intention of wounding the honour of the honourable gentleman, or
saying anything dishonourable to his honourable feelings. These
Page 132
Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
observations were repeatedly interrupted by bursts of cheers. Mr.
Tiddypot retorted that he well knew the spirit of honour by which
the honourable and gallant gentleman was so honourably animated,
and that he accepted an honourable explanation, offered in a way
that did him honour; but, he trusted that the Vestry would consider
that his (Mr. Tiddypot’s) honour had imperatively demanded of him
that painful course which he had felt it due to his honour to
adopt. The Captain and Mr. Tiddypot then touched their hats to one
another across the Vestry, a great many times, and it is thought
that these proceedings (reported to the extent of several columns
in next Sunday’s paper) will bring them in as church-wardens next
year.
All this was strictly after the pattern of the real original, and
so are the whole of our Vestry’s proceedings. In all their
debates, they are laudably imitative of the windy and wordy slang
of the real original, and of nothing that is better in it. They
have head-strong party animosities, without any reference to the
merits of questions; they tack a surprising amount of debate to a
very little business; they set more store by forms than they do by
substances: – all very like the real original! It has been doubted
in our borough, whether our Vestry is of any utility; but our own
conclusion is, that it is of the use to the Borough that a
diminishing mirror is to a painter, as enabling it to perceive in a
small focus of absurdity all the surface defects of the real
original.
OUR BORE
IT is unnecessary to say that we keep a bore. Everybody does.
But, the bore whom we have the pleasure and honour of enumerating
among our particular friends, is such a generic bore, and has so
many traits (as it appears to us) in common with the great bore
family, that we are tempted to make him the subject of the present
notes. May he be generally accepted!
Our bore is admitted on all hands to be a good-hearted man. He may
put fifty people out of temper, but he keeps his own. He preserves
a sickly solid smile upon his face, when other faces are ruffled by
the perfection he has attained in his art, and has an equable voice
which never travels out of one key or rises above one pitch. His
manner is a manner of tranquil interest. None of his opinions are
startling. Among his deepest-rooted convictions, it may be
mentioned that he considers the air of England damp, and holds that
our lively neighbours – he always calls the French our lively
neighbours – have the advantage of us in that particular.
Nevertheless he is unable to forget that John Bull is John Bull all
the world over, and that England with all her faults is England
still.
Our bore has travelled. He could not possibly be a complete bore
without having travelled. He rarely speaks of his travels without
introducing, sometimes on his own plan of construction, morsels of
the language of the country – which he always translates. You
cannot name to him any little remote town in France, Italy,
Germany, or Switzerland but he knows it well; stayed there a
fortnight under peculiar circumstances. And talking of that little
place, perhaps you know a statue over an old fountain, up a little
court, which is the second – no, the third – stay – yes, the third
turning on the right, after you come out of the Post-house, going
Page 133
Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
up the hill towards the market? You DON’T know that statue? Nor
that fountain? You surprise him! They are not usually seen by
travellers (most extraordinary, he has never yet met with a single
traveller who knew them, except one German, the most intelligent
man he ever met in his life!) but he thought that YOU would have
been the man to find them out. And then he describes them, in a
circumstantial lecture half an hour long, generally delivered