slanting rays pierced mortally the sullen bank of cloud that lingered in its flight; and a rainbow, spirit of all the colors that adorned the earth and sky, spanned the whole arch with its triumphant glory.-Battle of Life, Chap. 3. AUTUMN-Wind at twilight.

Not only is the day waning, but the year. The low sun is fiery and yet cold behind the monastery ruin, and the Virginia creeper on the Cathedral wall has showered half its deep-red leaves down on the pavement. There has been rain this afternoon, and a wintry shudder goes among the little pools on the cracked, uneven flag-stones, and through the giant elm-trees as they shed a gust of tears. Their fallen leaves lie strewn thickly about. Some of these leaves, in a timid rush, seek sanctuary within the lowarched Cathedral door.

Edwin Drood, Chap. 2.

AUTUMN-Nature in. 1

It was pretty late in the autumn of the year, when the declining sun, struggling through the mist which had obscured it all day, looked brightly down upon a little Wiltshire village, within an easy journey of the fair old town of Salisbury.

while others (hardy evergreens this class)
showed somewhat stern and gloomy in their
vigor, as charged by nature with the admonition
that it is not to her more sensitive and joyous
favorites she grants the longest term of life.
Still, athwart their darker boughs, the sunbeams
struck out paths of deeper gold; and the red
light, mantling in among their swarthy branches,
used them as foils to set its brightness off, and
aid the lustre of the dying day.
Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 2.

AUTUMN-The voices of nature.

On a healthy autumn day, the Marshalsea prisoner, weak, but otherwise restored, sat listening to a voice that read to him. On a healthy autumn day; when the golden fields had been reaped and ploughed again, when the summer fruits had ripened and waned, when the green perspectives of hops had been laid low by the busy pickers, when the apples clustering in the orchards were russet, and the berries of the mountain ash were crimson among the yellowing foliage. Already, in the woods, glimpses of the hardy winter that was coming, were to be caught through unaccustomed openings among the boughs, where the prospect shone defined and clear, free from the bloom of the drowsy summer weather, which had rested on it as the bloom lies on the plum. So, from the sea-shore the ocean was no longer to be seen lying asleep in the heat, but its thousand sparkling eyes were open, and its whole breadth was in joyful animation, from the cool sand on the beach to the little sails on the horizon, drifting away like autumn-tinted leaves that had drifted from the trees.

Like a sudden flash of memory or spirit kindling up the mind of an old man, it shed a glory upon the scene, in which its departed youth and freshness seemed to live again. The wet grass sparkled in the light; the scanty patches of verdure in the hedges-where a few green twigs yet stood together bravely, resisting to the last the tyranny of nipping winds and early frosts-took heart and brightened up; the stream which had been dull and sullen all day Changeless and barren, looking ignorantly at long, broke out into a cheerful smile; the birds all the seasons with its fixed, pinched face of began to chirp and twitter on the naked boughs, poverty and care, the prison had not a touch as though the hopeful creatures half believed of any of these beauties on it. Blossom what that winter had gone by, and spring had come would, its bricks and bars bore uniformly the already. The vane upon the tapering spire of same dead crop. Yet Clennam, listening to the the old church glistened from its lofty station in voice as it read to him, heard in it all that great sympathy with the general gladness; and from Nature was doing, heard in it all the soothing the ivy-shaded windows such gleams of light songs she sings to man. At no Mother's knee shone back upon the glowing sky, that it seemed but hers had he ever dwelt in his youth on as if the quiet buildings were the hoarding-hopeful promises, on playful fancies, on the place of twenty summers, and all their ruddiness and warmth were stored within.

