' Mrs. Harris clasps her hands, and drops
into a chair, 'And have I lived to hear,' she says, 'of Sairey
Gamp, as always kept herself respectable, in company with
play-actors.' 'Mrs. Harris,' I says to her, 'be not alarmed, not
reg'lar play-actors--hammertoors.' 'Thank Evans!' says Mrs. Harris,
and bustizes into a flood of tears,"
Dickens saw with Hood the power to be obtained by uniting pathos with
humour. Such an intermixture at first appears inharmonious, but in
reality produces sweet music. There is something corresponding to the
course of external nature with its light and shade its sunshine and
showers, in this melancholy chased away by mirth, and joy merging into
sadness. Here, Dickens has held up the mirror, and shown a bright
reflection of the outer world. Out of many choice specimens, we may
select the following from the speech of the Cheap Jack--
"'Now, you country boobies,' says I, feeling as if my heart was a
heavy weight at the end of a broken sash-line, 'I give you notice
that I am going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to give
you so much more than your money's worth that you'll only persuade
yourselves to draw your Saturday-night's wages ever again
afterwards, by the hopes of meeting me to lay 'em out with, which
you never will; and why not? Because I've made my fortune by
selling my goods on a large scale for seventy-five per cent less
than I give for them, and I am consequently to be elevated to the
House of Peers next week by the title of the Duke of Cheap, and
Markis Jack-a-looral.
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