Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (best summer books .txt) 📗

Vanity Fair

By William Makepeace Thackeray.

Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Before the Curtain I: Chiswick Mall II: In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley Prepare to Open the Campaign III: Rebecca Is in Presence of the Enemy IV: The Green Silk Purse V: Dobbin of Ours VI: Vauxhall VII: Crawley of Queen’s Crawley VIII: Private and Confidential IX: Family Portraits X: Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends XI: Arcadian Simplicity XII: Quite a Sentimental Chapter XIII: Sentimental and Otherwise XIV: Miss Crawley at Home XV: In Which Rebecca’s Husband Appears for a Short Time XVI: The Letter on the Pincushion XVII: How Captain Dobbin Bought a Piano XVIII: Who Played on the Piano Captain Dobbin Bought XIX: Miss Crawley at Nurse XX: In Which Captain Dobbin Acts as the Messenger of Hymen XXI: A Quarrel About an Heiress XXII: A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon XXIII: Captain Dobbin Proceeds on His Canvass XXIV: In Which Mr. Osborne Takes Down the Family Bible XXV: In Which All the Principal Personages Think Fit to Leave Brighton XXVI: Between London and Chatham XXVII: In Which Amelia Joins Her Regiment XXVIII: In Which Amelia Invades the Low Countries XXIX: Brussels XXX: “The Girl I Left Behind Me” XXXI: In Which Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister XXXII: In Which Jos Takes Flight, and the War Is Brought to a Close XXXIII: In Which Miss Crawley’s Relations Are Very Anxious About Her XXXIV: James Crawley’s Pipe Is Put Out XXXV: Widow and Mother XXXVI: How to Live Well on Nothing a Year XXXVII: The Subject Continued XXXVIII: A Family in a Very Small Way XXXIX: A Cynical Chapter XL: In Which Becky Is Recognized by the Family XLI: In Which Becky Revisits the Halls of Her Ancestors XLII: Which Treats of the Osborne Family XLIII: In Which the Reader Has to Double the Cape XLIV: A Roundabout Chapter Between London and Hampshire XLV: Between Hampshire and London XLVI: Struggles and Trials XLVII: Gaunt House XLVIII: In Which the Reader Is Introduced to the Very Best of Company XLIX: In Which We Enjoy Three Courses and a Dessert L: Contains a Vulgar Incident LI: In Which a Charade Is Acted Which May or May Not Puzzle the Reader LII: In Which Lord Steyne Shows Himself in a Most Amiable Light LIII: A Rescue and a Catastrophe LIV: Sunday After the Battle LV: In Which the Same Subject Is Pursued LVI: Georgy Is Made a Gentleman LVII: Eothen LVIII: Our Friend the Major LIX: The Old Piano LX: Returns to the Genteel World LXI: In Which Two Lights Are Put Out LXII: Am Rhein LXIII: In Which We Meet an Old Acquaintance LXIV: A Vagabond Chapter LXV: Full of Business and Pleasure LXVI: Amantium Irae LXVII: Which Contains Births, Marriages, and Deaths Colophon Uncopyright Imprint

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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 lookout, 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 wagon, 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,