harvests of tenderness and humility that lie hidden in the early-fostered seeds of the imEven those tokens of the season which em- agination; on the oaks of retreat from blightphatically whispered of the coming winter, ing winds, that have the germs of their strong graced the landscape, and, for the moment, roots in nursery acorns. But, in the tones of tinged its livelier features with no oppressive air the voice that read to him, there were memoof sadness. The fallen leaves, with which theries of an old feeling of such things, and echoes ground was strewn, gave forth a pleasant fra- of every merciful and loving whisper that had grance, and subduing all harsh sounds of dis- ever stolen to him in his life. tant feet and wheels, created a repose in gentle Little Dorrit, Chap. 34. unison with the light scattering of seed hither and thither by the distant husbandman, and AVARICE—The miser. with the noiseless passage of the plough as it A little further on, a hard-featured old man turned up the rich brown earth, and wrought a with a deeply wrinkled face, was intently pegraceful pattern in the stubbled fields. On the rusing a lengthy will, with the aid of a pair of motionless branches of some trees, autumn ber- horn spectacles; occasionally pausing from his ries hung like clusters of coral beads, as in task, and slily noting down some brief memothose fabled orchards where the fruits were jew-randum of the bequests contained in it. Every els; others, stripped of all their garniture, stood, each the centre of its little heap of bright red leaves, watching their slow decay; others again, still wearing theirs, had them all crunched and crackled up, as though they had been burnt ; about the stems of some were piled, in ruddy mounds, the apples they had borne that year;

wrinkle about his toothless mouth, and sharp keen eyes, told of avarice and cunning. His clothes were nearly threadbare, but it was easy to see that he wore them from choice and not from necessity; all his looks and gestures, down to the very small pinches of snuff which he every now and then took from a little tin

canister, told of wealth, and penury, and secured in that particular description of iron avarice.-Scenes, Chap. 8. safe which is commonly called a coffin, and banked in the grave. Martin Chuzzlewit, Chap. 8.

in, to rasp Augustus George? Am I to be told that his sensitive skin was ever intended by Nature to have rashes brought out upon it, by the premature and incessant use of those formidable little instruments?

George is a production of Nature (I cannot think otherwise), and I claim that he should be treated with some remote reference to Nature. In my opinion, Mrs. Prodgit is, from first to last, a convention and a superstition.

Births-Mrs. Meek.-Reprinted Pieces.

Is my son a Nutmeg, that he is to be grated on the stiff edges of sharp frills? Am I the parent of a Muslin boy, that his yielding sur- BABY-Description of a. face is to be crimped and small-plaited? Or is my child composed of Paper or of Linen, that impressions of the finer getting-up art, practised by the laundress, are to be printed off, all over his soft arms and legs, as I constantly observe them? The starch enters his soul; who can wonder that he cries?

One of those little carved representations that one sometimes sees blowing a trumpet on a tombstone !— Tales, Bloomsbury Christening.

Was Augustus George intended to have limbs, or to be born a Torso? I presume that limbs were the intention, as they are the usual practice. Then, why are my poor child's limbs fettered and tied up? Am I to be told that there is any analogy between Augustus George Meek and Jack Sheppard?

Analyse Castor Oil at any Institution of Chemistry that may be agreed upon, and inform me what resemblance, in taste, it bears to that natural provision which it is at once the pride and duty of Maria Jane to administer to Augustus George! Yet I charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with systematically forcing Castor Oil on my innocent son, from the first hour of his birth. When that medicine, in its efficient action, causes internal disturbance to Augustus George, I charge Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) with insanely and inconsistently administering opium to allay the storm she has raised! What is the meaning of this?

If the days of Egyptian Mummies are past, how dare Mrs. Prodgit require, for the use of my son, an amount of flannel and linen that would carpet my humble roof? Do I wonder that she requires it? No! This morning, with in an hour, I beheld this agonising sight. I be held my son-Augustus George-in Mrs. Prod git's hands, and on Mrs. Prodgit's knee, being dressed. He was at the moment, comparatively speaking, in a state of nature: having nothing on but an extremely short shirt, remarkably disproportionate to the length of his usual outer garments. Trailing from Mrs. Prodgit's lap, on the floor, was a long narrow roller or bandage-I should say of several yards in extent. In this, I saw Mrs. Prodgit tightly roll the body of my unoffending infant, turning him over and over, now presenting his unconscious face upwards, now the back of his bald head, until the unnatural feat was accomplished, and the bandage secured by a pin, which I have every reason to believe entered the body of my only child. In this tourniquet he passes the present phase of his existence. Can I know it and smile?

