Dickens's England Read Online Free

(still with clemency). ‘The sound is “th” – “th”!’
    â€˜And other countries,’ said the foreign gentleman. ‘They do how?’
    â€˜They do, Sir,’ returned Mr Podsnap, gravely shaking his head; ‘they do – I am sorry to be obliged to say it – as they do.’
    â€˜It was a little particular of Providence,’ said the foreign gentleman, laughing; ‘for the frontier is not large.’
    â€˜Undoubtedly,’ assented Mr Podsnap; ‘But So it is. It was the Charter of the Land. This Island was Blest, Sir, to the Direct Exclusion of such Other Countries as – as there may happen to be. And if we were all Englishmen present, I would say,’ added Mr Podsnap, looking round upon his compatriots, and sounding solemnly with his theme, ‘that there is in the Englishman a combination of qualities, a modesty, an independence, a responsibility, a repose, combined with an absence of everything calculated to call a blush into the cheek of a young person, which one would seek in vain among the Nations of the Earth.’
    Having delivered this little summary, Mr Podsnap’s face flushed as he thought of the remote possibility of its being at all qualified by any prejudiced citizen of any other country; and, with his favourite right-arm flourish, he put the rest of Europe and the whole of Asia, Africa and America nowhere.
    Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (1865)
    FROM ‘MR MOLONEY’S ACCOUNT OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE’
    [In mock Irish]
    With ganial foire
    Thransfuse me loyre,
    Ye sacred nymphs of Pindus,
    The whoile I sing
    That wondthrous thing,
    The Palace made o’ windows! . . .
    â€™Tis here that roams,
    As well becomes
    Her dignitee and stations,
    VICTORIA Great,
    And houlds in state
    The Congress of the Nations.
    Her subjects pours
    From distant shores,
    Her Injians and Canajians;
    And also we,
    Her kingdoms three,
    Attind with our allagiance.
    Here come likewise
    Her bould allies,
    Both Asian and Europian;
    From East and West
    They send their best
    To fill her Coornucopean. . . .
    There’s holy saints
    And window paints,
    By Maydiayval Pugin;
    Alhamborough Jones
    Did paint the tones
    Of yellow and gambouge in. . . .
    There’s Statues bright
    Of marble white,
    Of silver, and of copper;
    And some in zinc,
    And some, I think,
    That isn’t over proper.
    There’s staym Ingynes,
    That stands in lines,
    Enormous and amazing,
    That squeal and snort
    Like whales in sport,
    Or elephants a-grazing. . . .
    Look, here’s a fan
    From far Japan,
    A sabre from Damasco;
    There’s shawls ye get
    From far Thibet,
    And cotton prints from Glasgow. . . .
    There’s granite flints
    That’s quite imminse,
    There’s sacks of coals and fuels,
    There’s swords and guns,
    And soap in tuns,
    And Ginger-bread and Jewels.
    There’s taypots there,
    And cannons rare;
    There’s coffins filled with roses;
    There’s canvass tints,
    Teeth insthrumints,
    And shuits of clothes by Moses. . . .
    So let us raise
    VICTORIA’S praise,
    And ALBERT’S proud condition,
    That takes his ayse
    As he surveys
    This Cristial Exhibition.
    William Makepeace Thackeray, Punch (1851)
    YOUR TRUE RELIGION
    My good Yorkshire friends, you asked me down here [Bradford] among your hills that I might talk to you about this Exchange you are going to build; but, earnestly and seriously asking you to pardon me, I am going to do nothing of the kind. I cannot talk, or at least can say very little, about this same Exchange. I must talk of quite other things . . .
    Now, pardon me for telling you frankly, you cannot have good architecture merely by asking people’s advice on occasion. All good architecture is the expression of national life and character; and it is produced by a prevalent and eager national taste . . .
    Permit me, therefore, to fortify this old dogma of mine somewhat. Taste is not only a part and an index of morality