The Newcomes

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  Title: The Newcomes

  Author: William Makepeace Thackeray

  Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7467]

  [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]

  [This file was first posted on May 5, 2003]

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  *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEWCOMES ***

  Produced by Tapio Riikonen.

  THE NEWCOMES

  Memoirs of a most Respectable Family

  Edited by Arthur Pendennis, Esq.

  by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I The Overture--After which the Curtain rises upon a Drinking

  Chorus

  II Colonel Newcome's Wild Oats

  III Colonel Newcome's Letter-box

  IV In which the Author and the Hero resume their Acquaintance

  V Clive's Uncles

  VI Newcome Brothers

  VII In which Mr. Clive's School-days are over

  VIII Mrs. Newcome at Home (a Small Early Party)

  IX Miss Honeyman's

  X Ethel and her Relations

  XI At Mrs. Ridley's

  XII In which Everybody is asked to Dinner

  XIII In which Thomas Newcome sings his last Song

  XIV Park Lane

  XV The Old Ladies

  XVI In which Mr. Sherrick lets his House in Fitzroy Square

  XVII A School of Art

  XVIII New Companions

  XIX The colonel at Home

  XX Contains more Particulars of the Colonel and his Brethren

  XXI Is Sentimental, but Short

  XXII Describes a Visit to Paris; with Accidents and Incidents

  in London

  XXIII In which we hear a Soprano and a Contralto

  XXIV In which the Newcome Brothers once more meet together in Unity

  XXV Is passed in a Public-house

  XXVI In which Colonel Newcome's Horses are sold

  XXVII Youth and Sunshine

  XXVIII In which Clive begins to see the World

  XXIX In which Barnes comes a-Wooing

  XXX A Retreat

  XXXI Madame la Duchesse

  XXXII Barnes's Courtship

  XXXIII Lady Kew at the Congress

  XXXIV The End of the Congress of Baden

  XXXV Across the Alps

  XXXVI In which M. de Florac is promoted

  XXXVII Returns to Lord Kew

  XXXVIII In which Lady Kew leaves his Lordship quite Convalescent

  XXXIX Amongst the Painters

  XL Returns from Rome to Pall Mall

  XLI An Old Story

  XLII Injured Innocence

  XLIII Returns to some Old Friends

  XLIV In which Mr. Charles Honeyman appears in an amiable light

  XLV A Stag of Ten

  XLVI The Hotel de Florac

  XLVII Contains two or three Acts of a little Comedy

  XLVIII In which Benedick is a Married Man

  XLIX Contains at least Six more Courses and Two Desserts

  L Clive in New Quarters

  LI An Old Friend

  LII Family Secrets

  LIII In which Kinsmen fall out

  LIV Has a Tragical Ending

  LV Barnes's Skeleton Closet

  LVI Rosa quo locorum sera moratur

  LVII Rosebury and Newcome

  LVIII "One more Unfortunate"

  LIX In which Achilles loses Briseis

  LX In which we write to the Colonel

  LXI In which we are introduced to a new Newcome

  LXII Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome

  LXIII Mrs. Clive at Home

  LXIV Absit Omen

  LXV In which Mrs. Clive comes into her Fortune

  LXVI In which the Colonel and the Newcome Athenaeum are both Lectured

  LXVII Newcome and Liberty

  LXVIII A Letter and a Reconciliation

  LXIX The Election

  LXX Chiltern Hundreds

  LXXI In which Mrs. Clive Newcome's Carriage is ordered

  LXXII Belisarius

  LXXIII In which Belisarius returns from Exile

  LXXIV In which Clive begins the World

  LXXV Founder's Day at Grey Friars

  LXXVI Christmas at Rosebury

  LXXVII The Shortest and Happiest in the whole History

  LXXVIII In which the Author goes on a Pleasant Errand

  LXII In which Old Friends come together

  LXXX In which the Colonel says "Adsum" when his Name is called

  THE NEWCOMES

  CHAPTER I

  The Overture--After which the Curtain rises upon a Drinking Chorus

  A crow, who had flown away with a cheese from a dairy-window, sate

  perched on a tree looking down at a great big frog in a pool underneath

  him. The frog's hideous large eyes were goggling out of his head in a

  manner which appeared quite ridiculous to the old blackamoor, who watched

  the splay-footed slimy wretch with that peculiar grim humour belonging to

  crows. Not far from the frog a fat ox was browsing; whilst a few lambs

  frisked about the meadow, or nibbled the grass and buttercups there.

  Who should come in to the farther end of the field but a wolf? He was so

  cunningly dressed up in sheep's clothing, that the very lambs did not

  know Master Wolf; nay, one of them, whose dam the wolf had just eaten,

  after which he had thrown her skin over his shoulders, ran up innocently

  towards the devouring monster, mistaking him for her mamma.

  "He, he!" says a fox, sneaking round the hedge-paling, over which the

  tree grew, whereupon the crow was perched looking down on the frog, who

  was staring with his goggle eyes fit to burst with envy, and croaking

  abuse at the ox. "How absurd those lambs are! Yonder silly little

  knock-kneed baah-ling does not know the old wolf dressed in the sheep's

  fleece. He is the same old rogue who gobbled up little Red Riding Hood's

  grandmother for lunch, and swallowed little Red Riding Hood for supper.