I fear I have been betrayed into expressing myself warmly, but I feel deeply. Not for myself; for Augustus George. I dare not interfere. Will any one? Will any publication? Any doctor? Any parent? Any body? I do not complain that Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby) entirely alienates Maria Jane's affections from me, and interposes an impassable barrier between us. I do not complain of being made of no account. I do not want to be of any account. But, Augustus

A weazen little baby, with a heavy head that it couldn't hold up, and two weak, staring eyes, with which it seemed to be always wondering why it had ever been born.

David Copperfield, Chap. 22.

BABY-His welcome of pins.

The fatherless little stranger was welcomed by some grosses of prophetic pins in a drawer upstairs, to a world not at all excited on the subject of his arrival.—David Copperfield, Chap. 1. BABY TALK.

A mechanical power of reproducing scraps of current conversation for the delectation of the baby, with all the sense struck out of them, and all the nouns changed into the plural number.-Cricket on the Hearth, Chap. 1. BABY-The birth of a.

There are certain polite forms and ceremo nies which must be observed in civilized life, or mankind relapse into their original barbarism. No genteel lady was ever yet confined-indeed, no genteel confinement can possibly take place

without the accompanying symbol of a muffled knocker. Mrs. Kenwigs was a lady of some pretensions to gentility; Mrs. Kenwigs was confined. And, therefore, Mr. Kenwigs tied up the silent knocker on the premises in a white kid glove.

"I'm not quite certain, neither," said Mr. Kenwigs, arranging his shirt-collar, and walking slowly up-stairs, "whether, as it's a boy, I won't have it in the papers."

Pondering upon the advisability of this step, and the sensation it was likely to create in the neighborhood, Mr. Kenwigs betook himself to the sitting-room, where various extremely diminutive articles of clothing were airing on a horse before the fire, and Mr. Lumbey, the doctor, was dandling the baby-that is, the old baby-not the new one.

"It's a fine boy, Mr. Kenwigs," said Mr. Lumbey, the doctor.

"You consider him a fine boy, do you, sir?" returned Mr. Kenwigs.

"It's the finest boy I ever saw in all my life," said the doctor. “I never saw such a baby.”

It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 36.

BABY-Cutting teeth.

It was a peculiarity of this baby to be always cutting teeth. Whether they never came, or whether they came and went away again, is not in evidence; but it had certainly cut

within; so stolid, but so good! Oh, Mother Nature, give thy children the true poetry of heart that hid itself in this poor Carrier's breast-he was but a Carrier, by the way-and we can bear to have them talking prose, and leading lives of prose; and bear to bless thee for their

enough, on the showing of Mrs. Tetterby, to
make a handsome dental provision for the sign
of the Bull and Mouth. All sorts of objects
were impressed for the rubbing of its gums,
notwithstanding that it always carried, dang-
ling at its waist (which was immediately under
its chin), a bone ring, large enough to have rep-company.
resented the rosary of a young nun. Knife-
handles, umbrella-tops, the heads of walking-
sticks selected from the stock, the fingers of
the family in general, but especially of John-
ny, nutmeg-graters, crusts, the handles of doors,
and the cool knobs on the tops of pokers, were
among the commonest instruments indiscrimi-
nately applied for this baby's relief. The
amount of electricity that must have been
rubbed out of it in a week, is not to be calcu-
lated. Still Mrs. Tetterby always said "it was
coming through, and then the child would be
herself;" and still it never did come through,
and the child continued to be somebody else.
Christmas Stories, The Haunted Man, Chap. 3.
BABY-A patient.

A poor little baby-such a tiny old-faced mite, with a countenance that seemed to be scarcely anything but cap-border, and a little lean, long-fingered hand, always clenched under its chin. It would lie in this attitude all day, with its bright specks of eyes open, wondering (as I used to imagine) how it came to be so small and weak. Whenever it was moved it cried; but at all other times it was so patient, that the sole desire of its life appeared to be, to lie quiet, and think. It had curious little dark veins in its face, and curious little dark marks under its eyes, like faint remembrances of poor Caddy's inky days; and altogether, to those who were not used to it, it was quite a piteous little sight.

Bleak House, Chap. 50.

BABY-Announcement of a.

As he bent his face to hers, she raised hers to meet it, and laid her little right hand on his eyes, and kept it there.

"Do you remember, John, on the day we were married, Pa's speaking of the ships that might be sailing towards us from the unknown seas?"

