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A Little Dinner at Timmin's By: William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) |
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by William Makepeace Thackeray
I.
Mr. and Mrs. Fitzroy Timmins live in Lilliput Street, that neat little
street which runs at right angles with the Park and Brobdingnag Gardens.
It is a very genteel neighborhood, and I need not say they are of a good
family. Especially Mrs. Timmins, as her mamma is always telling Mr. T. They are
Suffolk people, and distantly related to the Right honorable the Earl of
Bungay. Besides his house in Lilliput Street, Mr. Timmins has chambers in
Fig tree Court, Temple, and goes the Northern Circuit. The other day, when there was a slight difference about the payment of
fees between the great Parliamentary Counsel and the Solicitors, Stoke
and Pogers, of Great George Street, sent the papers of the Lough Foyle
and Lough Corrib Junction Railway to Mr. Fitzroy Timmins, who was so
elated that he instantly purchased a couple of looking glasses for his
drawing rooms (the front room is 16 by 12, and the back, a tight but
elegant apartment, 10 ft. 6 by 8 ft. 4), a coral for the baby, two
new dresses for Mrs. Timmins, and a little rosewood desk, at the
Pantechnicon, for which Rosa had long been sighing, with crumpled legs,
emerald green and gold morocco top, and drawers all over. Mrs. Timmins is a very pretty poetess (her "Lines to a Faded Tulip" and
her "Plaint of Plinlimmon" appeared in one of last year's Keepsakes);
and Fitzroy, as he impressed a kiss on the snowy forehead of his bride,
pointed out to her, in one of the innumerable pockets of the desk,
an elegant ruby tipped pen, and six charming little gilt blank books,
marked "My Books," which Mrs. Fitzroy might fill, he said, (he is an
Oxford man, and very polite,) "with the delightful productions of her
Muse." Besides these books, there was pink paper, paper with crimson
edges, lace paper, all stamped with R. F. T. (Rosa Fitzroy Timmins)
and the hand and battle axe, the crest of the Timminses (and borne at
Ascalon by Roaldus de Timmins, a crusader, who is now buried in the
Temple Church, next to Serjeant Snooks), and yellow, pink, light blue
and other scented sealing waxes, at the service of Rosa when she chose
to correspond with her friends. Rosa, you may be sure, jumped with joy at the sight of this sweet
present; called her Charles (his first name is Samuel, but they have
sunk that) the best of men; embraced him a great number of times, to the
edification of her buttony little page, who stood at the landing; and as
soon as he was gone to chambers, took the new pen and a sweet sheet of
paper, and began to compose a poem. "What shall it be about?" was naturally her first thought. "What should
be a young mother's first inspiration?" Her child lay on the sofa asleep
before her; and she began in her neatest hand "LINES "ON MY SON BUNGAY DE BRACY GASHLEIGH TYMMYNS, AGED TEN MONTHS. "Tuesday. "How beautiful! how beautiful thou seemest,
My boy, my precious one, my rosy babe!
Kind angels hover round thee, as thou dreamest:
Soft lashes hide thy beauteous azure eye which gleamest." "Gleamest? thine eye which gleamest? Is that grammar?" thought Rosa, who
had puzzled her little brains for some time with this absurd question,
when the baby woke. Then the cook came up to ask about dinner; then Mrs.
Fundy slipped over from No. 27 (they are opposite neighbors, and made
an acquaintance through Mrs. Fundy's macaw); and a thousand things
happened. Finally, there was no rhyme to babe except Tippoo Saib
(against whom Major Gashleigh, Rosa's grandfather, had distinguished
himself), and so she gave up the little poem about her De Bracy. Nevertheless, when Fitzroy returned from chambers to take a walk with
his wife in the Park, as he peeped through the rich tapestry hanging
which divided the two drawing rooms, he found his dear girl still seated
at the desk, and writing, writing away with her ruby pen as fast as it
could scribble... Continue reading book >>
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Fiction |
Literature |
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