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61 pages

English

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This charming collection of sketches from Victorian literary master Charles Dickens brings together a number of pieces that were originally published in various popular periodicals of the era. Most notable are the tales about the imaginary town of Mudfog, which detail, among other things, the political ascendancy and personal devolution of the town's mayor, as well as the lofty ambitions and intellectual pretensions of the town's scientific society.

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Short story

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 décembre 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776594559
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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MUDFOG AND OTHER SKETCHES
* * *
CHARLES DICKENS

*
Mudfog and Other Sketches First published in 1880 Epub ISBN 978-1-77659-455-9 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77659-456-6 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble—Once Mayor of Mudfog Full Report of the First Meeting of the Mudfog Association for theAdvancement of Everything Full Report of the Second Meeting of the Mudfog Association for theAdvancement of Everything The Pantomime of Life Some Particulars Concerning a Lion Mr. Robert Bolton: The 'Gentleman Connected with the Press' Familiar Epistle from a Parent to a Child Aged Two Years and TwoMonths
Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble—Once Mayor of Mudfog
*
Mudfog is a pleasant town—a remarkably pleasant town—situated ina charming hollow by the side of a river, from which river, Mudfogderives an agreeable scent of pitch, tar, coals, and rope-yarn, aroving population in oilskin hats, a pretty steady influx ofdrunken bargemen, and a great many other maritime advantages.There is a good deal of water about Mudfog, and yet it is notexactly the sort of town for a watering-place, either. Water is aperverse sort of element at the best of times, and in Mudfog it isparticularly so. In winter, it comes oozing down the streets andtumbling over the fields,—nay, rushes into the very cellars andkitchens of the houses, with a lavish prodigality that might wellbe dispensed with; but in the hot summer weather it WILL dry up,and turn green: and, although green is a very good colour in itsway, especially in grass, still it certainly is not becoming towater; and it cannot be denied that the beauty of Mudfog is ratherimpaired, even by this trifling circumstance. Mudfog is a healthyplace—very healthy;—damp, perhaps, but none the worse for that.It's quite a mistake to suppose that damp is unwholesome: plantsthrive best in damp situations, and why shouldn't men? Theinhabitants of Mudfog are unanimous in asserting that there existsnot a finer race of people on the face of the earth; here we havean indisputable and veracious contradiction of the vulgar error atonce. So, admitting Mudfog to be damp, we distinctly state that itis salubrious.
The town of Mudfog is extremely picturesque. Limehouse andRatcliff Highway are both something like it, but they give you avery faint idea of Mudfog. There are a great many more public-houses in Mudfog—more than in Ratcliff Highway and Limehouse puttogether. The public buildings, too, are very imposing. Weconsider the town-hall one of the finest specimens of shedarchitecture, extant: it is a combination of the pig-sty and tea-garden-box orders; and the simplicity of its design is ofsurpassing beauty. The idea of placing a large window on one sideof the door, and a small one on the other, is particularly happy.There is a fine old Doric beauty, too, about the padlock andscraper, which is strictly in keeping with the general effect.
In this room do the mayor and corporation of Mudfog assembletogether in solemn council for the public weal. Seated on themassive wooden benches, which, with the table in the centre, formthe only furniture of the whitewashed apartment, the sage men ofMudfog spend hour after hour in grave deliberation. Here theysettle at what hour of the night the public-houses shall be closed,at what hour of the morning they shall be permitted to open, howsoon it shall be lawful for people to eat their dinner on church-days, and other great political questions; and sometimes, longafter silence has fallen on the town, and the distant lights fromthe shops and houses have ceased to twinkle, like far-off stars, tothe sight of the boatmen on the river, the illumination in the twounequal-sized windows of the town-hall, warns the inhabitants ofMudfog that its little body of legislators, like a larger andbetter-known body of the same genus, a great deal more noisy, andnot a whit more profound, are patriotically dozing away in company,far into the night, for their country's good.
