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diff --git a/old/jlplc10.txt b/old/jlplc10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..37d7362 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/jlplc10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,786 @@ +Project Gutenberg's John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character +#15 in our series by William Makepeace Thackeray + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com. + + + + + +John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character + +by William Makepeace Thackeray + + + + +* Reprinted from the Quarterly Review, No. 191, Dec. 1854, by +permission of Mr. John Murray. + + +We, who can recall the consulship of Plancus, and quite respectable, +old-fogyfied times, remember amongst other amusements which we had +as children the pictures at which we were permitted to look. There +was Boydell's Shakspeare, black and ghastly gallery of murky Opies, +glum Northcotes, straddling Fuselis! there were Lear, Oberon, +Hamlet, with starting muscles, rolling eyeballs, and long pointing +quivering fingers; there was little Prince Arthur (Northcote) +crying, in white satin, and bidding good Hubert not put out his +eyes; there was Hubert crying; there was little Rutland being run +through the poor little body by bloody Clifford; there was Cardinal +Beaufort (Reynolds) gnashing his teeth, and grinning and howling +demoniacally on his death-bed (a picture frightful to the present +day); there was Lady Hamilton (Romney) waving a torch, and dancing +before a black background,--a melancholy museum indeed. Smirke's +delightful "Seven Ages" only fitfully relieved its general gloom. +We did not like to inspect it unless the elders were present, and +plenty of lights and company were in the room. + +Cheerful relatives used to treat us to Miss Linwood's. Let the +children of the present generation thank their stars THAT tragedy is +put out of their way. Miss Linwood's was worsted-work. Your +grandmother or grandaunts took you there and said the pictures were +admirable. You saw "the Woodman" in worsted, with his axe and dog, +trampling through the snow; the snow bitter cold to look at, the +woodman's pipe wonderful: a gloomy piece, that made you shudder. +There were large dingy pictures of woollen martyrs, and scowling +warriors with limbs strongly knitted; there was especially, at the +end of a black passage, a den of lions, that would frighten any boy +not born in Africa, or Exeter 'Change, and accustomed to them. + +Another exhibition used to be West's Gallery, where the pleasing +figures of Lazarus in his grave-clothes, and Death on the pale +horse, used to impress us children. The tombs of Westminster Abbey, +the vaults at St. Paul's, the men in armor at the Tower, frowning +ferociously out of their helmets, and wielding their dreadful +swords; that superhuman Queen Elizabeth at the end of the room, a +livid sovereign with glass eyes, a ruff, and a dirty satin +petticoat, riding a horse covered with steel: who does not remember +these sights in London in the consulship of Plancus? and the wax- +work in Fleet Street, not like that of Madame Tussaud's, whose +chamber of death is gay and brilliant; but a nice old gloomy wax- +work, full of murderers; and as a chief attraction, the Dead Baby +and the Princess Charlotte lying in state? + +Our story-books had no pictures in them for the most part. Frank +(dear old Frank!) had none; nor the "Parent's Assistant;" nor the +"Evenings at Home;" nor our copy of the "Ami des Enfans:" there were +a few just at the end of the Spelling-Book; besides the allegory at +the beginning, of Education leading up Youth to the temple of +Industry, where Dr. Dilworth and Professor Walkinghame stood with +crowns of laurel. There were, we say, just a few pictures at the +end of the Spelling-Book, little oval gray woodcuts of Bewick's, +mostly of the Wolf and the Lamb, the Dog and the Shadow, and Brown, +Jones, and Robinson with long ringlets and little tights; but for +pictures, so to speak, what had we? The rough old wood-blocks in +the old harlequin-backed fairy-books had served hundreds of years; +before OUR Plancus, in the time of Priscus Plancus--in Queen Anne's +time, who knows? We were flogged at school; we were fifty boys in +our boarding-house, and had to wash in a leaden trough, under a +cistern, with lumps of fat yellow soap floating about in the ice and +water. Are OUR sons ever flogged? Have they not dressing-rooms, +hair-oil, hip-baths, and Baden towels? And what picture-books the +young villains have! What have these children done that they should +be so much happier than we were? + +We had the "Arabian Nights" and Walter Scott, to be sure. Smirke's +illustrations to the former are very fine. We did not know how good +they were then; but we doubt whether we did not prefer the little +old "Miniature Library Nights" with frontispieces by Uwins; for +THESE books the pictures don't count. Every boy of imagination does +his own pictures to Scott and the "Arabian