་་

"Perfectly, my darling!" "I think..... .. among them..... there is a ship upon the ocean. .. bringing. ..... to you and me..... a little baby, John."

Our Mutual Friend, Book IV., Chap. 5. BABY-"Dot's."

"I wish you wouldn't call me Dot, John. I don't like it," said Mrs. Peerybingle, pouting in a way that clearly showed she did like it, very much.

It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure, and her baby in her arms-a very doll of a baby-glancing with a coquettish thoughtfulness at the fire, and inclining her delicate little head just enough on one side to let it rest in an odd, half-natural, half-affected, wholly nestling and agreeable manner, on the great rugged figure of the Carrier. It was pleasant to see him, with his tender awkwardness, endeavoring to adapt his rude support to her slight need, and make his burly middle-age a leaning-staff not inappropriate to her blooming youth. It was pleasant to observe how Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the background for the baby, took special cognizance (though in her earliest teens) of this grouping; and stood with her mouth and eyes wide open, and her head thrust forward, taking it in as if it were air. Nor was it less agreeable to observe how John the Carrier, reference being made by Dot to the aforesaid baby, checked his hand when on the point of touching the infant, as if he thought he might crack it; and bending down, surveyed it from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled pride, such as an amiable mastiff might be supposed to show, if he found himself, one day, the father of a young canary.

Cricket on the Hearth, Chap. 1.

BABY-A Moloch of a.

Another little boy-the biggest there, but still little-was tottering to and fro, bent on one side, and considerably affected in his knees by the weight of a large baby, which he was supposed, by a fiction that obtains sometimes in sanguine families, to be hushing to sleep. But oh the inexhaustible regions of contemplation and watchfulness into which this baby's eyes were then only beginning to compose themselves to stare, over his unconscious shoulder!

46

It was a very Moloch of a baby, on whose insatiate altar the whole existence of this particular young brother was offered up a daily sacrifice. Its personality may be said to have consisted in its never being quiet, in any one place, for five consecutive minutes, and never going to sleep when required. 'Tetterby's baby," was as well known in the neighborhood as the postman or the pot-boy. It roved from door step to door-step, in the arms of little Johnny Tetterby, and lagged heavily at the rear of troops of juveniles who followed the Tumblers or the Monkey, and came up, all on one Why, what else are you!" returned John, side, a little too late for everything that was looking down upon her with a smile, and giving attractive, from Monday morning until Satur her waist as light a squeeze as his huge hand and day night. Wherever childhood congregated to arm could give. "A dot and "-here he glanc-play, there was little Moloch making Johnny ed at the baby-" a dot and carry-I won't say it, for fear I should spoil it; but I was very near a joke. I don't know as ever I was nearer.' He was often near to something or other very clever, by his own account: this lumbering, slow, honest John; this John, so heavy, but so light of spirit; so rough upon the surface, but so gentle at the core; so dull without, so quick

66

"

fag and toil. Wherever Johnny desired to stay, little Moloch became fractious, and would not remain. Whenever Johnny wanted to go out, Moloch was asleep, and must be watched. Whenever Johnny wanted to stay at home, Moloch was awake, and must be taken out. Yet Johnny was verily persuaded that it was a faultless baby, without its peer in the realm of

England; and was quite content to catch meek
glimpses of things in general from behind its
skirts, or over its limp flapping bonnet, and to
go staggering about with it like a very little
porter with a very large parcel, which was not
directed to anybody, and could never be deliv-ments.
ered anywhere.

Christmas Stories. The Haunted Man, Chap. 2.

BACHELORS-In society.

