Peregrine Pultuney; or, Life in India [by sir J.W. Kaye].

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Page 136 - OLD mother Hubbard, Went to the cupboard, To get her poor dog a bone ; But when she came there, The cupboard was bare, And so the poor dog had none.
Page 194 - And is it in the flight of threescore years To push eternity from human thought, And smother souls immortal in the dust ? A soul immortal, spending all her fires, Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, Thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarm'd, At aught this scene can threaten or indulge, Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.
Page 76 - Peregrine did not much like the idea of wearing ready-made clothes ; but he followed the sergeant into the adjoining room, where a number of boys of all sizes, some in their shirt-sleeves, and some in their shirt-tails, were trying on coats and trousers with every symptom of gratification. The sergeant pointed to some pigeon-hole places, where Peregrine saw divers suits of blue uniform turned up with red ; and without partaking at all of the general satisfaction that animated his associates, he extracted...
Page 97 - Small use to him a pretty carriage now', said Mrs Parkinson, 'the only carriage that he needs is a hearse'. 'Oh; but', exclaimed Mrs Poggleton, with more eagerness than she had manifested throughout the conversation, 'I have been dying a long time for that carriage, and now I shall be able to get it. What a nice thing to be sure! ' Upon this Mrs Parkinson lifted up her hands, and pretended to be immeasurably shocked, muttering to herself, but quite loud enough for everybody to hear, that life was...
Page 97 - Mr Collingwood', returned Mrs Parkinson; 'it really is quite shocking; he dined with us the day before yesterday — cholera, I suppose — dreadful!' and Mrs Parkinson endeavoured to look quite overcome, but was not particularly successful. But Mrs Poggleton pretended nothing at all: she leant forward, held out her hand for the undertaker's circular, looked rather pleased than otherwise, and said, 'Dear mel if it is not the gentleman with that pretty carriage, I declare! ' 'Small use to him a pretty...
Page 195 - Oh pleasant is it for the heart To gather up* itself apart; To think its own thoughts, and to be Free, as none ever yet were free, When, prisoners to their gilded thrall, Vain crowd meets crowd in lighted hall ; With frozen feelings, tutor'd eye, And smile which is itself a lie.
Page 126 - do the people find to say about one another?" "Oh!" returned Miss Poggleton; "the veriest trifles in the world. Nothing is so insignificant as the staple of Calcutta conversation. What Mr. This said to Miss That, and what Miss That did to Mr. This ; and then all the interminable gossip about marriages and no-marriages, and will-be marriages and ought-to-be marriages — and gentlemen's attention and ladies' flirtings, dress, re-unions, and the last burra-khana — " " Pictures, taste, Shakspeare,...
Page 61 - ... experienced in their lives. A thing of this kind is nothing at all when it is over; but it is the waiting, and the suspense, and the delay, and the nervousness, that render it a wretched business at best. The extreme easiness of the examination is the worst feature in it, for one cannot help thinking what a disgrace it would be if one got plucked after all. It is nothing to be plucked in Chinese mathematics and Patagonian philosophy ; but to fail in vulgar and decimal fractions and Caesar's
Page 77 - You don't mean," cried Peregrine, boiling over with indignation, " that I am to wear second-hand clothes ! I would not put my footman into them," and Peregrine Pultuney felt very much inclined to ram them down the sergeant's throat with a sponge staff that he saw in the room. " I've got nothing to do with it," said the grim sergeant, who after all, being only one of the executive, was by no means to blame, " it's the rule of the institution, Mr. Pultuney.
Page 131 - I'm engaged to you for the third,' and will you believe it, he quite stared at me. I asked him what was the matter, and he said he thought he had danced with me once. ' Oh !' said I, somewhat offended,

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