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3,357 | 3261_chapters_25_-_32 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Third Day on the Thames The next morning, Dick, Clara, William, and Walter return to the subject of the man who killed for love. Dick suggests that the man not be allowed to live alone, since he will continue to feel worse about his crime and possibly kill himself. Clara says that she doesn't think he will kill him... | [
"As we went down to the boat next morning, Walter could not quite keep off\nthe subject of last night, though he was more hopeful than he had been\nthen, and seemed to think that if the unlucky homicide could not be got\nto go over-sea, he might at any rate go and live somewhere in the\nneighbourhood pretty much by... |
3,358 | 2084_chapters_1-16 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Edward Overton, the fictional biographer of Ernest Pontifex, begins his story by describing three generations of Ernest's paternal forebears. As a small child, Overton knew Ernest's great-grandfather, John Pontifex, a carpenter who lived unpretentiously with his wife in the small village of Paleham until his death in 1... | [
"When I was a small boy at the beginning of the century I remember an old\nman who wore knee-breeches and worsted stockings, and who used to hobble\nabout the street of our village with the help of a stick. He must have\nbeen getting on for eighty in the year 1807, earlier than which date I\nsuppose I can hardly r... |
3,359 | 2084_chapters_17-21 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The birth of Ernest during the fifth year of Theobald and Christina's marriage is especially welcome news to George Pontifex, for Ernest is his first grandson. Wishing to mark the event in a special way, George personally enters his wine cellar to retrieve a bottle of water taken from the Jordan River. Unfortunately, h... | [
"In the course of time this sorrow was removed. At the beginning of the\nfifth year of her married life Christina was safely delivered of a boy.\nThis was on the sixth of September 1835.",
"Word was immediately sent to old Mr Pontifex, who received the news with\nreal pleasure. His son John's wife had borne dau... |
3,360 | 2084_chapters_22-26 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Ernest's early childhood is recollected as an unrelieved succession of Victorian Sundays. Of the two parents, Christina is the more tolerable and affectionate, but her role is rather that of an accomplice to Theobald's tyranny than as a loving and kindly presence whose love and kindness are sorely needed. When Ernest, ... | [
"I used to stay at Battersby for a day or two sometimes, while my godson\nand his brother and sister were children. I hardly know why I went, for\nTheobald and I grew more and more apart, but one gets into grooves\nsometimes, and the supposed friendship between myself and the Pontifexes\ncontinued to exist, though... |
3,361 | 2084_chapters_27-31 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | At the age of twelve, Ernest is enrolled in a grammar school at Roughborough, located about fifty miles from Battersby. Dr. Skinner, the headmaster, has a general reputation as a man of genius by virtue of his undergraduate debating record, his biblical scholarship, and his record of turning out boys who distinguish th... | [
"I will give no more of the details of my hero's earlier years. Enough\nthat he struggled through them, and at twelve years old knew every page\nof his Latin and Greek Grammars by heart. He had read the greater part\nof Virgil, Horace and Livy, and I do not know how many Greek plays: he\nwas proficient in arithme... |
3,362 | 2084_chapters_32-38 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Alethea Pontifex, the unmarried younger sister of Theobald, visits Ernest at Roughborough and is much attracted to him. Though aware of the lamentable effects of his parental training, Alethea decides to take an active interest in Ernest because of his agreeable nature and his extraordinary interest in music. On the pr... | [
"I must now return to Miss Alethea Pontifex, of whom I have said perhaps\ntoo little hitherto, considering how great her influence upon my hero's\ndestiny proved to be.",
"On the death of her father, which happened when she was about thirty-two\nyears old, she parted company with her sisters, between whom and her... |
3,363 | 2084_chapters_39-44 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Upon learning of Ellen's sudden dismissal from the Pontifex household, Ernest runs several miles in pursuit and finally intercepts the carriage bearing her away. He insists that she take his silver watch, pen knife, and his small amount of pocket money to ease her plight. At the urging of John, the coachman, she accept... | [