Nights" best. + +Of funny pictures there were none especially intended for us +children. There was Rowlandson's "Doctor Syntax": Doctor Syntax in +a fuzz-wig, on a horse with legs like sausages, riding races, making +love, frolicking with rosy exuberant damsels. Those pictures were +very funny, and that aquatinting and the gay-colored plates very +pleasant to witness; but if we could not read the poem in those +days, could we digest it in this? Nevertheless, apart from the text +which we could not master, we remember Doctor Syntax pleasantly, +like those cheerful painted hieroglyphics in the Nineveh Court at +Sydenham. What matter for the arrow-head, illegible stuff? give us +the placid grinning kings, twanging their jolly bows over their +rident horses, wounding those good-humored enemies, who tumble gayly +off the towers, or drown, smiling, in the dimpling waters, amidst +the anerithmon gelasma of the fish. + +After Doctor Syntax, the apparition of Corinthian Tom, Jerry +Hawthorn, and the facetious Bob Logic must be recorded--a wondrous +history indeed theirs was! When the future student of our manners +comes to look over the pictures and the writing of these queer +volumes, what will he think of our society, customs, and language in +the consulship of Plancus? "Corinthian," it appears, was the phrase +applied to men of fashion and ton in Plancus's time: they were the +brilliant predecessors of the "swell" of the present period-- +brilliant, but somewhat barbarous, it must be confessed. The +Corinthians were in the habit of drinking a great deal too much in +Tom Cribb's parlor: they used to go and see "life" in the gin-shops; +of nights, walking home (as well as they could), they used to knock +down "Charleys," poor harmless old watchmen with lanterns, guardians +of the streets of Rome, Planco Consule. They perpetrated a vast +deal of boxing; they put on the "mufflers" in Jackson's rooms; they +"sported their prads" in the Ring in the Park; they attended cock- +fights, and were enlightened patrons of dogs and destroyers of rats. +Besides these sports, the delassemens of gentlemen mixing with the +people, our patricians, of course, occasionally enjoyed the society +of their own class. What a wonderful picture that used to be of +Corinthian Tom dancing with Corinthian Kate at Almack's! What a +prodigious dress Kate wore! With what graceful ABANDON the pair +flung their arms about as they swept through the mazy quadrille, +with all the noblemen standing round in their stars and uniforms! +You may still, doubtless, see the pictures at the British Museum, or +find the volumes in the corner of some old country-house library. +You are led to suppose that the English aristocracy of 1820 DID +dance and caper in that way, and box and drink at Tom Cribb's, and +knock down watchmen; and the children of to-day, turning to their +elders, may say "Grandmamma, did you wear such a dress as that, when +you danced at Almack's? There was very little of it, grandmamma. +Did grandpapa kill many watchmen when he was a young man, and +frequent thieves' gin-shops, cock-fights, and the ring, before you +married him? Did he use to talk the extraordinary slang and jargon +which is printed in this book? He is very much changed. He seems a +gentlemanly old boy enough now." + +In the above-named consulate, when WE had grandfathers alive, there +would be in the old gentleman's library in the country two or three +old mottled portfolios, or great swollen scrap-books of blue paper, +full of the comic prints of grandpapa's time, ere Plancus ever had +the fasces borne before him. These prints were signed Gilray, +Bunbury, Rowlandson, Woodward, and some actually George Cruikshank-- +for George is a veteran now, and he took the etching needle in hand +as a child. He caricatured "Boney," borrowing not a little from +Gilray in his first puerile efforts. He drew Louis XVIII. trying on +Boney's boots. Before the century was actually in its teens we +believe that George Cruikshank was amusing the public. + +In those great colored prints in our grandfathers' portfolios in the +library, and in some other apartments of the house, where the +caricatures used to be pasted in those days, we found things quite +beyond our comprehension. Boney was represented as a fierce dwarf, +with goggle eyes, a huge laced hat and tricolored plume, a crooked +sabre, reeking with blood: a little demon revelling in lust, murder, +massacre. John Bull was shown kicking him a good deal: indeed he +was prodigiously kicked all through that series of pictures; by +Sidney Smith and our brave allies the gallant Turks; by the +excellent and patriotic Spaniards; by the amiable and indignant +Russians,--all nations had boots at the service of poor Master +Boney. How Pitt used to defy him! How good old George, King of +Brobdingnag, laughed at Gulliver-Boney, sailing about in his tank to +make sport for their Majesties! This little fiend, this beggar's +brat, cowardly, murderous, and atheistic as he was (we remember, in +those old portfolios, pictures representing Boney and his family in +rags, gnawing raw bones in a Corsican hut; Boney murdering the sick +at Jaffa; Boney with a hookah and a large turban, having adopted the +Turkish religion, &c.)