On the morrow, in the dusk of evening, Mr. Weevle modestly appears at Krook’s, by no means incommoded with luggage, and establishes himself in his new lodging; where the two eyes in the shutters stare a him in his sleep, as if they were full of wonder. On the following day Mr. Weevle, who is a handy good-for-nothing kind of young fellow, borrows a needle and thread of Miss Flite, and a hammer of his landlord, and goes to work devising apologies for window-curtains, and knocking up apologies for shelves, and hanging up his two teacups, milkpot, and crockery sundries on a pennyworth of little hooks, like a shipwrecked sailor making the best of it.
But what Mr. Weevle prizes most, of all his few possessions (next after his light whiskers, for which he has an attachment that only whiskers can awaken in the breast of a man), is a choice collection of copper-plate impressions from that truly national work, The Divinities of Albion, of Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, representing ladies of title and fashion in every variety of smirk that art, combined with capital, is capable of producing. With these magnificent portraits, unworthily confined in a band-box during his seclusion among the market-gardens, he decorates his apartment; and as the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty wears every variety of fancy-dress, plays every variety of musical instrument, fondles every variety of dog, ogles every variety of prospect, and is backed up by every variety of flower-pot and balustrade, the result is very imposing.
But, fashion is Mr. Weevle’s, as it was Tony Jobling’s weakness. To borrow yesterday’s paper from the Sol’s Arms of an evening, and read about the brilliant and distinguished meteors that are shooting across the fashionable sky in every direction, is unspeakable consolation to him. To know what member of what brilliant and distinguished circle accomplished the brilliant and distinguished feat of joining it yesterday, or contemplates the no less brilliant feat of leaving it to-morrow, gives him a thrill of joy. To be informed what the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty is about, and means to be about, and what Galaxy rumours are in circulation, is to become acquainted with the most glorious destinies of mankind. Mr. Weevle reverts from this intelligence, to the Galaxy portraits implicated; and seems to know the originals, and to be known of them.
For the rest he is a quiet lodger, full of handy shifts and devices as before mentioned, able to cook and clean for himself as well as to carpenter, and developing social inclinations after the shades of evening have fallen on the court. At those times, when he is not visited by Mr. Guppy, or by a small light in his likeness quenched in a dark hat, he comes out of his dull room—where he has inherited the deal wilderness of desk bespattered with a rain of ink—and talks to Krook, or is “very free,” as they call it in the court, commendingly, with any one disposed for conversation. Wherefore, Mrs. Piper, who leads the court, is impelled to offer two remarks for Mrs. Perkins: Firstly, that if her Johnny was to have whiskers, she could wish ’em to be identically like that young man’s; and secondly, Mark my words, Mrs. Perkins, ma’am, and don’t you be surprised Lord bless you, if that young man comes in at last for Krook’s money!
—Charles Dickens, Bleak House, 1853
He wasn’t actually a bad writer, was he?
There has been only one child in the Smallweed family for several generations. Little old men and women there have been, but no child, until Mr. Smallweed’s grandmother, now living, became weak in her intellect, and fell (for the first time) into a childish state. With such infantine graces as a total want of observation, memory, understanding and interest, and an internal disposition to fall asleep over the fire and into it, Mr. Smallweed’s grandmother has undoubtedly brightened the family.
Mr. Smallweed’s grandfather is likewise of the party. He is in a helpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper limbs; but his mind is unimpaired. It holds, as well as it ever held, the first four rules of arithmetic, and a certain small collection of the hardest facts. In respect of ideality, reverence, wonder, and other such phrenological attributes, it is no worse off than it used to be. Everything that Mr. Smallweed’s grandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life he has never bred a single butterfly.…
…The only problem with quoting snatches of Bleak House is ever being able to find a place to stop.…
God, I love this book.
// To borrow yesterday’s paper from the Sol’s Arms of an evening, and read about the brilliant and distinguished meteors that are shooting across the fashionable sky in every direction, is unspeakable consolation to him. To know what member of what brilliant and distinguished circle accomplished the brilliant and distinguished feat of joining it yesterday, or contemplates the no less brilliant feat of leaving it to-morrow, gives him a thrill of joy. To be informed what the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty is about, and means to be about, and what Galaxy rumours are in circulation, is to become acquainted with the most glorious destinies of mankind. Mr. Weevle reverts from this intelligence, to the Galaxy portraits implicated; and seems to know the originals, and to be known of them. //
So funny (and it gets funnier as it goes on), and cynical.
Thanks, Glenn.
“I went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll’s cheek against mine wet with tears, and holding that solitary friend upon my bosom, cried myself to sleep. Imperfect as my understanding of my sorrow was, I knew that I had brought no joy at any time to anybody’s heart and that I was to no one upon earth what Dolly was to me.”
My favorite book. The Signet edition I’ve had since I was a teen opens with a lecture by Nabokov. He tells the class that if he could get away with it he would devote the entire alloted time to silent contemplation of the glory of Dickens.
As possessor of an English degree, I’m ashamed to admit I’ve read very little Dickens. These quotes have truly whet my appetite. Bill, that “dolly” passage is heartbreaking, even without context.
I had the joy of reading Bleak House only recently, and have a few choice passages to contribute:
One of many that I found laugh-out-loud funny:
Sir Leicester is particularly complacent because he has found in his newspaper some congenial remarks bearing directly on the floodgates and framework of society. They apply so happily to the late case that Sir Leicester has come from the library to my Lady’s room expressly to read them aloud. “The man who wrote this article,” he observes by way of preface, nodding at the fire as if he were nodding down at the man from a mount, “has a well-balanced mind.”
The man’s mind is not so well balanced but that he bores my Lady, who, after a languid effort to listen, or rather a languid resignation of herself to a show of listening, becomes distraught and falls into a contemplation of the fire…Sir Leicester, quite unconscious, reads on through his double eye-glass, occasionally stopping to remove his glass and express approval, as “Very true indeed,” “Very properly put,” “I have frequently made the same remark myself,” invariably losing his place after each observation, and going up and down the column to find it again.
And one of many truly astounding sentences:
“When he dines alone in chambers, as he has dined to-day, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken brought in from the coffee house, and descends with a candle to the echoing regions below the deserted mansion, and heralded by a remote reverberation of thundering doors comes gravely back encircled by an earthy atmosphere and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant nectar, two score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to find itself so famous and fills the whole room with the fragrance of southern grapes.”