"
In the next he relapses into his stronger sarcasm--
"There are no better satires than letters. Take a bundle of your
dear friends' letters of ten years back--your dear friend, whom you
hate now. Look at a file of your sister's! how you clung to each
other until you quarrelled about the twenty pound legacy.... Vows,
love promises, confidence, gratitude! how queerly they read after a
while.... The best ink for Vanity Fair use would be one that faded
utterly in a couple of days, and left the paper clean and blank, so
that you might write on it to somebody else."
Again:--
"Many persons who let lodgings in Brighton have been servants
themselves, are retired housekeepers, tradesfolk, and the like.
With these surrounding individuals Hannah, treated on a footing of
equality, bringing to her mistress accounts of their various goings
on; 'how No. 6 was let; how No. 9 had not paid his rent again; how
the first floor at 27 had game almost every day, and made-dishes
from Mutton's; how the family who had taken Mrs. Bugsby's had left,
as usual, after the very first night, the poor little infant
blistered all over with bites on its dear little face; how the Miss
Leary's were going on shameful with the two young men, actually in
their sitting-room, mum, where one of them offered Miss Laura Leary
a cigar; how Mrs.
Pages:
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265