These are generally old fellows with white heads and red faces, addicted to port wine and Hessian boots, who from some cause, real or imaginary generally the former, the excellent reason being that they are rich, and their relations poor-grow suspicious of everybody, and do the misanthropical in chambers, taking great delight in thinking themselves unhappy, and making everybody they come near, miserable. You may see such men as these, anywhere; you will know them at coffee-houses by their discontented exclamations and the luxury of their dinners; at theatres, by their always sitting in the same place and looking with a jaundiced eye on all the young people near them; at church, by the pomposity with which they enter, and the loud tone in which they repeat the responses; at parties, by their getting cross at whist and hating music. An old fellow of this kind will have his chambers splendidly furnished, and collect books, plate, and pictures about him in profusion; not so much for his own gratification as to be superior to those who have the desire, but not the means, to compete with him. He belongs to two or three clubs, and is envied, and flattered, and hated by the members of them all. Sometimes he will be appealed to by a poor relation-a married nephew perhaps for some little assistance: and then he will declaim with honest indignation on the improvidence of young married people, the worthlessness of a wife, the insolence of having a family, the atrocity of getting into debt with a hundred and twenty-five pounds a-year, and other unpardonable crimes; winding up his exhortations with a complacent review of his own conduct, and a delicate allusion to parochial relief. He dies, some day after dinner, of apoplexy, having bequeathed his property to a Public Society, and the Institution erects a tablet to his memory, expressive of their admiration of his Christian conduct in this world, and their comfortable conviction of his happiness in the next.

(Characters), Sketches, Chap. 1.

BACHELOR-A crusty.

insisted he was nervous; they thought him a lucky dog, but he protested that he was "the most unfortunate man in the world." Cold as he was, and wretched as he declared himself to be, he was not wholly unsusceptible of attachHe revered the memory of Hoyle, as he was himself an admirable and imperturbable whist-player, and he chuckled with delight at a fretful and impatient adversary. He adored King Herod for his massacre of the innocents; and if he hated one thing more than another, it was a child. However, he could hardly be said to hate anything in particular, because he disliked everything in general; but perhaps his greatest antipathies were cabs, old women, doors that would not shut, musical amateurs, and omnibus cads. He subscribed to the "Society for the Suppression of Vice," for the pleasure of putting a stop to any harmless amusements: and he contributed largely towards the support of two itinerant Methodist parsons, in the amiable hope that if circumstances rendered any people happy in this world, they might perchance be rendered miserable by fears for the next.

Sketches, Bloomsbury Christening.

BACHELOR-A miserable creature.
"A bachelor is a miserable wretch, sir," said
Mr. Lillyvick.

"Is he?" asked Nicholas.

"He is," rejoined the collector. "I have lived in the world for nigh sixty year, and I ought to know what it is."

"You ought to know, certainly," thought Nicholas; but whether you do or not, is another question."

"If a bachelor happens to have saved a little matter of money," said Mr. Lillyvick, "his sisters and brothers, and nephews and nieces, look to that money, and not to him; even if, by being a public character, he is the head of the family, or, as it may be, the main from which all the other little branches are turned on, they still wish him dead all the while, and get low-spirited every time they see him looking in good health, because they want to come into his little property. You see that?"

Nicholas Nickleby, Chap. 25.

BACHELOR-Major Bagstock.

Although Major Bagstock had arrived at what is called in polite literature, the grand meridian of life, and was proceeding on his journey down-hill with hardly any throat, and a very rigid pair of jaw-bones, and long-flapIped elephantine ears, and his eyes and comMr. Nicodemus Dumps, or, as his acquaint- plexion in the state of artificial excitement ance called him," long Dumps," was a bachelor, already mentioned, he was mightily proud of six feet high, and fifty years old; cross, cadav-awakening an interest in Miss Tox, and tickerous, odd, and ill-natured. He was never led his vanity with the fiction that she was a happy but when he was miserable; and always splendid woman, who had her eye on him. miserable when he had the best reason to be This he had several times hinted at the club: happy. The only real comfort of his existence in connection with little jocularities, of which was to make everybody about him wretched-old Joe Bagstock, old Joey Bagstock, old J. then he might be truly said to enjoy life. He Bagstock, old Josh Bagstock, or so forth, was was afflicted with a situation in the Bank worth the perpetual theme: it being, as it were, the five hundred a year, and he rented a "first- Major's stronghold and donjon-keep of light floor furnished," at Pentonville, which he origi-humor, to be on the most familiar terms with nally took because it commanded a dismal his own name. prospect of an adjacent churchyard. He was familiar with the face of every tombstone, and the burial service seemed to excite his strongest sympathy. His friends said he was surly-he

3

'Joey B., Sir," the Major would say, with a flourish of his walking-stick, "is worth a dozen of you. If you had a few more of the Bagstock breed among you, Sir, you'd be none the