swept away. Elsewhere, the
world got up at eight, shaved close at a quarter-past, breakfasted at
nine, went to the City at ten, came home at half-past five, and dined
at seven. Mr Podsnap's notions of the Arts in their integrity might have
been stated thus. Literature; large print, respectfully descriptive of
getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting
at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five,
and dining at seven. Painting and Sculpture; models and portraits
representing Professors of getting up at eight, shaving close at a
quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming
home at half-past five, and dining at seven. Music; a respectable
performance (without variations) on stringed and wind instruments,
sedately expressive of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter
past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at
half-past five, and dining at seven. Nothing else to be permitted to
those same vagrants the Arts, on pain of excommunication. Nothing else
To Be--anywhere!
As a so eminently respectable man, Mr Podsnap was sensible of its being
required of him to take Providence under his protection. Consequently he
always knew exactly what Providence meant. Inferior and less respectable
men might fall short of that mark, but Mr Podsnap was always up to it.
And it was very remarkable (and must have been very comfortable) that
what Providence meant, was invariably what Mr Podsnap meant.
These may be said to have been the articles of a faith and school
which the present chapter takes the liberty of calling, after its
representative man, Podsnappery. They were confined within close bounds,
as Mr Podsnap's own head was confined by his shirt-collar; and they
were enunciated with a sounding pomp that smacked of the creaking of Mr
Podsnap's own boots.
There was a Miss Podsnap. And this young rocking-horse was being trained
in her mother's art of prancing in a stately manner without ever getting
on. But the high parental action was not yet imparted to her, and
in truth she was but an undersized damsel, with high shoulders, low
spirits, chilled elbows, and a rasped surface of nose, who seemed to
take occasional frosty peeps out of childhood into womanhood, and to
shrink back again, overcome by her mother's head-dress and her father
from head to foot--crushed by the mere dead-weight of Podsnappery.
A certain institution in Mr Podsnap's
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