CHAPTER I.
The Bachelor of Beak Street.
 | An image should appear at this position in the text. To use the entire page scan as a placeholder, edit this page and replace "{{missing image}}" with "{{raw image|The Cornhill magazine (Volume 1).djvu/54}}". Otherwise, if you are able to provide the image then please do so. For guidance, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images. |  |
Who shall be the hero of this tale?
Not I who write it. I am but
the Chorus of the Play. I make
remarks on the conduct of the
characters: I narrate their simple
story. There is love and marriage
in it: there is grief and
disappointment: the scene is in
the parlour, and the region beneath
the parlour. No: it may
be the parlour and kitchen, in
this instance, are on the same
level. There is no high life,
unless, to be sure, you call a
baronet's widow a lady in high
life; and some ladies may be,
while some certainly are not. I
don't think there's a villain in
the whole performance. There is
an abominable selfish old woman,
certainly: an old highway robber; an old sponger on other people's kindness;
an old haunter of Bath and Cheltenham boarding-houses (about which
how can I know anything, never having been in a boarding-house at Bath or
Cheltenham in my life?); an old swindler of tradesmen, tyrant of servants,
bully of the poor—who, to be sure, might do duty for a villain, but she
considers herself as virtuous a woman as ever was born. The heroine is
not faultless (ah! that will be a great relief to some folks, for many
writers' good women are, you know, so very insipid). The principal
personage you may very likely think to be no better than a muff. But
is many a respectable man of our acquaintance much better? and do
muffs know that they are what they are, or, knowing it, are they unhappy?
Do girls decline to marry one if he is rich? Do we refuse to
dine with one? I listened to one at Church last Sunday, with all the
women crying and sobbing; and, oh, dear me! how finely he preached!
Don't we give him great credit for wisdom and eloquence in the House of
Commons? Don't we give him important commands in the army? Can
you, or can you not, point out one who has been made a peer? Doesn't
