ACTOR of being insured in some extraordinary Fire Office. But I said he had looked very nice. When he come to the grave," said our conductor, "he showed his cloak beautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to me that when he see the ghost in the queen's apartment, he might have made more of his stockings." Great Expectations, Chap. 31. ACTOR-"Feeling a part." "We had a first-tragedy man in our company once, who, when he played Othello, used to black himself all over. But that's feeling a part and going into it as if you meant it; it isn't usual-more's the pity." Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 48. ACTORS-A gathering of. ing or sculpturing people, or in acting people, or in anything of that sort?" Possibly the pa tient answered yes, and mentioned somebody of whom Sir Barnet had no more personal knowledge than of Ptolemy the Great. Sir Barnet replied, that nothing on earth was easier, as he knew him very well: immediately called on the aforesaid somebody, left his card, wrote a short note:-"My dear Sir-penalty of your eminent position-friend at my house naturally desirous-Lady Skettles and myself participate trust that genius being superior to ceremo→ nies, you will do us the distinguished favor o giving us the pleasure," etc., etc.—and so killed a brace of birds with one stone, dead as doornails.-Dombey and Son, Chap. 24. ACQUAINTANCE-A Charity to Mr. Toots Captain Gills," blurted out Mr. Toots, one day all at once, as his manner was, "do you think you could think favorably of that proposition of mine, and give me the pleasure of your acquaintance?" " Why, I tell you what it is, my lad," replied the Captain, who had at length concluded on a course of action; "I've been turning that there "Captain Gills, it's very kind of you," retorted Mr. Toots. "I'm much obliged to you. Upon my word and honor, Captain Gills, it would be a charity to give me the pleasure of your acquaintance. It really would." A pretty general muster of the company had by this time taken place; for besides Mr. Lenville and his friend Tommy, there were present, a slim young gentleman with weak eyes, who played the low-spirited lovers and sang tenor songs, and who had come arm-in-arm with the comic countryman-a man with a turned-up nose, large mouth, broad face, and staring eyes. Making himself very amiable to the Infant Phe-over." nomenon, was an inebriated elderly gentleman in the last depths of shabbiness, who played the calm and virtuous old men; and paying especial court to Mrs. Crummles was another elderly gentleman, a shade more respectable, who played the irascible old men-those funny fellows who have nephews in the army, and perpetually run about with thick sticks to compel them to marry heiresses. Besides these, there was a rovinglooking person in a rough great-coat, who strode up and down in front of the lamps, flourishing a dress-cane, and rattling away, in an undertone, with great vivacity, for the amusement of an ideal audience. He was not quite so young as he had been, and his figure was rather running to seed; but there was an air of exaggerated gentility about him, which bespoke the hero of swaggering comedy. Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 23. ACQUAINTANCE-The art of extending. Sir Barnet's object in life was constantly to extend the range of his acquaintance. Like a heavy body dropped into water-not to disparage so worthy a gentleman by the comparisonit was in the nature of things that Sir Barnet must spread an ever-widening circle about him, until there was no room left. Or, like a sound in air, the vibration of which, according to the speculation of an ingenious modern philosopher, may go on travelling for ever through the interminable fields of space, nothing but coming to the end of his mortal tether could stop Sir Barnet Skettles in his voyage of discovery through the social system. Sir Barnet was proud of making people acquainted with people. He liked the thing for its own sake, and it advanced his favorite object too. For example, if Sir Barnet had the good fortune to get hold of a raw recruit, or a country gentleman, and ensnared him to his hospitable villa, Sir Barnet would say to him on the morning after his arrival, "Now, my dear Sir, is there anybody you would like to know? Who is there you would wish to meet? Do you take any interest in writing people, or in paint "You see, Brother," argued the Captain slowly, "I don't know you." "But you never can know me, Captain Gills," replied Mr. Toots, steadfast to his point, "if you don't give me the pleasure of your acquaintance."—Dombey and Son, Chap. 39. ADAPTABILITY— Gentlemen of the free and easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.-Chris. Carol, Stave 3. ADDRESSES-Public. Mayors have been knighted for "going up with addresses: explosive machines intrepidly discharging shot and shell into the English Grammar.-Ed. Drood, Chap. 12. ADJECTIVES-Bark's use of profane. We enter, and Bark flies out of bed. Bark is a red villain and a wrathful, with a sanguine throat that looks very much as if it were expressly made for hanging, as he stretches it out, in pale defiance, over the half-door of his hutch. Bark's parts of speech are of an awful sort-principally adjectives. I won't, says Bark, have no adjective police and adjective strangers in my adjective premises! I won't, by adjective and substantive! Give me my trousers, and I'll ADMIRER send the whole adjective police to adjective and substantive! Give me, says Bark, my adjective trousers! I'll put an adjective knife in the whole bileing of 'em. I'll punch their adjective heads. I'll rip up their adjective substantives. Give me my adjective trousers! says Bark, and I'll spile the bileing of 'em!