The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray, Volume 1

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Smith, Elder & Company, 1868 - English literature

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Page 8 - But, lo ! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp put her pale face out of the window and actually flung the book back into the garden. This almost caused Jemima to faint with terror. "Well, I never," — said she — "what an audacious" — Emotion prevented her from completing either sentence.
Page 365 - ... history of that famous action. Its remembrance rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those brave men who lost the day. They pant for an opportunity of revenging that humiliation ; and if a contest, ending in a victory on their part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving its cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so-called glory and shame, and to the alternations of successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited...
Page 53 - Square, who are taking walks, or luncheon, or dinner, or talking and making love as people do in common life, and without a single passionate and wonderful incident to mark the progress of their loves. ' The argument stands thus — Osborne, in love with Amelia, has asked an old friend to dinner and to Vauxhall — Jos Sedley is in love with Rebecca. Will he marry her? That is the great subject now in hand. We might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in the romantic, or in the facetious...
Page 365 - English from the height which they had maintained all day, and spite of all: unscared by the thunder of the artillery, which hurled death from the English line — the dark rolling column pressed on and up the hill. It seemed almost to crest the eminence, when it began to wave and falter. Then it stopped, still facing the shot. Then at last the English troops rushed from the post from which no enemy had been able to dislodge them, and the Guard turned and fled. No more firing was heard at Brussels...
Page 53 - ... might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in the romantic, or in the facetious manner. Suppose we had laid the scene in Grosvenor Square, with the very same adventures — would not some people have listened? Suppose we had shown how Lord Joseph Sedley fell in love, and the Marquis of Osborne became attached to Lady Amelia, with the full consent of the Duke, her noble father...
Page 72 - Mrs. Tinker, Miss Sharp; Miss Governess, Mrs. Charwoman. Ho, ho !•' The lady addressed as Mrs. Tinker, at this moment made her appearance with a pipe and a paper of tobacco, for which she had been...
Page 11 - ... wrote a manly and pathetic letter to Miss Pinkerton, recommending the orphan child to her protection, and so descended to the grave, after two bailiffs had quarrelled over his corpse. Rebecca was seventeen when she came to Chiswick, and was bound over as an articled pupil...
Page 392 - Jos, and which she described with infinite fun, carried up his delight to a pitch of quite insane enthusiasm. He believed in his wife as much as the French soldiers in Napoleon. Her success in Paris was remarkable. All the French ladies voted her charming. She spoke their language admirably. She adopted at once their grace, their liveliness, their manner. Her husband was stupid certainly — all English are stupid — and, besides, a dull husband at Paris is always a point in a lady's favour.
Page 21 - come out" but the noble ambition of matrimony ? What sends them trooping to watering-places? What keeps them dancing till five o'clock in the morning through a whole mortal season ? What causes them to labour at piano-forte sonatas, and to...

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