Letters and memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle [Unknown Binding]

Jane Welsh Carlyle (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0838314929 | ISBN-13: 978-0838314920 | Publication Date: 1972

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1883. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... LETTER 137. To John Welsh, Esq., Lwerpool. Chelsea: Jan. 7, 1851. Dear, estimable uncle of me,--Have you been reading Thackeray's ' Pendennis'? If so, you have made acquaintance with Blanche Amory; and when I tell you that my young lady of last week is the original of that portrait, you will give me joy that she, lady's-maid, and infinite baggage, are all gone! Not that the poor little is quite such a little devil as Thackeray, who has detested her from a child, has here represented; but the looks, the manners, the wiles, the larmes, 'and all that sort of thing,' are a perfect likeness. The blame, however, is chiefly on those who placed her in a position so false that it required extraordinary virtue not to become false along with it. She was the only legitimate child of a beautiful young ' improper female,' who was for a number of years 's mistress (she had had a husband, a swindler). His mother took the freak of patronising this mistress, saw the child, and behold it was very pretty and clever. Poor Mrs. had tired of parties, of politics, of most things in heaven and earth; 'a sudden thought struck her,' she would adopt this child; give herself the excitement of making a scandal and braving public opinion, and of educating a flesh and blood girl into the heroine of the three-volume novel, which she had for years been trying to write, but wanted perseverance to elaborate. The child was made the idol of the whole house; her showy education was fitting her more for her own mother's profession than for any honest one; and when she was seventeen, and the novel was just rising into the interest of love affairs, a rich young man having been refused, or rather jilted, by her, Mrs. died, her husband and son being already dead; and poor was left without any earthly stay...

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Unknown Binding
• Publisher: Haskell House (1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0838314929
• ISBN-13: 978-0838314920

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