remembrance of his early classic course as a man has in the House of
Commons, let us say, who still keeps up two or three quotations; or a
reviewer who, just for decency's sake, hints at a little Greek. Our
people are the most prosaic in the world, but the most faithful; and with
curious reverence we keep up and transmit, from generation to generation,
the superstition of what we call the education of a gentleman.

Besides the ancient poets, you may be sure Pen read the English with
great gusto. Smirke sighed and shook his head sadly both about Byron and
Moore. But Pen was a sworn fire-worshipper and a Corsair; he had them by
heart, and used to take little Laura into the window and say, "Zuleika, I
am not thy brother," in tones so tragic that they caused the solemn
little maid to open her great eyes still wider. She sat, until the proper
hour for retirement, sewing at Mrs. Pendennis's knee, and listening to
Pen reading out to her of nights without comprehending one word of what
he read.

He read Shakspeare to his mother (which she said she liked, but didn't),
and Byron, and Pope, and his favourite Lalla Rookh, which pleased her
indifferently. But as for Bishop Heber, and Mrs. Hemans above all,
this lady used to melt right away, and be absorbed into her
pocket-handkerchief, when Pen read those authors to her in his kind
boyish voice. The 'Christian Year' was a book which appeared about that
time. The son and the mother whispered it to each other with awe--faint,
very faint, and seldom in after-life Pendennis heard that solemn
church-music: but he always loved the remembrance of it, and of the times
when it struck on his heart, and he walked over the fields full of hope
and void of doubt, as the church-bells rang on Sunday morning.

It was at this period of his existence, that Pen broke out in the Poets'