"Ernest had been out all the morning, but came in to the yard of the\nRectory from the spinney behind the house just as Ellen's things were\nbeing put into the carriage. He thought it was Ellen whom he then saw\nget into the carriage, but as her face had been hidden by her\nhandkerchief he had not been able to see... |
3,364 | 2084_chapters_45-50 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | As a student at Emmanuel College of Cambridge University, Ernest is conscious of being happy for the first time in his life. Freedom of movement, comfortable surroundings, and the companionship of desirable friends all contribute to his sense of well being. Lacking ambition as a scholar, Ernest at least gains a modest ... | [
"Some people say that their school days were the happiest of their lives.\nThey may be right, but I always look with suspicion upon those whom I\nhear saying this. It is hard enough to know whether one is happy or\nunhappy now, and still harder to compare the relative happiness or\nunhappiness of different times o... |
3,365 | 2084_chapters_51-55 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Soon after taking his degree and being ordained as a curate, Ernest is assigned to a London parish. The senior curate, Pryer, is slightly older than Ernest and is a personable and persuasive conservative whose High Church views appeal to Ernest as much as did the diametrically opposed views of the Simeonites. Pryer's e... | [
"Ernest had been ordained to a curacy in one of the central parts of\nLondon. He hardly knew anything of London yet, but his instincts drew\nhim thither. The day after he was ordained he entered upon his\nduties--feeling much as his father had done when he found himself boxed\nup in the carriage with Christina on... |
3,366 | 2084_chapters_56-60 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | While praying for the stock market to behave properly, in the way God intends it should, Ernest grows restless and impatient at the delay. Thousands of souls are being lost hourly without being saved. Ernest determines to begin his campaign of saving souls by canvassing his own neighborhood. Immediately after making th... | [
"By and by a subtle, indefinable _malaise_ began to take possession of\nhim. I once saw a very young foal trying to eat some most objectionable\nrefuse, and unable to make up its mind whether it was good or no. Clearly\nit wanted to be told. If its mother had seen what it was doing she would\nhave set it right in a... |
3,367 | 2084_chapters_61-65_(in_other_than_riverside_editions) | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Upon hearing of Ernest's arrest, both Towneley and Overton rush to his assistance, but neither one is able to save him from being held overnight in jail or from the embarrassment of having his name mentioned in one of the journals. Before pronouncing sentence of six months of hard labor at Coldbath Fields Prison, the j... | [
"Pryer had done well to warn Ernest against promiscuous house to house\nvisitation. He had not gone outside Mrs Jupp's street door, and yet what\nhad been the result?",
"Mr Holt had put him in bodily fear; Mr and Mrs Baxter had nearly made a\nMethodist of him; Mr Shaw had undermined his faith in the Resurrection... |
3,368 | 2084_chapters_66-69 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | After two months of convalescence in the infirmary, Ernest is told by the prison chaplain that Pryer absconded with the remainder of his inheritance. Ernest immediately abandons his plan to emigrate to Australia or New Zealand and decides, instead, to become a tailor. Following the completion of his apprenticeship at t... | [
"Ernest was now so far convalescent as to be able to sit up for the\ngreater part of the day. He had been three months in prison, and, though\nnot strong enough to leave the infirmary, was beyond all fear of a\nrelapse. He was talking one day with Mr Hughes about his future, and\nagain expressed his intention of ... |
3,369 | 2084_chapters_70-72 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Ernest relishes the comforts of Overton's room but declines to stay more than a few days with his gracious host. Theobald and Christina call on Overton without pointedly asking him about their son's whereabouts. After moving into rooms of his own, Ernest seeks work as a tailor, albeit fruitlessly. The problem, as Overt... | [
"I had begun to like him on the night Towneley had sent for me, and on the\nfollowing day I thought he had shaped well. I had liked him also during\nour interview in prison, and wanted to see more of him, so that I might\nmake up my mind about him. I had lived long enough to know that some men\nwho do great thing... |
