Dactyl

“ The question arises—What is the nature of the cadence in alliterative verse? Now all metrical movement is of two kinds, according as the beat or emphasis begins the movement or ends it. If the beat is initial, we say in classical language that the movement is trochaic or dactylic, according to the number of its syllables; and if the beat is final, we in like manner say that the movement is iambic or anapaestic. ”

“ John Jasper's lamp is kindled, and his Lighthouse is shining when Mr. Datchery returns alone towards it. As mariners on a dangerous voyage, approaching an iron-bound coast, may look along the beams of the warning light to the haven lying beyond it that may never be reached, so Mr. Datchery's wistful gaze is directed to this beacon, and beyond.
His object in now revisiting his lodging, is merely to put on the hat which seems so superfluous an article in his wardrobe. ”

“ Tackleton couldn’t get on at all; and the more cheerful his intended bride became in Dot’s society, the less he liked it, though he had brought them together for that purpose. For he was a regular dog in the manger, was Tackleton; and when they laughed and he couldn’t, he took it into his head, immediately, that they must be laughing at him.
‘Ah, May!’ said Dot. ‘Dear dear, what changes! To talk of those merry school–days makes one young again.’
‘Why, you an’t particularly old, at any time; are you?’ said Tackleton. ”

“ As to the young man in the light of Jasper’s lamp, Mr. Cuming Walters says, “the large hat and the tightly-buttoned surtout must be observed; they are the articles of clothing on which most stress is laid in the description of Datchery. But the face is young.” The face of Datchery was elderly, and he had a huge shock of white hair, a wig. Datchery wore “a tightish blue surtout, with a buff waistcoat and grey trousers; he had something of a military air.” The young man in the vault has anything but a military air ”

“ Datchery is really Miss Twinkleton, who has a mercenary interest in keeping Rosa Budd at her school. This suggestion does not seem to me to be really much more humorous than Mr. Cumming Walters's theory. Yet either may certainly be true. Dickens is dead, and a number of splendid scenes and startling adventures have died with him. Even if we get the right solution we shall not know that it is right. The tale might have been, and yet it has not been. ”

“ It’s of no use to be anything but free with you, I see,’ said Tackleton. ‘Why, then, the truth is you have a—what tea–drinking people call a sort of a comfortable appearance together, you and your wife. We know better, you know, but—’
‘No, we don’t know better,’ interposed John. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Well! We don’t know better, then,’ said Tackleton. ‘We’ll agree that we don’t. As you like; what does it matter? I was going to say, as you have that sort of appearance, your company will produce a favourable effect on Mrs. Tackleton that will be. ”

“ Rubbing his chubby knuckles in his eyes the sleepy little boy answered: "Oh, yes, where were you, mother? A lot of men came. Some wanted to hit me, but— (naming the servant) was with them, and he sent them away. Then he gave me sweets and put me to sleep."
The servant was arrested, and he confessed that he was one of the band of dacoits who had sent the warning letter and had broken into the house. ”

“ He certainly had no intention in his mind of linking anything that Tackleton had said, with the unusual conduct of his wife, but the two subjects of reflection came into his mind together, and he could not keep them asunder.
The bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining all refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. Then, Dot—quite well again, she said, quite well again—arranged the great chair in the chimney–corner for her husband; filled his pipe and gave it him; and took her usual little stool beside him on the hearth.
She always would sit on that little stool. ”

“ He walks with her to the place where Edwin met the hag, on Christmas Eve, and gave her money; and he jingles his own money as he walks. The place, or the sound of the money, makes the woman tell Datchery about Edwin’s gift of three shillings and sixpence for opium. Datchery, “with a sudden change of countenance, gives her a sudden look.” It does not follow that he is not Drood, for, though the hag’s love of opium was known to Drood, Datchery is not to reveal his recognition of the woman. He does what any stranger would do ”