-On Duty with Inspector Field. Reprinted Pieces. ADMIRER-Quale as an indiscriminate. While we were in London, Mr. Jarndyce was constantly beset by the crowd of excitable ladies and gentlemen whose proceedings had so much astonished us. Mr. Quale, who presented himself soon after our arrival, was in all such excitements. He seemed to project those two shining knobs of temples of his into everything that went on, and to brush his hair farther and farther back, until the very roots were almost ready to fly out of his head in inappeasable philanthropy. All objects were alike to him, but he was always particularly ready for anything in the way of a testimonial to any one. His great power seemed to be his power of indiscriminate admiration. He would sit for any length of time, with the utmost enjoyment, bathing his temples in the light of any order of luminary. Having first seen him perfectly swallowed up in admiration of Mrs. Jellyby, I had supposed her to be the absorbing object of his devotion. I soon discovered my mistake, and found him to be train-bearer and organblower to a whole procession of people. Bleak House, Chap. 15. ADVERTISEMENTS-Peculiarities of. 'Dreaming, Tom?" word of mouth; as if they found it a comfort and consolation to proclaim, I want such and such a thing, and I can't get it, and I don't expect I ever shall!'"-Martin Chuzzlewit, Ch. 36. ADVERTISING-As a means of revenge. If I had an enemy whom I hated-which Heaven forbid !-and if I knew of something that sat heavy on his conscience, I think I would introduce that something into a PostingBill, and place a large impression in the hands of an active sticker. I can scarcely imagine a more terrible revenge. I should haunt him, by this means, night and day. I do not mean to say that I would publish his secret, in red letters two feet high, for all the town to read: I would darkly refer to it. It should be between him, and me, and the Posting-Bill. Say, for example, that, at a certain period of his life, my enemy had surreptitiously possessed himself of a key. I would then embark my capital in the lock business, and conduct that business on the advertising principle. In all my placards and advertisements, I would throw up the line SECRET KEYS. Thus, if my enemy passed an uninhabited house, he would see his conscience glaring down on him from the parapets, and peeping up at him from the cellars. If he took a dead-wall in his walk, it would be alive with reproaches. If he sought refuge in an omnibus, the panels thereof would become Belshazzar's palace to him. If he took a boat, in a wild endeavor to escape, he would see the fatal words lurking under the arches of the bridges over the Thames. If he walked the streets with downcast eyes, he would recoil from the very stones of the pavement, made eloquent by lampblack "No," said Mr. Pinch, "No. I have been lithograph. If he drove or rode, his way would looking over the advertising sheet, thinking be blocked up by enormous vans, each prothere might be something in it which would be claiming the same words over and over again likely to suit me. But, as I often think, the from its whole extent of surface. Until, having strange thing seems to be that nobody is suited. gradually grown thinner and paler, and having Here are all kinds of employers wanting all at last totally rejected food, he would miserably sorts of servants, and all sorts of servants want- perish, and I should be revenged. This coning all kinds of employers, and they never seem clusion I should, no doubt, celebrate by laughto come together. Here is a gentleman in a ing a hoarse laugh in three syllables, and foldpublic office in a position of temporary dif- ing my arms tight upon my chest, agreeably to ficulty, who wants to borrow five hundred most of the examples of glutted animosity that pounds; and in the very next advertisement I have had an opportunity of observing in conhere is another gentleman who has got exactly nexion with the Drama-which, by-the-bye, as that sum to lend. But he'll never lend it to involving a good deal of noise, appears to me him, John, you'll find! Here is a lady possess- to be occasionally confounded with the Drum. ing a moderate independence, who wants to mer.-Bill-Sticking. Reprinted Pieces. board and lodge with a quiet, cheerful family: and here is a family describing themselves in ADVERTISING-A building "billed." those very words, a quiet, cheerful family,' who want exactly such a lady to come and live with them. But she'll never go, John! Neither do any of these single gentlemen who want an airy bed-room, with the occasional use of a parlor, ever appear to come to terms with these other people who live in a rural situation, remarkable for its bracing atmosphere, within five minutes' walk of the Royal Exchange. Even those letters of the alphabet, who are always running away from their friends and being entreated at the tops of columns to come back, never do come back, if we may judge from the number of times they are asked to do it, and don't. It really seems," said Tom, relinquishing the paper, with a thoughtful sigh, "as if people had the same gratification in printing their complaints as in making them known by The foregoing reflections presented themselves to my mind, the other day, as I contem plated an old warehouse which rotting paste and rotting paper had brought down to the condition of an old cheese. It would have been impossible to say, on the most conscientious survey, how much