--this Corsican monster, nevertheless, had +some devoted friends in England, according to the Gilray chronicle,-- +a set of villains who loved atheism, tyranny, plunder, and +wickedness in general, like their French friend. In the pictures +these men were all represented as dwarfs, like their ally. The +miscreants got into power at one time, and, if we remember right, +were called the Broad-backed Administration. One with shaggy +eyebrows and a bristly beard, the hirsute ringleader of the rascals, +was, it appears, called Charles James Fox; another miscreant, with a +blotched countenance, was a certain Sheridan; other imps were hight +Erskine, Norfolk (Jockey of), Moira, Henry Petty. As in our +childish, innocence we used to look at these demons, now sprawling +and tipsy in their cups; now scaling heaven, from which the angelic +Pitt hurled them down; now cursing the light (their atrocious +ringleader Fox was represented with hairy cloven feet, and a tail +and horns); now kissing Boney's boot, but inevitably discomfited by +Pitt and the other good angels: we hated these vicious wretches, as +good children should; we were on the side of Virtue and Pitt and +Grandpapa. But if our sisters wanted to look at the portfolios, the +good old grandfather used to hesitate. There were some prints among +them very odd indeed; some that girls could not understand; some +that boys, indeed, had best not see. We swiftly turn over those +prohibited pages. How many of them there were in the wild, coarse, +reckless, ribald, generous book of old English humor! + +How savage the satire was--how fierce the assault--what garbage +hurled at opponents--what foul blows were hit--what language of +Billingsgate flung! Fancy a party in a country-house now looking +over Woodward's facetiae or some of the Gilray comicalities, or the +slatternly Saturnalia of Rowlandson! Whilst we live we must laugh, +and have folks to make us laugh. We cannot afford to lose Satyr +with his pipe and dances and gambols. But we have washed, combed, +clothed, and taught the rogue good manners: or rather, let us say, +he has learned them himself; for he is of nature soft and kindly, +and he has put aside his mad pranks and tipsy habits; and, +frolicsome always, has become gentle and harmless, smitten into +shame by he pure presence of our women and the sweet confiding +smiles of our children. Among the veterans, the old pictorial +satirists, we have mentioned the famous name of one humorous +designer who is still alive and at work. Did we not see, by his own +hand, his own portrait of his own famous face, and whiskers, in the +Illustrated London News the other day? There was a print in that +paper of an assemblage of Teetotalers in "Sadler's Wells Theatre," +and we straightway recognized the old Roman hand--the old Roman's of +the time of Plancus--George Cruikshank's. There were the old +bonnets and droll faces and shoes, and short trousers, and figures +of 1820 sure enough. And there was George (who has taken to the +water-doctrine, as all the world knows) handing some teetotal +cresses over a plank to the table where the pledge was being +administered. How often has George drawn that picture of +Cruikshank! Where haven't we seen it? How fine it was, facing the +effigy of Mr. Ainsworth in Ainsworth's Magazine when George +illustrated that periodical! How grand and severe he stands in that +design in G. C.'s "Omnibus," where he represents himself tonged like +St. Dunstan, and tweaking a wretch of a publisher by the nose! The +collectors of George's etchings--oh the charming etchings!--oh the +dear old "German Popular Tales!"--the capital "Points of Humor"--the +delightful "Phrenology" and "Scrap-books," of the good time, OUR +time--Plancus's in fact!--the collectors of the Georgian etchings, +we say, have at least a hundred pictures of the artist. Why, we +remember him in his favorite Hessian boots in "Tom and Jerry" +itself; and in woodcuts as far back as the Queen's trial. He has +rather deserted satire and comedy of late years, having turned his +attention to the serious, and warlike, and sublime. Having +confessed our age and prejudices, we prefer the comic and fanciful +to the historic, romantic, and at present didactic George. May +respect, and length of days, and comfortable repose attend the +brave, honest, kindly, pure-minded artist, humorist, moralist! It +was he first who brought English pictorial humor and children +acquainted. Our young people and their fathers and mothers owe him +many a pleasant hour and harmless laugh. Is there no way in which +the country could acknowledge the long services and brave career of +such a friend and benefactor? + +Since George's time humor has been converted. Comus and his wicked +satyrs and leering fauns have disappeared, and fled into the lowest +haunts; and Comus's lady (if she had a taste for humor, which may be +doubted) might