a delicate case, a turnip-field and a piece of carrots alternately, and let him eat as many as he likes. There an't better land in the county than this perwerse lad grazed on, and yet he goes and catches cold and indigestion and what not, and then his friends brings a lawsuit against me!"
The Professor of Deportment, not subject to these
sordid contacts, inhales a more rarified atmosphere, and
recognizes the value of a succes d'estime, sufficient to compensate
for neglect on the part of a stupid public.[1]
"It may not be for me to say that I have been called, for
some years now, Gentleman Turveydrop; or that His Royal
Highness, the Prince Regent, did me the honour to inquire,
on my removing my hat as he drove out of the Pavilion at
Brighton (that fine building), 'Who is he? Who the devil is
he? Why don't I know him? Why hasn't he thirty thousand
a year?' But these are little matters of anecdote—the general
property, ma'am,—still repeated, occasionally, among the
upper classes."
The contributions of the ladies seem to be along psychological
rather than social or sociological lines. Mrs.
Nickleby is plaintively aware of the thistle-ball nature of
the masculine mind, fixed by no friendly star, though the
star was not wanting. She discerns on the part of her son
a certain inattentiveness to her remarks.[2]
"But that was always the way with your poor dear papa,—just
his way—always wandering, never able to fix his thoughts
on any one subject for two minutes together. I think I see him
now! * * * looking at me while I was talking to him
about his affairs, just as if his ideas were in a state of perfect
conglomeration! Anybody who had come in upon us suddenly
would have supposed I was confusing and distracting him instead
of making things plainer; upon my word they would."
