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Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
BEFORE THE CURTAIN
As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the
boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy
comes over him in his survey of the bustling place. There is a great
quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing
and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling;
there are bullies pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves
picking pockets, policemen on the look-out, quacks (OTHER quacks,
plague take them!) bawling in front of their booths, and yokels
looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers,
while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets
behind. Yes, this is VANITY FAIR; not a moral place certainly; nor a
merry one, though very noisy. Look at the faces of the actors and
buffoons when they come off from their business; and Tom Fool
washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down to dinner with
his wife and the little Jack Puddings behind the canvas. The
curtain will be up presently, and he will be turning over head and
heels, and crying, "How are you?"
A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an exhibition
of this sort, will not be oppressed, I take it, by his own or other
people's hilarity. An episode of humour or kindness touches and
amuses him here and there--a pretty child looking at a gingerbread
stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her lover talks to her and
chooses her fairing; poor Tom Fool, yonder behind the waggon,
mumbling his bone with the honest family which lives by his
tumbling; but the general impression is one more melancholy than
mirthful. When you come home you sit down in a sober,
contemplative, not uncharitable frame of mind, and apply yourself to
your books or your business.
I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story of
"Vanity Fair." Some people consider Fairs immoral altogether, and
eschew such, with their servants and families: very likely they are
right. But persons who think otherwise, and are of a lazy, or a
benevolent, or a sarcastic mood, may perhaps like to step in for
half an hour, and look at the performances. There are scenes of all
sorts; some dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding,
some scenes of high life, and some of very middling indeed; some
love-making for the sentimental, and some light comic business; the
whole accompanied by appropriate scenery and brilliantly illuminated
with the Author's own candles.
What more has the Manager of the Performance to say?--To acknowledge
the kindness with which it has been received in all the principal
towns of England through which the Show has passed, and where it has
been most favourably noticed by the respected conductors of the
public Press, and by the Nobility and Gentry. He is proud to think
that his Puppets have given satisfaction to the very best company in
this empire. The famous little Becky Puppet has been pronounced to
be uncommonly flexible in the joints, and lively on the wire; the
Amelia Doll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet
been carved and dressed with the greatest care by the artist; the
Dobbin Figure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very
amusing and natural manner; the Little Boys' Dance has been liked by
some; and please to remark the richly dressed figure of the Wicked
Nobleman, on which no expense has been spared, and which Old Nick
will fetch away at the end of this singular performance.
And with this, and a profound bow to his patrons, the Manager
retires, and the curtain rises.
LONDON, June 28, 1848
CHAPTER I
Chiswick Mall
While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny
morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss
Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large
family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a
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