&
nbsp; Tirez la bobinette et la chevillette cherra. He, he!"

  An owl that was hidden in the hollow of the tree woke up. "Oho, Master

  Fox," says she, "I cannot see you, but I smell you! If some folks like

  lambs, other folks like geese," says the owl.

  "And your ladyship is fond of mice," says the fox.

  "The Chinese eat them," says the owl, "and I have read that they are very

  fond of dogs," continued the old lady.

  "I wish they would exterminate every cur of them off the face of the

  earth," said the fox.

  "And I have also read, in works of travel, that the French eat frogs,"

  continued the owl. "Aha, my friend Crapaud! are you there? That was a

  very pretty concert we sang together last night!"

  "If the French devour my brethren, the English eat beef," croaked out the

  frog,--"great, big, brutal, bellowing oxen."

  "Ho, whoo!" says the owl, "I have heard that the English are toad-eaters

  too!"

  "But who ever heard of them eating an owl or a fox, madam?" says

  Reynard, "or their sitting down and taking a crow to pick?" adds the

  polite rogue, with a bow to the old crow who was perched above them with

  the cheese in his mouth. "We are privileged animals, all of us; at least,

  we never furnish dishes for the odious orgies of man."

  "I am the bird of wisdom," says the owl; "I was the companion of Pallas

  Minerva: I am frequently represented in the Egyptian monuments."

  "I have seen you over the British barn-doors," said the fox, with a grin.

  "You have a deal of scholarship, Mrs. Owl. I know a thing or two myself;

  but am, I confess it, no scholar--a mere man of the world--a fellow that

  lives by his wits--a mere country gentleman."

  "You sneer at scholarship," continues the owl, with a sneer on her

  venerable face. "I read a good deal of a night."

  "When I am engaged deciphering the cocks and hens at roost," says the

  fox.

  "It's a pity for all that you can't read; that board nailed over my head

  would give you some information."

  "What does it say?" says the fox.

  "I can't spell in the daylight," answered the owl; and, giving a yawn,

  went back to sleep till evening in the hollow of her tree.

  "A fig for her hieroglyphics!" said the fox, looking up at the crow in

  the tree. "What airs our slow neighbour gives herself! She pretends to

  all the wisdom; whereas, your reverences, the crows, are endowed with

  gifts far superior to these benighted old big-wigs of owls, who blink in

  the darkness, and call their hooting singing. How noble it is to hear a

  chorus of crows! There are twenty-four brethren of the Order of St.

  Corvinus, who have builded themselves a convent near a wood which I

  frequent; what a droning and a chanting they keep up! I protest their

  reverences' singing is nothing to yours! You sing so deliciously in

  parts, do for the love of harmony favour me with a solo!"

  While this conversation was going on, the ox was thumping the grass; the

  frog was eyeing him in such a rage at his superior proportions, that he

  would have spurted venom at him if he could, and that he would have

  burst, only that is impossible, from sheer envy; the little lambkin was

  lying unsuspiciously at the side of the wolf in fleecy hosiery, who did

  not as yet molest her, being replenished with the mutton her mamma. But

  now the wolf's eyes began to glare, and his sharp white teeth to show,

  and he rose up with a growl, and began to think he should like lamb for

  supper.

  "What large eyes you have got!" bleated out the lamb, with rather a timid

  look.

  "The better to see you with, my dear."

  "What large teeth you have got!"

  "The better to----"

  At this moment such a terrific yell filled the field, that all its

  inhabitants started with terror. It was from a donkey, who had somehow

  got a lion's skin, and now came in at the hedge, pursued by some men and

  boys with sticks and guns.

  When the wolf in sheep's clothing heard the bellow of the ass in the

  lion's skin, fancying that the monarch of the forest was near, he ran

  away as fast as his disguise would let him. When the ox heard the noise

  he dashed round the meadow-ditch, and with one trample of his hoof

  squashed the frog who had been abusing him. When the crow saw the people

  with guns coming, he instantly dropped the cheese out of his mouth, and

  took to wing. When the fox saw the cheese drop, he immediately made a

  jump at it (for he knew the donkey's voice, and that his asinine bray was

  not a bit like his royal master's roar), and making for the cheese, fell

  into a steel trap, which snapped off his tail; without which he was

  obliged to go into the world, pretending, forsooth, that it was the

  fashion not to wear tails any more; and that the fox-party were better

  without 'em.

  Meanwhile, a boy with a stick came up, and belaboured Master Donkey until

  he roared louder than ever. The wolf, with the sheep's clothing draggling

  about his legs, could not run fast, and was detected and shot by one of

  the men. The blind old owl, whirring out of the hollow tree, quite amazed

  at the disturbance, flounced into the face of a ploughboy, who knocked

  her down with a pitchfork. The butcher came and quietly led off the ox

  and the lamb; and the farmer, finding the fox's brush in the trap, hung

  it up over his mantelpiece, and always bragged that he had been in at his

  death.

