Charles Dickens: Our Mutual Friend

BOOK THE THIRD: A LONG LANE Chapter 4: A Happy Return of the Day (continued)

'Your grandpapa,' retorted Mrs Wilfer, with an awful look, and in an awful tone, 'was what I describe him to have been, and would have struck any of his grandchildren to the earth who presumed to question it. It was one of mamma's cherished hopes that I should become united to a tall member of society. It may have been a weakness, but if so, it was equally the weakness, I believe, of King Frederick of Prussia.' These remarks being offered to Mr George Sampson, who had not the courage to come out for single combat, but lurked with his chest under the table and his eyes cast down, Mrs Wilfer proceeded, in a voice of increasing sternness and impressiveness, until she should force that skulker to give himself up. 'Mamma would appear to have had an indefinable foreboding of what afterwards happened, for she would frequently urge upon me, "Not a little man. Promise me, my child, not a little man. Never, never, never, marry a little man!" Papa also would remark to me (he possessed extraordinary humour),"that a family of whales must not ally themselves with sprats." His company was eagerly sought, as may be supposed, by the wits of the day, and our house was their continual resort. I have known as many as three copper-plate engravers exchanging the most exquisite sallies and retorts there, at one time.' (Here Mr Sampson delivered himself captive, and said, with an uneasy movement on his chair, that three was a large number, and it must have been highly entertaining.) 'Among the most prominent members of that distinguished circle, was a gentleman measuring six feet four in height. HE was NOT an engraver.' (Here Mr Sampson said, with no reason whatever, Of course not.) 'This gentleman was so obliging as to honour me with attentions which I could not fail to understand.' (Here Mr Sampson murmured that when it came to that, you could always tell.) 'I immediately announced to both my parents that those attentions were misplaced, and that I could not favour his suit. They inquired was he too tall? I replied it was not the stature, but the intellect was too lofty. At our house, I said, the tone was too brilliant, the pressure was too high, to be maintained by me, a mere woman, in every-day domestic life. I well remember mamma's clasping her hands, and exclaiming "This will end in a little man!"' (Here Mr Sampson glanced at his host and shook his head with despondency.) 'She afterwards went so far as to predict that it would end in a little man whose mind would be below the average, but that was in what I may denominate a paroxysm of maternal disappointment. Within a month,' said Mrs Wilfer, deepening her voice, as if she were relating a terrible ghost story, 'within a-month, I first saw R. W. my husband. Within a year, I married him. It is natural for the mind to recall these dark coincidences on the present day.'