of its front was brick and mortar, and how much decaying and decayed plaster. It was so thickly encrusted with fragments of bills, that no ship's keel after a long voyage could be half so foul. All traces of the broken windows were billed out, the doors were billed across, the waterspout was billed over. The building was shored up to prevent its tumbling into the street; and the very beams erected against it, were less wood than paste and paper, they had been so continually posted and reposted. The forlorn dregs ADVERTISING of old posters so encumbered this wreck, that there was no hold for new posters, and the stickers had abandoned the place in despair, except one enterprising man who had hoisted the last masquerade to a clear spot near the level of the stack of chimneys, where it waved and drooped like a shattered flag. Below the rusty cellar-grating, crumpled remnants of old bills torn down rotted away in wasting heaps of fallen leaves. Here and there, some of the thick rind of the house had peeled off in strips, and fluttered heavily down, littering the street; but still, below these rents and gashes, layers of decomposing posters showed themselves, as if they were interminable. I thought the building could never even be pulled down, but in one adhesive heap of rottenness and poster. As to getting in-I don't believe that if the Sleeping Beauty and her Court had been so billed up, the young prince could have done it. Reprinted Pieces. * * Robbery, fire, murder, and the ruin of the United Kingdom-each discharged in a line by itself, like a separate broadside of red-hot shot -were among the least of the warnings addressed to an unthinking people. Reprinted Pieces. "Bill-sticking." ADVERTISING-Show-bills. Next day the posters appeared in due course, and the public were informed, in all the colors of the rainbow, and in letters afflicted with every possible variation of spinal deformity, how that Mr. Johnson would have the honor of making his last appearance that evening, and how that an early application for places was requested, in consequence of the extraordinary overflow attendant on his performances. It being a remarkable fact in theatrical history, but one long since established beyond dispute, that it is a hopeless endeavor to attract people to a theatre unless they can be first brought to believe that they will never get into it. Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 30. ADVERTISEMENTS swers to. Alphabetical an Answers out of number were received, with all sorts of initials; all the letters of the alphabet seemed to be seized with a sudden wish to go out boarding and lodging; voluminous was the correspondence between Mrs. Tibbs and the applicants; and most profound was the secrecy observed. "E." did'nt like this; "I." couldn't think of putting up with that; "I. O. U." did'nt think the terms would suit him; and "G. R." had never slept in a French bed.-Tales. The Boarding House, Chap. 1. ADVERTISEMENT-A walking. So, he stopped the unstamped advertisement an animated sandwich, composed of a boy between two boards. Characters (Sketches), Chap. 9. ADVICE OF MRS. BAGNET-On conduct. "Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "give him my opinion. You know it. Tell him what it is." "It is, that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too deep for him, and cannot be too careful of interference with matters he does not understand; that the plain rule is, to do nothing in the dark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never to put his foot where he cannot see the ground." Bleak House, Chap. 27. ADVICE OF MR. MICAWBER-On procrastination and money. "My dear young friend," said Mr. Micawber, “I am older than you; a man of some experience in life, and-and of some experience-in short, in difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until something turns up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestow but advice. Still, my advice is so far worth taking that-in short, that I have never taken it myself, and am the "-here Mr. Micawber, who had been beaming and smiling, all over his head and face, up to the present moment, checked himself and frowned-"the miserable wretch you behold." My dear Micawber!" urged his wife. "I say," returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and smiling again, "the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do to-day. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him." My poor papa's maxim," Mrs. Micawber observed. 66 My dear," said Mr. Micawber, "your papa was very well in his way, and heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in all, we ne'er shall-in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to read the same description of print without spectacles. But he applied that maxim to our marriage, my dear; and that was so far prematurely entered into, in consequence, that I never recovered the expense." Mr. Micawber looked aside at Mrs. Micawber, and added: "Not that I am sorry for it. Quite the contrary, my love." After which he was grave for a minute or so. "My other piece of advice, Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, " you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result, happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result, misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene and-and, in short, you are for ever floored. As I am!"-David Copperfield, Chap. 12. AFFECTION-The expression of. "Mature affection, homage, devotion, does not easily express itself. Its voice is low. It is modest and retiring; it lies in ambush, waits and waits. Such is the mature fruit. Sometimes a life glides away, and finds it still ripening in the shade."