His little girl was brought--five years old now;
she sate on her aunt's knee, and slept during a greater part of the
performance. A fine bustle, we may be sure, was made on the introduction
of these personages to their reserved seats on the platform, where they
sate encompassed by others of the great ladies of Newcome, to whom they
and the lecturer were especially gracious at this season. Was not
Parliament about to be dissolved, and were not the folks at Newcome
Park particularly civil at that interesting period? So Barnes Newcome
mounts his pulpit, bows round to the crowded assembly in acknowledgment
of their buzz of applause or recognition, passes his lily-white
pocket-handkerchief across his thin lips, and dashes off into his lecture
about Mrs. Hemans and the poetry of the affections. A public man, a
commercial man as we well know, yet his heart is in his home, and his joy
in his affections; the presence of this immense assembly here this
evening; of the industrious capitalists; of the intelligent middle class;
of the pride and mainstay of England, the operatives of Newcome; these,
surrounded by their wives and their children (a graceful bow to the
bonnets to the right of the platform), show that they too have hearts to
feel, and homes to cherish; that they, too, feel the love of women, the
innocence of children, the love of song! Our lecturer then makes a
distinction between man's poetry and woman's poetry, charging
considerably in favour of the latter.
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