de Profundis; A Tale of the Social Deposits (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1864 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH THE HERO BECOMES A PERSONAGE OF SOME IMPORTANCE, AND DIVERS CHANGES TAKE PLACE IN THE PARTS OP THE OTHER PERFORMERS. LAPSE of thirteen years has taken place between the fall of the curtain on the last act of our drama and its rising on the opening scene of the present. During that period, however, several vicissitudes must be assumed to have taken place. In the first place, time had not only left its trace on Mrs. Sparkes' form and features, out sickness had marked them as well. She had become much thinner, and stooped considerably; a change the more remarkable in her as she had always imitated the bearing and walk that ought to characterise a Guardsman's wife. There was also a considerable change in her dress. She had always affected neatness and quiet colouring, but now she was always dressed in black. Moreover, for the last twelve years she had worn a widow's cap, her husband having been gathered to his fathers about nine months after his first introduction to the reader. He had always wished to die upon the field of battle, but that was denied him. The manner of his death, or rather the accident that caused it, was in some slight way mixed up with his country's glory and its deeds of arms, which allayed in the mind of his wife any stigma that might have attached itself to his memory from the proximate cause of his death. On the first anniversary of the battle of Waterloo after our opening scene, he had been talking over the incidents of that eventful day with some comrades, who, like himself, had fought in it with honour to themselves and glory to their country. The arguments were long and interesting, and in the course of the debate, which was held at the "British Grenadier," they had occasion to drink the Duke of Wellington's heal...