“ Ivor, if Mabel doesn't turn up I shall feel like murder."
"I sympathize with you, Datchet, with all my heart, though, I may observe, parenthetically, that I very far from realize the situation even yet. Take my advice. If the duchess does not show quite as soon as we both of us desire, don't make a scene; just let me see what I can do."
Judging from the expression of his countenance, the duke was conscious of no overwhelming desire to witness an exhibition of Mr. Dacre's prowess.
When the cab reached Datchet House his grace dashed up the steps three at a time. The door flew open. ”

“ Only"--he said it with his boyish smile--"if a particular communication is not received from me in certain quarters within a certain time, the Duchess of Datchet's beautiful white arm will be hacked off at the shoulder."
"You hound!"
The Duke would have taken the stranger by the throat, and have done his best to choke the life right out of him then and there, if Mr. Dacre had not intervened.
"Steady, old man!" Mr. Dacre turned to the stranger: "You appear to be a pretty sort of a scoundrel." ”

“ There was no light in the counting-house itself, but there were lamps in the long narrow ware-room; and consequently the window was bright.
‘A moment!’ said Tackleton. ‘Can you bear to look through that window, do you think?’
‘Why not?’ returned the Carrier.
‘A moment more,’ said Tackleton. ‘Don’t commit any violence. It’s of no use. It’s dangerous too. You’re a strong-made man; and you might do murder before you know it.’
The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as if he had been struck. In one stride he was at the window, and he saw—
Oh Shadow on the Hearth! ”

“ Tope by shifty resources in which he is an adept, Deputy peeps, sharp-eyed, through the bars, and stares astounded from the threatener to the threatened.
The service comes to an end, and the servitors disperse to breakfast. Mr. Datchery accosts his last new acquaintance outside, when the Choir (as much in a hurry to get their bedgowns off, as they were but now to get them on) have scuffled away. ”

“ I saw young Dawkins blush with delite as he red the note; he toar up for or five sheets before he composed the answer to it, which was as you red abuff, and roat in a hand quite trembling with pleasyer. If you could but have seen the look of triumph in Deuceace's wicked black eyes, when he read the noat! I never see a deamin yet, but I can phansy 1, a holding a writhing soal on his pitchfrock, and smilin like Deuceace. He dressed himself in his very best clothes, and in he went, after sending me over to say that he would except with pleasyour Mr. Dawkins's invite. ”

“ Mr. Datchery receives the communication with a well-satisfied though a pondering face, and breaks up the conference. Returning to his quaint lodging, and sitting long over the supper of bread and cheese and salad and ale which Mrs. Tope has left prepared for him, he still sits when his supper is finished. At length he rises, throws open the door of a corner cupboard, and refers to a few uncouth chalked strokes on its inner side. ”

“ If through some freak of nature, he said, the germ of honesty develops in a Dacoit youngster, he is looked upon as a black sheep, a disgrace to the family, and his own parents drive him forth with thongs until he can experience a change of heart and come back purified and repentant, a man worthy of his name and caste, a robber. ”

“ Jasper could answer for that without the slightest hesitation.
“That is enough, sir,” said Mr. Datchery.
“My friend the Mayor,” added Mr. Jasper, presenting Mr. Datchery with a courtly motion of his hand towards that potentate; “whose recommendation is actually much more important to a stranger than that of an obscure person like myself, will testify in their behalf, I am sure.”
“The Worshipful the Mayor,” said Mr. Datchery, with a low bow, “places me under an infinite obligation.”
“Very good people, sir, Mr. and Mrs. Tope,” said Mr. ”

“ My dear old friend!’ cried Dot, running up to meet her. ‘What a happiness to see you.’
Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as she; and it really was, if you’ll believe me, quite a pleasant sight to see them embrace. Tackleton was a man of taste beyond all question. May was very pretty.
You know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, how, when it comes into contact and comparison with another pretty face, it seems for the moment to be homely and faded, and hardly to deserve the high opinion you have had of it. ”

