Smike: From the Nicholas Nickleby of Charles DickensRedfield - 174 pages |
Common terms and phrases
beautiful better brother Ned CHAPTER CHARLES DICKENS Cheeryble child clerk coach counting-house creature cried Nicholas daughter dead Dear Nicholas dear sir desk door Dotheboys Hall eyes face father feelings fortune Frank girl gone hand happy head hear heard heart hour Kate kind knew LENOX LIBRARY lingered Linkinwater lived look Madeline marriage Master of Arts Miss La Creevy morning mother nephew never Newman Noggs Nicho Nicholas Nickleby night old gentleman once pain poor fellow pounds quiet Ralph Nickleby rejoined Nicholas replied Nicholas replied Ralph replied Smike round Saracen's Head scarcely seat seemed short silence sister smile Snawley speak Squeers stairs stopped street-door sure talk tears tell there's thing thought Nicholas Tim Linkinwater took Trimmers turned uncle uncle's voice walked window wooden spoon word Yorkshire young lady
Popular passages
Page 38 - It was such a crowded scene, and there were so many objects to attract attention, that at first Nicholas stared about him, really without seeing anything at all. By degrees, however, the place resolved itself into a bare and dirty room with a couple of windows, whereof a tenth part might be of glass, the remainder being stopped up with old copy-books and paper. There were a couple of long old rickety desks , cut and notched , and inked and damaged, in every possible way ; two or three forms, a detached...
Page 38 - And yet this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque features, which, in a less interested observer than Nicholas, might have provoked a smile. Mrs. Squeers stood at one of the desks, presiding over an immense basin of brimstone and treacle...
Page 40 - When he has learned that bottinney means a knowledge of plants, he goes and knows 'em. That's our system, Nickleby ; what do you think of it? " "It's a very useful one, at any rate," answered Nicholas. " I believe you," rejoined Squeers, not remarking the emphasis of his usher. " Third boy, what's a horse ? " " A beast, sir,
Page 40 - We'll get up a Latin one, and hand that over to you. Now, then, where's the first boy ? " "Please, sir, he's cleaning the back parlour window," said the temporary head of the philosophical class. " So he is, to be sure,
Page 50 - The news that Smike had been caught and brought back in triumph ran like wildfire through the hungry community, and expectation was on tiptoe all the morning. On tiptoe it...
Page 22 - ... silent, and the uncle and nephew looked at each other for some seconds without speaking. The face of the old man was stern, hardfeatured, and forbidding; that of the young one, open, handsome, and ingenuous. The old man's eye was keen with the twinklings of avarice and cunning; the young man's, bright with the light of intelligence and spirit.
Page 38 - Pale and haggard faces, lank and bony figures, children with the countenances of old men, deformities with irons upon their limbs, boys of stunted growth, and others whose long meagre legs would hardly bear their stooping bodies, all crowded on the view together ; there were the bleared eye, the hare-lip, the crooked foot, and every ugliness or distortion that told of unnatural aversion conceived by parents for their offspring...
Page 13 - That's true," replied Mr. Nickleby. " Very good, my dear. Yes. I will speculate, my dear." Speculation is a round game; the players see little or nothing of their cards at first starting; gains may be great —and so may losses. The run of luck went against Mr. Nickleby. A mania prevailed, a bubble burst, four stockbrokers took villa residences at Florence, four hundred nobodies were ruined, and among them Mr. Nickleby. " The very house I live in," sighed the poor gentleman, " may be taken from me...
Page 40 - We go upon the practical mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system. C-1-ean, clean, verb active, to make bright, to scour. Win, win, der, der, winder, a casement. When the boy knows this out of book, he goes and does it. It's just the same principle as the use of the globes. Where's the second boy!" "Please, sir, he's weeding the garden," replied a small voice. " To be sure," said Squeers, by no means disconcerted.
Page 9 - THERE once lived in a sequestered part of the county of Devonshire, one Mr. Godfrey Nickleby, a worthy gentleman, who, taking it into his head rather late in life that he must get married, and not being young enough or rich enough to aspire to the hand of a lady of fortune...