marries Amelia, and old Osborne disinherits him. The young people live for a time together, when George is killed in the battle of Waterloo. Amelia is reduced to great poverty, but is befriended by Captain Dobbin, who loves her to idolatry, and after many years of patience and great devotion, she consents to marry him. ”

“ She was cold, sensible, not unkind. The mother had not been so well pleased, perhaps, had the rival been better looking, younger, more affectionate, warmer-hearted. Miss Osborne, on the other hand, thought of old times and memories, and could not but be touched with the poor mother's pitiful situation. She was conquered, and, laying down her arms as it were: she humbly submitted. That day they arranged together the preliminaries of the treaty of capitulation.
George was kept from school the next day, and saw his aunt. Amelia left them alone together, and went to her room. ”

“ Amelia meanwhile, in Russell Square, was looking at the moon, which was shining upon that peaceful spot, as well as upon the square of the Chatham barracks, where Lieutenant Osborne was quartered, and thinking to herself how her hero was employed. Perhaps he is visiting the sentries, thought she; perhaps he is bivouacking; perhaps he is attending the couch of a wounded comrade, or studying the art of war up in his own desolate chamber. ”

“ A certain degree of goodness must always be assumed. It is only the rare flowering that inspires special praise. You call Amelia's fondness for George Osborne foolish, fond idolatry. Thackeray smiles, as if all love were not idolatry of the fondest foolishness. ”

“ He was scarcely out of the house, when Miss Maria and Miss Wirt rushed in to Miss Osborne, and the whole wonderful secret was imparted to them by that lady. To do them justice, neither of the sisters were very much displeased. There is something about a runaway match with which few ladies can be seriously angry, and Amelia rather rose in their estimation, from the spirit which she had displayed in consenting to the union. ”

“ George Osborne was somehow there already (sadly "putting out" Amelia, who was writing to her twelve dearest friends at Chiswick Mall) , and Rebecca was employed upon her yesterday's work. As Joe's buggy drove up, and while, after his usual thundering knock and pompous bustle at the door, the ex-Collector of Boggley Wollah laboured up stairs to the drawing-room, knowing glances were telegraphed between Osborne and Miss Sedley, and the pair, smiling archly, looked at Rebecca, who actually blushed as she bent her fair ringlets over her knitting. ”

“ George; there 's nobody to defend me." And George Osborne, as she walked away—and Amelia looked reprovingly at him—felt some little manly compunction for having inflicted any unnecessary unkindness upon this helpless creature. "My dearest Amelia," said he, "you are too good—too kind. You don't know the world. I do. And your little friend Miss Sharp must learn her station."
"Don't you think Jos will—"
"Upon my word, my dear, I don't know. He may, or may not. I'm not his master. ”

“ Amelia's (taken from certain theological works like the Washerwoman of Finchley Common and others of that school, with which Mrs. Osborne had been furnished during her life at Brompton) he told her an Eastern fable of the Owl who thought that the sunshine was unbearable for the eyes and that the Nightingale was a most overrated bird. "It is one's nature to sing and the other's to hoot," he said, laughing, "and with such a sweet voice as you have yourself, you must belong to the Bulbul faction." ”

“ Ceaseless slavery meeting with no reward; constant gentleness and kindness met by cruelty as constant; love, labour, patience, watchfulness, without even so much as the acknowledgment of a good word; all this, how many of them have to bear in quiet, and appear abroad with cheerful faces as if they felt nothing. Tender slaves that they are, they must needs be hypocrites and weak.
From her chair Amelia's mother had taken to her bed, which she had never left: and from which Mrs. Osborne herself was never absent except when she ran to see George. ”

“ There's no reason she should die or live miserably because you are wrong-headed. To my thinking, she's just as much married as if the banns had been read in all the churches in London. And what better answer can there be to Osborne's charges against you, as charges there are, than that his son claims to enter your family and marry your daughter?"
A light of something like satisfaction seemed to break over old Sedley as this point was put to him: but he still persisted that with his consent the marriage between Amelia and George should never take place. ”

“ But this is certain, that Amelia believed her lover to be one of the most gallant and brilliant men in the empire: and it is possible Lieutenant Osborne thought so too.
He was a little wild: how many young men are; and don't girls like a rake better than a milksop? ”

“ Osborne in the print, whereas I have seen it, and can vouch that it is but the picture of a high-waisted gown with an impossible doll's face simpering over it—and, perhaps, Mr. Dobbin's sentimental Amelia was no more like the real one than this absurd little print which he cherished. But what man in love, of us, is better informed?—or is he much happier when he sees and owns his delusion? ”