Among this knot of sage and learned men, no one was so eminentlydistinguished, during many years, for the quiet modesty of hisappearance and demeanour, as Nicholas Tulrumble, the well-knowncoal-dealer. However exciting the subject of discussion, howeveranimated the tone of the debate, or however warm the personalitiesexchanged, (and even in Mudfog we get personal sometimes,) NicholasTulrumble was always the same. To say truth, Nicholas, being anindustrious man, and always up betimes, was apt to fall asleep whena debate began, and to remain asleep till it was over, when hewould wake up very much refreshed, and give his vote with thegreatest complacency. The fact was, that Nicholas Tulrumble,knowing that everybody there had made up his mind beforehand,considered the talking as just a long botheration about nothing atall; and to the present hour it remains a question, whether, onthis point at all events, Nicholas Tulrumble was not pretty nearright.
Time, which strews a man's head with silver, sometimes fills hispockets with gold. As he gradually performed one good office forNicholas Tulrumble, he was obliging enough, not to omit the other.Nicholas began life in a wooden tenement of four feet square, witha capital of two and ninepence, and a stock in trade of threebushels and a-half of coals, exclusive of the large lump whichhung, by way of sign-board, outside. Then he enlarged the shed,and kept a truck; then he left the shed, and the truck too, andstarted a donkey and a Mrs. Tulrumble; then he moved again and setup a cart; the cart was soon afterwards exchanged for a waggon; andso he went on like his great predecessor Whittington—only withouta cat for a partner—increasing in wealth and fame, until at lasthe gave up business altogether, and retired with Mrs. Tulrumble andfamily to Mudfog Hall, which he had himself erected, on somethingwhich he attempted to delude himself into the belief was a hill,about a quarter of a mile distant from the town of Mudfog.
About this time, it began to be murmured in Mudfog that NicholasTulrumble was growing vain and haughty; that prosperity and successhad corrupted the simplicity of his manners, and tainted thenatural goodness of his heart; in short, that he was setting up fora public character, and a great gentleman, and affected to lookdown upon his old companions with compassion and contempt. Whetherthese reports were at the time well-founded, or not, certain it isthat Mrs. Tulrumble very shortly afterwards started a four-wheelchaise, driven by a tall postilion in a yellow cap,—that Mr.Tulrumble junior took to smoking cigars, and calling the footman a'feller,'—and that Mr. Tulrumble from that time forth, was no moreseen in his old seat in the chimney-corner of the Lighterman's Armsat night. This looked bad; but, more than this, it began to beobserved that Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble attended the corporationmeetings more frequently than heretofore; and he no longer went tosleep as he had done for so many years, but propped his eyelidsopen with his two forefingers; that he read the newspapers byhimself at home; and that he was in the habit of indulging abroadin distant and mysterious allusions to 'masses of people,' and 'theproperty of the country,' and 'productive power,' and 'the moniedinterest:' all of which denoted and proved that Nicholas Tulrumblewas either mad, or worse; and it puzzled the good people of Mudfogamazingly.
At length, about the middle of the month of October, Mr. Tulrumbleand family went up to London; the middle of October being, as Mrs.Tulrumble informed her acquaintance in Mudfog, the very height ofthe fashionable season.
Somehow or other, just about this time, despite the health-preserving air of Mudfog, the Mayor died. It was a mostextraordinary circumstance; he had lived in Mudfog for eighty-fiveyears. The corporation didn't understand it at all; indeed it waswith great difficulty that one old gentleman, who was a greatstickler for forms, was dissuaded from proposing a vote of censureon such unaccountable conduct. Strange as it was, however, die hedid, without taking the slightest notice of the corporation; andthe corporation were imperatively called upon to elect hissuccessor. So, they met for the purpose; and being very full ofNicholas Tulrumble just then, and Nicholas Tulrumble being a veryimportant man, they elected him, and wrote off to London by thevery next post to acquaint Nicholas Tulrumble with his newelevation.
Now, it being November time, and Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble being inthe capital, it fell out that he was present at the Lord Mayor'sshow and dinner, at sight of the glory and splendour whereof, he,Mr. Tulrumble, was greatly mortified, inasmuch as the reflectionwould force itself on his mind, that, had he been born in Londoninstead of in Mudfog, he might have been a Lord Mayor too, and havepatronized the judges, and been affable to the Lord Chancellor, andfriendly with the Premier, and coldly condescending to theSecretary to the Treasury, and have dined with a flag behind hisback, and done a great many other acts and deeds which unto LordMayors of London peculiarly appertain. The more he thought of theLord Mayor, the more enviable a personage he seemed. To be a Kingwas all very well; but what was the King to the Lord Mayor! Whenthe King made a speech, everybody knew it was somebody else'swriting; whereas here was the Lord Mayor, talking away for half anhour-all out o