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Untitled Article
a 3 a * £ gt gown 1 The foot of this same -victim xb poKtely characterized , by a certain " gentleman" with whom she had the honor to dance , as " a complete beetle-squasher . " But mark the brilliancy of the heroine ' s rejoinder .
< c My goodness ! Captain Cleveland , " cried I , " what an opportunity 9 he gave you to say , * If you love me tell me so , but do not kick me !' " Love her ! " exclaimed the young Captain , with a shriek of horror , ** why , the woman is j list like a laughing hyemi ! " * She puts me more in mind , " I replied , of an ogress : those long front teeth of her ' s seem admirably calculated to perforate holes in the flesh of human beings , and suck their blood ! "—p . lQ 4 «
And amidst all this we are to be told of " the patrician and courtly bearing of the high-born ladies of fashion , and the aristocratic thorough-bred look of their daughters , " or fillies ? For an equal mixture of malevolence , gross indelicacy , and " jockeyship , " ' take the following : —Mrs . Somerton , a fashionable lady , with three daughters , amuses the company with an account of her clever plan of preventing either Lord Neville , or Sir Willoughby Dartmore from marrying Miss Charlotte Lorimer , " rich and hideous . "
" Well ! I engaged Lord Neville in a conversation , and though I felt in a devil of a humour , I invented several puns for his amusement ; and at a convenient opportunityJired off the following ; ' Why is Charlotte Lorimer like Monnt Vesuvius ? ' Of course he was tr $$ hetey and could not say why ; but I ldnclly told him , — ' Because « he is subject to eruptions . * Of course he repeated this to Sir Willoughby . A man will often marry a rich old woman he cannot like ; he may take a wife , knowing her to be a consummate fool , but men will rarely wed the object of a strong disgust . "—p . 123 .
Another lady is insulted to her face , by addressing Ther as Miss Beetroot , so that she " pumped herself up into violent hysterics , and was carried out of the room , screaming and kicking , les pieds dans Vair ;—Lady Trimleston , in fits of laughter , screaming out , " Oh ! mon Dieu , j ' en mourrai—ah ,
ah , ah !—Milord , how well you did say dat to her ! " Shocking , dire , unredeemed trash ! The vicious heartlessness spefcks for itself . If there be anything at all approaching to cleverness in this book , it is in giving us here and there a concise series of facts , elucidatory of the daughter-selling * principle adopted in noble families . No other subject is treated so " knowingly as this .
' * How every member of a family / ' continued Mrs . Lennox , sanctions a marriage as it regards Inns propres inter vis . " ** Everything one ran wish , " says the mother , *• twenty thousand H-year , descent fVom the Conquest , liberal jointure , abundant pin-money . " " Very satisfactory , " » ays the father , " good dome for the boys , excellent cook , claret unrivalled . " " Capital fellow , " says trie brother , " grouse-
Untitled Article
Tales of Fashion and Reality . 407
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1836, page 407, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2659/page/15/
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