Vanity Fair - Page 42/573

I know that the tune I am piping is a very mild one (although there are

some terrific chapters coming presently), and must beg the good-natured

reader to remember that we are only discoursing at present about a

stockbroker's family in Russell Square, who are taking walks, or

luncheon, or dinner, or talking and making love as people do in common

life, and without a single passionate and wonderful incident to mark

the progress of their loves. The argument stands thus--Osborne, in

love with Amelia, has asked an old friend to dinner and to

Vauxhall--Jos Sedley is in love with Rebecca. Will he marry her? That

is the great subject now in hand.

We might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in the romantic,

or in the facetious manner. Suppose we had laid the scene in Grosvenor

Square, with the very same adventures--would not some people have

listened? Suppose we had shown how Lord Joseph Sedley fell in love, and

the Marquis of Osborne became attached to Lady Amelia, with the full

consent of the Duke, her noble father: or instead of the supremely

genteel, suppose we had resorted to the entirely low, and described

what was going on in Mr. Sedley's kitchen--how black Sambo was in love

with the cook (as indeed he was), and how he fought a battle with the

coachman in her behalf; how the knife-boy was caught stealing a cold

shoulder of mutton, and Miss Sedley's new femme de chambre refused to

go to bed without a wax candle; such incidents might be made to provoke

much delightful laughter, and be supposed to represent scenes of

"life." Or if, on the contrary, we had taken a fancy for the terrible,

and made the lover of the new femme de chambre a professional burglar,

who bursts into the house with his band, slaughters black Sambo at the

feet of his master, and carries off Amelia in her night-dress, not to

be let loose again till the third volume, we should easily have

constructed a tale of thrilling interest, through the fiery chapters of

which the reader should hurry, panting. But my readers must hope for

no such romance, only a homely story, and must be content with a

chapter about Vauxhall, which is so short that it scarce deserves to be

called a chapter at all. And yet it is a chapter, and a very important

one too. Are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem

to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?

Let us then step into the coach with the Russell Square party, and be

off to the Gardens. There is barely room between Jos and Miss Sharp,

who are on the front seat. Mr. Osborne sitting bodkin opposite,

between Captain Dobbin and Amelia.