take up our funny picture-books without the slightest +precautionary squeamishness. What can be purer than the charming +fancies of Richard Doyle? In all Mr. Punch's huge galleries can't +we walk as safely as through Miss Pinkerton's schoolrooms? And as +we look at Mr. Punch's pictures, at the Illustrated News pictures, +at all the pictures in the book-shop windows at this Christmas +season, as oldsters, we feel a certain pang of envy against the +youngsters--they are too well off. Why hadn't WE picture-books? +Why were we flogged so? A plague on the lictors and their rods in +the time of Plancus! + +And now, after this rambling preface, we are arrived at the subject +in hand--Mr. John Leech and his "Pictures of Life and Character," in +the collection of Mr. Punch. This book is better than plum-cake at +Christmas. It is an enduring plum-cake, which you may eat and which +you may slice and deliver to your friends; and to which, having cut +it, you may come again and welcome, from year's end to year's end. +In the frontispiece you see Mr. Punch examining the pictures in his +gallery--a portly, well-dressed, middle-aged, respectable gentleman, +in a white neck-cloth, and a polite evening costume--smiling in a +very bland and agreeable manner upon one of his pleasant drawings, +taken out of one of his handsome portfolios. Mr. Punch has very +good reason to smile at the work and be satisfied with the artist. +Mr. Leech, his chief contributor, and some kindred humorists, with +pencil and pen have served Mr. Punch admirably. Time was, if we +remember Mr. P.'s history rightly, that he did not wear silk +stockings nor well-made clothes (the little dorsal irregularity in +his figure is almost an ornament now, so excellent a tailor has he). +He was of humble beginnings. It is said he kept a ragged little +booth, which he put up at corners of streets; associated with +beadles, policemen, his own ugly wife (whom he treated most +scandalously), and persons in a low station of life; earning a +precarious livelihood by the cracking of wild jokes, the singing of +ribald songs, and halfpence extorted from passers-by. He is the +Satyric genius we spoke of anon: he cracks his jokes still, for +satire must live; but he is combed, washed, neatly clothed, and +perfectly presentable. He goes into the very best company; he keeps +a stud at Melton; he has a moor in Scotland; he rides in the Park; +has his stall at the Opera; is constantly dining out at clubs and in +private society; and goes every night in the season to balls and +parties, where you see the most beautiful women possible. He is +welcomed amongst his new friends the great; though, like the good +old English gentleman of the song, he does not forget the small. He +pats the heads of street boys and girls; relishes the jokes of Jack +the costermonger and Bob the dustman; good-naturedly spies out Molly +the cook flirting with policeman X, or Mary the nursemaid as she +listens to the fascinating guardsman. He used rather to laugh at +guardsmen, "plungers," and other military men; and was until latter +days very contemptuous in his behavior towards Frenchmen. He has a +natural antipathy to pomp, and swagger, and fierce demeanor. But +now that the guardsmen are gone to war, and the dandies of "The +Rag"--dandies no more--are battling like heroes at Balaklava and +Inkermann* by the side of their heroic allies, Mr. Punch's laughter +is changed to hearty respect and enthusiasm. It is not against +courage and honor he wars: but this great moralist--must it be +owned?--has some popular British prejudices, and these led him in +peace time to laugh at soldiers and Frenchmen. If those hulking +footmen who accompanied the carriages to the opening of Parliament +the other day, would form a plush brigade, wear only gunpowder in +their hair, and strike with their great canes on the enemy, Mr. +Punch would leave off laughing at Jeames, who meanwhile remains +among us, to all outward appearance regardless of satire, and calmly +consuming his five meals per diem. Against lawyers, beadles, +bishops and clergy, and authorities, Mr. Punch is still rather +bitter. At the time of the Papal aggression he was prodigiously +angry; and one of the chief misfortunes which happened to him at +that period was that, through the violent opinions which he +expressed regarding the Roman Catholic hierarchy, he lost the +invaluable services, the graceful pencil, the harmless wit, the +charming fancy of Mr. Doyle. Another member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, +the biographer of Jeames, the author of the "Snob Papers," resigned +his functions on account of Mr. Punch's assaults upon the present +Emperor of the French nation, whose anger Jeames thought it was +unpatriotic to arouse. Mr. Punch parted with these contributors: he +filled their places with others as good. The boys at the railroad +stations cried Punch just as cheerily, and sold just as many +numbers, after these events as before. + + +* This was written in 1854. + + +There is no blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch's cabinet John Leech +is the right-hand man. Fancy a number of Punch without Leech's +pictures! What would you give for it? The learned gentlemen who +write the work must feel that, without him, it were as well left +alone. Look at the rivals whom the popularity of Punch has brought +into the field; the direct imitators of Mr. Leech's manner--the +artists with a manner of their own--how inferior their pencils are +to his in humor, in depicting the public manners, in arresting, +amusing the nation. The truth, the strength, the free vigor, the +kind humor, the John Bull pluck and spirit of that hand are +approached by no competitor. With what dexterity he draws a horse, +a woman, a child! He feels them all, so to speak, like a man. What +plump young beauties those are with which Mr. Punch's chief +contributor supplies the old gentleman's pictorial harem! What +famous thews and sinews Mr. Punch's horses have, and how Briggs, on +the back of them, scampers across country! You see youth, strength, +enjoyment, manliness in those drawings, and in none more so, to our +thinking, than in the hundred pictures of children which this artist +loves to design. Like a brave, hearty, good-natured Briton, he +becomes quite soft and tender with the little creatures, pats gently +their little golden heads, and watches with unfailing pleasure their +ways, their sports, their jokes, laughter, caresses. Enfans +terribles come home from Eton; young Miss practising her first +flirtation; poor little ragged Polly making dirt-pies in the gutter, +or staggering under the weight of Jacky, her nursechild, who is as +big as herself--all these little ones, patrician and plebeian, meet +with kindness from this kind heart, and are watched with curious +nicety by this amiable observer. + +We remember, in one of those ancient Gilray portfolios, a print +which used to cause a sort of terror in us youthful spectators, and +in which the Prince of Wales (his Royal Highness was a Foxite then) +was represented as sitting alone in a magnificent hall after a +voluptuous meal, and using a great steel fork in the guise of a +toothpick. Fancy the first young gentleman living employing such a +weapon in such a way! The most elegant Prince of Europe engaged +with a two-pronged iron fork--the heir of Britannia with a BIDENT! +The man of genius who drew that picture saw little of the society +which he satirized and amused. Gilray watched public characters as +they walked by the shop in St. James's Street, or passed through the +lobby of the House of Commons. His studio was a garret, or little +better; his place of amusement a tavern-parlor, where his club held +its nightly sittings over their pipes and sanded floor. You could +not have society represented by men to whom it was not familiar. +When Gavarni came to England a few years since--one of the wittiest +of men, one of the most brilliant and dexterous of draughtsmen--he +published a book of "Les Anglais," and his Anglais were all +Frenchmen. The eye, so keen and so long practised to observe +Parisian life, could not perceive English character. A social +painter must be of the world which he depicts, and native to the +manners which he portrays. + +Now, any one who looks over Mr. Leech's portfolio must see that the +social pictures which he gives us are authentic. What comfortable +little drawing-rooms and dining-rooms, what snug libraries we enter; +what fine young-gentlemanly wags they are, those beautiful little +dandies who wake up gouty old grandpapa to ring the bell; who +decline aunt's pudding and custards, saying that they will reserve +themselves for an anchovy toast with the claret; who talk together +in ball-room doors, where Fred whispers Charley--pointing to a dear +little partner seven years old--"My dear Charley, she has very much +gone off; you should have seen that girl last season!" Look well at +everything appertaining to the economy of the famous Mr. Briggs: +how snug, quiet, appropriate all the appointments are! What a +comfortable, neat, clean, middle-class house Briggs's is (in the +Bayswater suburb of London, we should guess from the sketches of the +surrounding scenery)! What a good stable he has, with a loose box +for those celebrated hunters which he rides! How pleasant, clean, +and warm his breakfast-table looks! What a trim little maid brings +in the top-boots which horrify Mrs. B! What a snug dressing-room he +has, complete in all its appointments, and in which he appears +trying on the delightful hunting-cap which Mrs. Briggs flings into +the fire! How cosy all the Briggs party seem in their dining-room: +Briggs reading a Treatise on Dog-breaking by a lamp; Mamma and +Grannie with their respective needleworks; the children clustering +round a great book of prints--a great book of prints such as this +before us, which, at this season, must make thousands of children +happy by as many firesides! The inner life of all these people is +represented: Leech draws them as naturally as Teniers depicts Dutch +boors, or Morland pigs and