“ It is almost impossible, indeed, to avoid some sort of parallel à la Plutarch between Thackeray and Dickens. We do not intend to make out which is the greater, for they may be equally great, though utterly unlike, but merely to touch on a few striking points. Thackeray, in his more elaborate works, always paints character, and Dickens single peculiarities. Thackeray's personages are all men, those of Dickens personified oddities. The one is an artist, the other a caricaturist ”

“ Datchery had as confused a knowledge of the event in question, on trying to recall it, as he well could have. He begged Mrs. Tope's pardon when she found it incumbent on her to correct him in every detail of his summary of the facts, but pleaded that he was merely a single buffer getting through life upon his means as idly as he could, and that so many people were so constantly making away with so many other people, as to render it difficult for a buffer of an easy temper to preserve the circumstances of the several cases unmixed in his mind. ”

“ In effect, that Power of Evil is abroad. Having nothing living to stone at the moment, he is discovered by Mr. Datchery in the unholy office of stoning the dead, through the railings of the churchyard. ”

“ Dicky grew slighter and lanker, dark about the eyes, and weaker. He was growing longitudinally, and that made his lateral wasting the quicker and the more apparent. A furtive, frighted look hung over his face, a fugitive air about his whole person. His mother's long face was longer than ever, and blacker under the eyes than Dicky's own, and her weak, open mouth, hung at the corners as that of a woman faint with weeping. Little Em's knees and elbows were knobs in the midst of limbs of unnatural length. Rarely could a meal be seen ahead ”

“ Dicky was riding with the mamour of the district, Fielding was a distance behind with Trousers and the Mudir. Dicky pulled up his donkey, got off and ran towards the horse, pale with fury; for he loved animals better than men, and had wasted his strength beating donkey-boys with the sticks they used on their victims. ”

“ Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent, about its being necessary to vindicate something or other; but he was overawed by the manner of his companion. Plain and unpolished as it was, it had a something dignified and noble in it, which nothing but the soul of generous honour dwelling in the man could have imparted.
‘I am a plain, rough man,’ pursued the Carrier, ‘with very little to recommend me. I am not a clever man, as you very well know. I am not a young man. I loved my little Dot, because I had seen her grow up, from a child, in her father’s house ”

“ Here they were intercepted by Serferez and his party, who gave them a warm reception. Three or four of the dacoits, however, among whom was the Boh, secured a boat and rowed off for their lives.
"Follow them!" shouted Jackson, springing into the snake boat; "not a man must escape!" Phipson and a few others took another boat, and there was a hot pursuit. The dacoits realized, however, that it was no use, and, evidently resolving to die fighting, ran their boat ashore on a small island near the middle of the river and took to the thickets, from which they began a smart fire. ”

“ Dr. Jackson points out that in chapter xviii., when Datchery consults the waiter at the Crozier about ‘a fair lodging for a single buffer,’ he is obviously asking to be recommended to Tope’s. The waiter is puzzled at first. When Mr. Datchery asks for ‘something venerable, architectural, and inconvenient,’ the waiter shakes his head. ‘Anything cathedraly, now?’ Mr. Datchery suggested. Then comes the mention of Tope. Datchery boggles about the cathedral tower seeking for lodgings, but Dickens did not mean us to read the words: ‘With a general impression on his mind that Mrs. ”

“ The chief deities worshipped by the Dacoits in common were Kalee or Davee, and Sooruj Deota or Sun God. Before setting out upon an expedition, they were always careful to take the auspices; which was done in this manner. Having procured several goats, the principal men assembled, and while one of them held some water in his mouth, the others prayed, "O thou Sun God! And O all ye other gods! if we are to succeed in the enterprise we are about to undertake, we pray ye to cause these goats to shake their bodies!" ”

“ Still, Tackleton, the toy–merchant, was going to be married. In spite of all this, he was going to be married. And to a young wife too, a beautiful young wife.
He didn’t look much like a bridegroom, as he stood in the Carrier’s kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked down into the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic ill–conditioned self peering out of one little corner of one little eye, like the concentrated essence of any number of ravens. ”