-David Copperfield, Chap. 41. AFFECTION-The subtlety of. There is a subtlety of perception in real attachment, even when it is borne towards man by one of the lower animals, which leaves the highest intellect behind. To this mind of the heart, if I may call it so, in Mr. Dick, some bright ray of the truth shot straight. * * When I think of him, with his impenetrably wise face, walking up and down with the Doctor, delighted to be battered by the hard AFFECTION 10 AFFLICTION new feelings should usurp their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left untended, should be choked with weeds and briars."-Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 46. words in the Dictionary; when I think of him, "Shall we make a man of him?" repeated the Doctor. "I had rather be a child," replied Paul. "Indeed!" said the Doctor. 64 "Why?" The child sat on the table looking at him, with a curious expression of suppressed emotion in his face, and beating one hand proudly on his knee, as if he had the rising tears beneath it, and crushed them. But his other hand strayed a little way the while, a little fartherfarther from him yet-until it lighted on the neck of Florence. "This is why," it seemed to say, and then the steady look was broken up and gone; the working lip was loosened; and the tears came streaming forth. " Dombey and Son, Chap. 11. David Copperfield, Chap. 42. AFFECTION-Of the idiot (Barnaby Rudge). Heaven alone can tell with what vague thoughts of duty and affection; with what strange promptings of nature, intelligible to AFFLICTION-The agony of. him as to a man of radiant mind and most enlarged capacity; with what dim memories of children he had played with when a child himself, who had prattled of their fathers, and of loving them, and being loved; with how many half-remembered, dreamy associations of his mother's grief and tears and widowhood, he watched and tended this man. But that a vague and shadowy crowd of such ideas came slowly on him; that they taught him to be sorry when he looked upon his haggard face, that they overflowed his eyes when he stooped to kiss him, that they kept him waking in a tearful gladness, shading him from the sun, fanning him with leaves, soothing him when he started in his sleep-ah! what a troubled sleep it was—and wondering when she would come to join them and be happy, is the truth. He sat beside him all that day; listening for her footsteps in every breath of air, looking for her shadow on the gently waving grass, twining the hedge-flowers for her pleasure when she came, and his when he awoke; and stooping down from time to time to listen to his mutterings, and wonder why he was so restless in that quiet place. The sun went down, and night came on, and he was still quite tranquil; busied with these thoughts, as if there were no other people in the world, and the dull cloud of smoke hanging on the immense city in the distance, hid no vices, no crimes, no life or death, or causes of disquiet-nothing but clear air. They little know, who coldly talk of the poor man's bereavements, as a happy release from pain to the departed, and a merciful relief from expense to the survivor-they little know, I say, what the agony of those bereavements is. A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away-the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us--is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow."-Pick. Chap. 21. Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 68. AFFECTIONS-Wounded. Agitation and anxiety of mind scatter wrinkles and grey hairs with no unsparing hand; but deeper traces follow on the silent uprooting of old habits, and severing of dear, familiar ties. The affections may not be so easily wounded as the passions, but their hurts are deeper, and more lasting.-Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 81. AFFECTIONS-The natural. "Natural affections and instincts, my dear sir, are the most beautiful of the Almighty's works, but like other beautiful works of His, they must be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that they should be wholly obscured, and that AFFLICTION—Assuaged by Memory. "If anything could soothe the first sharp pain of a heavy loss, it would be—with me-the reflection that those I mourned, by being innocently happy here, and loving all about them, had prepared themselves for a purer and happier world. The sun does not shine upon this fair earth to meet frowning eyes, depend upon it." "I believe you are right," said the gentleman who had told the story. "Believe!" retorted the other, "can anybody doubt it? Take any subject of sorrowful regret, and see with how much pleasure it is associated. The recollection of past pleasure may become pain—' "It does," interposed the other. "Well; it does. To remember happiness which cannot be restored, is pain, but of a softened kind. Our recollections are unfortunately mingled with much that we deplore, and with many actions which we bitterly repent; still, in the most chequered life I firmly think there are so many little rays of sunshine to look back upon, that I do not believe any mortal (unless he had put himself without the pale of hope) would deliberately drain a goblet of the waters of Lethe, if he had it in his power." "Possibly you are correct in that belief," said the grey-haired gentleman, after a short reflection. "I am inclined to think you are." "Why, then," replied the other," the good in this state of existence preponderates over the bad, let mis-called philosophers tell us what they will. If our affections be tried, our affections are our consolation and comfort; and AFFLICTION memory, however sad, is the best and purest link between this world and a better." Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 6. AFFLICTION-Comfort in. In the exhaustless catalogue of Heaven's mercies to mankind, the power we have of finding some germs of comfort in the hardest trials must ever occupy the foremost place; not only because it supports and upholds us when we most require to be sustained, but because in this source of consolation there is something, we have reason to believe, of the divine spirit; something of that goodness which detects, amidst our own evil doings, a redeeming quality; something which, even in our fallen nature, we possess in common with the angels; which had its being in the old time when they trod the earth, and lingers on it yet, in pity. Barnaby Rudge, Chap. 47. AFFRONT-Mr. Pickwick's. "Sir," said Mr. Tupman, "you're a fellow!" Sir," said Mr. Pickwick, "you're another!" Mr. Tupman advanced a step or two, and glared at Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Pickwick returned the glare, concentrated into a focus by means of his spectacles, and breathed a bold defiance. Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle looked on, petrified at beholding such a scene between two such men. "Sir," said Mr. Tupman, after a short pause, speaking in a low, deep voice, "you have called me old." "I have," said Mr. Pickwick. "So you are!" There was a fearful pause. 11 "My attachment to your person, sir," said Mr. Tupman, speaking in a voice tremulous with emotion, and tucking up his wristbands meanwhile, "is great-very great-but upon that person I must take summary vengeance." Come on, sir!" replied Mr. Pickwick. Stimulated by the exciting nature of the dialogue, the heroic man actually threw himself into a paralytic attitude, confidently supposed by the two bystanders to have been intended as a posture of defence. "What!" exclaimed Mr. Snodgrass, suddenly recovering the power of speech, of which intense astonishment had previously bereft him, and rushing between the two, at the imminent hazard of receiving an application on the temple from each, "What! Mr. Pickwick, with the eyes of the world upon you! Mr. Tupman, who, in common with us all, derives a lustre from his undying name! For shame, gentle men; for shame." The unwonted lines which momentary passion had ruled in Mr. Pickwick's clear and open brow, gradually melted away as his young friend spoke, like the marks of a black-lead pencil beneath the softening influence of India rubber. His countenance had resumed its usual benign expression ere he concluded. Pickwick, Chap. 15. AGE-A youthful old. "Brother Ned, my dear boy," returned the oher old fellow, "I believe that Tim Linkin ALPHABET water was born a hundred-and-fifty years old, and is gradually coming down to five-and-twenty; for he's younger every birthday than he was the year before." Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 37. AGE-The duties of old. "Dear me!" said Mr. Omer, "when a man is drawing on to a time of life where the two ends of life meet; when he finds himself, however hearty he is, being wheeled about for the second time in a species of go-cart; he should be over-rejoiced to do a kindness if he can. He wants plenty. And I don't speak of myself, particular," said Mr. Omer, "because, sir, the way I look at it is, that we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hill, whatever age we are, on account of time never standing still for a single moment. So let us always do a kindness, and be over-rejoiced. To be sure!" David Copperfield, Chap. 51. AGE-Revered by the poor. Age, especially when it strives to be self-reliant and cheerful, finds much consideration among the poor. Hard Times, Book II., Chap. 6. " ALIBI-The Elder Weller's idea of an. "The trial's a comin' on," replied Sam. "Vell," said Mr. Weller, "Now I s'pose he'll want to call some witnesses to speak to his character, or p'haps to prove a alleybi. I've been a turnin' the bisness over in my mind, and he may make his-self easy, Sammy. I've got some friends as'll do either for him, but my advice 'ud be this here-never mind the character, and stick to the alleybi. Nothing like a alleybi, Sammy, nothing." Mr. Weller looked very profound as he delivered this legal opinion; and burying his nose in his tumbler, winked over the top thereof at his astonished son. "Why, what do you mean?" said Sam; "you don't think he's a-goin' to be tried at the Old Bailey, do you?" That ain't no part of the present con-sideration, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller. "Verever he's a-goin' to be tried, my boy, a alleybi's the thing to get him off. Ve got Tom Vildspark off that 'ere manslaughter, with a alleybi, ven all the big vigs to a man said as nothing couldn't save him. And my 'pinion is, Sammy, that if your governor don't prove a alleybi, he'll be what the Italians call reg'larly flummoxed, and that's all about it." Pickwick, Chap. 33. * Sam had put up the steps, and was preparing to jump upon the box, when he felt himself gently touched on the shoulder; and looking round, his father stood before him. The old gentleman's countenance wore a mournful expression, as he shook his head gravely, and said, in warning accents: "I know'd what 'ud come o' this here mode o' doing bisness. Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy worn't there a alleybi !"—Pickwick, Chap. 34. ALPHABET-Learning the. To this day, when I look upon the fat black |