  "What a farrago of old fables is this! What a dressing up in old

  clothes!" says the critic. (I think I see such a one--a Solomon that sits

  in judgment over us authors and chops up our children.) "As sure as I am

  just and wise, modest, learned, and religious, so surely I have read

  something very like this stuff and nonsense about jackasses and foxes

  before. That wolf in sheep's clothing?--do I not know him? That fox

  discoursing with the crow?--have I not previously heard of him? Yes, in

  Lafontaine's fables: let us get the Dictionary and the Fable and the

  Biographie Universelle, article Lafontaine, and confound the impostor."

  "Then in what a contemptuous way," may Solomon go on to remark, "does

  this author speak of human nature! There is scarce one of these

  characters he represents but is a villain. The fox is a flatterer; the

  frog is an emblem of impotence and envy; the wolf in sheep's clothing a

  bloodthirsty hypocrite, wearing the garb of innocence; the ass in the

  lion's skin a quack trying to terrify, by assuming the appearance of a

  forest monarch (does the writer, writhing under merited castigation, mean

  to sneer at critics in this character? We laugh at the impertinent

  comparison); the ox, a stupid commonplace; the only innocent being in the

  writer's (stolen) apologue is a fool--the idiotic lamb, who does not know

  his own mother!" And then the critic, if in a virtuous mood, may indulge

  in some fine writing regarding the holy beauteousness of maternal

  affection.

  Why not? If authors sneer, it is the critic's business to sneer at them

  for sneering. He must pretend to be their superior, or who would care

  about his opinion? And his livelihood is to find fault. Be
sides, he is

  right sometimes; and the stories he reads, and the characters drawn in

  them, are old, sure enough. What stories are new? All types of all

  characters march through all fables: tremblers and boasters; victims and

  bullies; dupes and knaves; long-eared Neddies, giving themselves leonine

  airs; Tartuffes wearing virtuous clothing; lovers and their trials, their

  blindness, their folly and constancy. With the very first page of the

  human story do not love and lies too begin? So the tales were told ages

  before Aesop; and asses under lions' manes roared in Hebrew; and sly

  foxes flattered in Etruscan; and wolves in sheep's clothing gnashed their

  teeth in Sanskrit, no doubt. The sun shines to-day as he did when he

  first began shining; and the birds in the tree overhead, while I am

  writing, sing very much the same note they have sung ever since there

  were finches. Nay, since last he besought good-natured friends to listen

  once a month to his talking, a friend of the writer has seen the New

  World, and found the (featherless) birds there exceedingly like their

  brethren of Europe. There may be nothing new under and including the sun;

  but it looks fresh every morning, and we rise with it to toil, hope,

  scheme, laugh, struggle, love, suffer, until the night comes and quiet.

  And then will wake Morrow and the eyes that look on it; and so da capo.

  This, then, is to be a story, may it please you, in which jackdaws will

  wear peacocks' feathers, and awaken the just ridicule of the peacocks; in

  which, while every justice is done to the peacocks themselves, the

  splendour of their plumage, the gorgeousness of their dazzling necks, and

  the magnificence of their tails, exception will yet be taken to the

  absurdity of their rickety strut, and the foolish discord of their pert

  squeaking; in which lions in love will have their claws pared by sly

  virgins; in which rogues will sometimes triumph, and honest folks, let us

  hope, come by their own; in which there will be black crape and white

  favours; in which there will be tears under orange-flower wreaths, and

  jokes in mourning-coaches; in which there will be dinners of herbs with

  contentment and without, and banquets of stalled oxen where there is care

  and hatred--ay, and kindness and friendship too, along with the feast. It

  does not follow that all men are honest because they are poor; and I have

  known some who were friendly and generous, although they had plenty of

  money. There are some great landlords who do not grind down their

  tenants; there are actually bishops who are not hypocrites; there are

  liberal men even among the Whigs, and the Radicals themselves are not all

  aristocrats at heart. But who ever heard of giving the Moral before the

  Fable? Children are only led to accept the one after their delectation

  over the other: let us take care lest our readers skip both; and so let

  us bring them on quickly--our wolves and lambs, our foxes and lions, our

  roaring donkeys, our billing ringdoves, our motherly partlets, and

  crowing chanticleers.

  There was once a time when the sun used to shine brighter than it appears

  to do in this latter half of the nineteenth century; when the zest of

  life was certainly keener; when tavern wines seemed to be delicious, and

  tavern dinners the perfection of cookery; when the perusal of novels was

  productive of immense delight, and the monthly advent of magazine-day was

  hailed as an exciting holiday; when to know Thompson, who had written a

  magazine-article, was an honour and a privilege; and to see Brown, the

  author of the last romance, in the flesh, and actually walking in the

  Park with his umbrella and Mrs. Brown, was an event remarkable, and to

  the end of life to be perfectly well remembered; when the women of this

  world were a thousand times more beautiful than those of the present

  time; and the houris of the theatres especially so ravishing and angelic,

  that to see them was to set the heart in motion, and to see them again

  was to struggle for half an hour previously at the door of the pit; when