EXTRACTS FROM DEALINGS WITH THE FIRM OF DOMBEY & SON BY CHARLES DICKENS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 172, 24 March 1847, Page 4

EXTRACTS FROM DEALINGS WITH THE FIRM OF DOMBEY & SON BY CHARLES DICKENS.

Mr. Dombey. — He had risen, as his father had before him, in the course of life and death, from Son to Dombey, and for twenty years had been the sole representative of the firm. Of those years he had been married, t en — married, as some said, to a lady with no heart to give him ; whose happiness was in the past, and who was content to hind her broken spirit to the dutiful and meek endurance of the present. Such idle talk was little likely to reach the ears of Mr. Dombey, whom it nearly concerned ; and probably no one in the world would have received it with such utter incredulity as he, if it had reached him. Dombey and Son had often dealt in hides, but never in hearts. They left that fancy ware to boys and girls, and boardingschools and books. Mr. Dombey would have reasoned, that a matrimonial alliance with himself must, in the nature of things, be gratifying and honourable to any woman of common sense. That the hope of givin? birth to a new partner in such a house, could not fail to awaken a glorious and stirring ambition in the breast of the least ambitious of her sex. That Mrs. Dombey had entered on that social contract of matrimony : almost necessarily part of a genteel and wealthy station, even without reference to the perpetuation of family firms : with her eyes fully open to these advantages. That Mrs. Dombey had had daily practical knowledge of his position in society. That Mrs. Dombey had always sat at the head, of his table, and done the honours I of his house in a remarkably lady-like and becoming manner. That Mrs. Dombey must have been happy. That she could'nfehelp it.

Miss Tox. — The lady thus specially presented, was a long lean figure, wearing such a faded air that she seemed rrm to have been made in what linen-drapers call " fast colours" originally, and to have, by little and little washed out. But for this she might have been described as the very pink of general propitiation and politeness. From a long habit of listening admirably to every thing that was said in her presence, and looking at the speakers as if she were mentally engaged in taking off impressions of their images upon her soul never to part with the same but with life, her head had quite seuled on one side. Her hands had contracted a spasmodic habit of raising themselves of their own accord as in involuntary admiration. Her eyes were liable to a similar affection. She had the softest voice that ever was heard ; and her nose, stupendously aquiline, had a little knob in the very centre or key-stone of the bridge, whence it tended downwards towards her face, as in an invincible determination never to turn up at anything. Miss Tox's dress, though perfectly genteel and good, had a certain character of angularity and scantiness. She was accustomed to wear old weedy little flowers in her bonnets and caps. Strange grasses were sometimes perceived in her hair, and it was observed by the curious, of all her collars, frills, tuckers, wristbands, and other gossamer articles — indeed of everything she wore which had two ends to it intended to unite — that the two ends were never on good terms, and would'nt quite meet without a struggle. She had furry articles for winter wear, as tippets, boas, and muffs, which stood up on end in a rampant manner, and were not at all sleek. She was much given to the carrying about of small bags with snaps to them, that went off like little pistols when they were shut up ; and vvhen full-dressed, she wore round her neck the barrenest of lockets, representing a fishy old eye, with no approach to speculation in it. These and other appearances of a similar nature had served to propagate the opinion that Miss Tox was a lady of what is called a limited independence, which she turned to the best account. Possibly her mincing gait encouraged the belief, and suggested that her clipping a step of ordinary compass into two or three, originated in her habit of making the most of every thing.