stables. It is your house and mine: we +are looking at everybody's family circle. Our boys coming from +school give themselves such airs, the young scapegraces! our girls, +going to parties, are so tricked out by fond mammas--a social +history of London in the middle of the nineteenth century. As such, +future students--lucky they to have a book so pleasant--will regard +these pages: even the mutations of fashion they may follow here if +they be so inclined. Mr. Leech has as fine an eye for tailory and +millinery as for horse-flesh. How they change those cloaks and +bonnets. How we have to pay milliners' bills from year to year! +Where are those prodigious chatelaines of 1850 which no lady could +be without? Where those charming waistcoats, those "stunning" +waistcoats, which our young girls used to wear a few brief seasons +back, and which cause 'Gus, in the sweet little sketch of "La Mode," +to ask Ellen for her tailor's address. 'Gus is a young warrior by +this time, very likely facing the enemy at Inkerman; and pretty +Ellen, and that love of a sister of hers, are married and happy, let +us hope, superintending one of those delightful nursery scenes which +our artist depicts with such tender humor. Fortunate artist, +indeed! You see he must have been bred at a good public school; +that he has ridden many a good horse in his day; paid, no doubt, out +of his own purse for the originals of some of those lovely caps and +bonnets; and watched paternally the ways, smiles, frolics, and +slumbers of his favorite little people. + +As you look at the drawings, secrets come out of them,--private +jokes, as it were, imparted to you by the author for your special +delectation. How remarkably, for instance, has Mr. Leech observed +the hair-dressers of the present age! Look at "Mr. Tongs," whom +that hideous old bald woman, who ties on her bonnet at the glass, +informs that "she has used the whole bottle of Balm of California, +but her hair comes off yet." You can see the bear's-grease not only +on Tongs's head but on his hands, which he is clapping clammily +together. Remark him who is telling his client "there is cholera in +the hair;" and that lucky rogue whom the young lady bids to cut off +"a long thick piece"--for somebody, doubtless. All these men are +different, and delightfully natural and absurd. Why should hair- +dressing be an absurd profession? + +The amateur will remark what an excellent part hands play in Mr. +Leech's pieces: his admirable actors use them with perfect +naturalness. Look at Betty, putting the urn down; at cook, laying +her hands on the kitchen table, whilst her policeman grumbles at the +cold meat. They are cook's and housemaid's hands without mistake, +and not without a certain beauty too. The bald old lady, who is +tying her bonnet at Tongs's, has hands which you see are trembling. +Watch the fingers of the two old harridans who are talking scandal: +for what long years past they have pointed out holes in their +neighbors' dresses and mud on their flounces. "Here's a go! I've +lost my diamond ring." As the dustman utters this pathetic cry, and +looks at his hand, you burst out laughing. These are among the +little points of humor. One could indicate hundreds of such as one +turns over the pleasant pages. + +There is a little snob or gent, whom we all of us know, who wears +little tufts on his little chin, outrageous pins and pantaloons, +smokes cigars on tobacconists' counters, sucks his cane in the +streets, struts about with Mrs. Snob and the baby (Mrs. S. an +immense woman, whom Snob nevertheless bullies), who is a favorite +abomination of Leech, and pursued by that savage humorist into a +thousand of his haunts. There he is, choosing waistcoats at the +tailor's--such waistcoats! Yonder he is giving a shilling to the +sweeper who calls him "Capting;" now he is offering a paletot to a +huge giant who is going out in the rain. They don't know their own +pictures, very likely; if they did, they would have a meeting, and +thirty or forty of them would be deputed to thrash Mr. Leech. One +feels a pity for the poor little bucks. In a minute or two, when we +close this discourse and walk the streets, we shall see a dozen +such. + +Ere we shut the desk up, just one word to point out to the unwary +specially to note the backgrounds of landscapes in Leech's drawings-- +homely drawings of moor and wood, and seashore and London street-- +the scenes of his little dramas. They are as excellently true to +nature as the actors themselves; our respect for the genius and +humor which invented both increases as we look and look again at the +designs. May we have more of them; more pleasant Christmas volumes, +over which we and our children can laugh together. Can we have too +much of truth, and fun, and beauty, and kindness? + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character +by William Makepeace Thackeray + diff --git a/old/jlplc10.zip b/old/jlplc10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8bb84d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/jlplc10.zip |