Vanity Fair (Volume 1 ); A Novel Without a Hero (Paperback)

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: ... only hear the people yelling out "Ah gredin Ah monstre " and cursing the tyrant of the play from the boxes; but the actors themselves positively refuse to play the wicked parts, such as those of infdmes Anglais, brutal Cossacks, and what not, and prefer to appear, at a smaller salary, in their real characters as loyal Frenchmen. I set the two stories one against the other, so that you may see that it is not from mere mercenary motives that the present performer is desirous to show up and trounce his villains; but because he has a sincere hatred of them, which he cannot keep down, and which must find a vent in suitable abuse and bad language. I warn my "kyind friends," then, that I am going to tell a story of harrowing villany and complicated--but, as I trust, intensely interesting--crime. My rascals are no milk-andwater rascals, I promise you. When we come to the.proper places we won't spare fine language--No, no But when we are going over the quiet country we must perforce be calm. A tempest in a slop-basin is absurd. We will reserve that sort of thing for the mighty ocean and the lonely midnight. The present Chapter is very mild. Others But we will not anticipate those. And, as we bring our characters forward, I will ask leave, as a man and a brother, not only to introduce them, but occasionally to step down from the platform, and talk about them: if they are good and kindly, to love them and shake them by the hand: if they are silly, to laugh at them confidentially in the reader's sleeve: if they are wicked and heartless, to abuse them in the strongest terms which politeness admits of. Otherwise you might fancy it was I who was sneering at the practice of devotion, which Miss Sharp finds so ridiculous; that it was I who laughed good-humouredly at the reelin...