3,370 | 2084_chapters_72-75 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | As soon as it is legally possible, Ernest and Ellen are married, and their efforts at shopkeeping are quickly rewarded with a prosperity more than sufficient to meet their immediate needs. The happy couple occasionally attend concerts and plays, and Ellen at first accompanies Ernest on Sunday hikes. Ellen is content to... | [
"Ellen and he got on capitally, all the better, perhaps, because the\ndisparity between them was so great, that neither did Ellen want to be\nelevated, nor did Ernest want to elevate her. He was very fond of her,\nand very kind to her; they had interests which they could serve in\ncommon; they had antecedents with... |
3,371 | 2084_chapters_75-78 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Following her breakdown, Ellen once again takes the pledge of abstinence. After she is delivered of a second child, a boy, her relationship with Ernest again improves, but she no longer commands Ernest's respect and increasingly resents his expectations of her. When Ellen relapses into drinking again, Ernest's lack of ... | [
"The winter had been a trying one. Ernest had only paid his way by\nselling his piano. With this he seemed to cut away the last link that\nconnected him with his earlier life, and to sink once for all into the\nsmall shop-keeper. It seemed to him that however low he might sink his\npain could not last much longe... |
3,372 | 2084_chapters_79-83 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Even after being saved from a disastrous marriage and awarded employment by Overton, Ernest suffers an attack of nervous prostration from his ordeal. An eminent London physician consulted by Overton prescribes rest and change for Ernest, who begins his treatment by visiting the Zoological Gardens, where he watches pigs... | [
"The question now arose what was to be done with the children. I\nexplained to Ernest that their expenses must be charged to the estate,\nand showed him how small a hole all the various items I proposed to\ncharge would make in the income at my disposal. He was beginning to make\ndifficulties, when I quieted him ... |
3,373 | 2084_chapters_84-87 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Upon returning to London from Battersby, Ernest decides to go abroad in search of those societies which have the "best, comeliest and most lovable" people. At the end of three years of globetrotting, he resumes life in England well supplied with notes from which to fuel his literary ambitions. His first book is a colle... | [
"On our way to town Ernest broached his plans for spending the next year\nor two. I wanted him to try and get more into society again, but he\nbrushed this aside at once as the very last thing he had a fancy for. For\nsociety indeed of all sorts, except of course that of a few intimate\nfriends, he had an unconqu... |
3,374 | 963_preface | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Dickens basically tells his critics to kiss his rear end. Which, honestly, is business as usual as far as his prefaces are concerned. Dickens declares that he knows what he's talking about, and however viciously he mocks the government or the supermoguls of his time - well, if anything, it's not nearly viciously enough... | [
"I have been occupied with this story, during many working hours of two\nyears. I must have been very ill employed, if I could not leave its\nmerits and demerits as a whole, to express themselves on its being read\nas a whole. But, as it is not unreasonable to suppose that I may have\nheld its threads with a more c... |
3,375 | 963_book_1,_chapter_1 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | It's 30 years ago. That means that novel is set in the 1820s, rather than Dickens's present-day of the 1850s - mainly because that is when Dickens's own father was imprisoned in Marshalsea prison for debt and little boy Dickens was forced to work in a factory instead of going to school. It was traumatic for him, and he... | [
"Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day.",
"A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern\nFrance then, than at any other time, before or since. Everything in\nMarseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid sky, and been\nstared at in return, until a st... |
3,376 | 963_book_1,_chapter_2 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Everyone is stuck in Marseilles in quarantine together before being allowed to cross the English Channel. Mr. Meagles is having a hissy fit about what a superboring quarantine is. He's kind of offended at the idea that he might have the plague, but also generally in a good mood - so it's a weird mix of joking around an... | [
"'No more of yesterday's howling over yonder to-day, Sir; is there?'",
"'I have heard none.'",
"'Then you may be sure there _is_ none. When these people howl, they howl\nto be heard.'",
"'Most people do, I suppose.'",
"'Ah! but these people are always howling. Never happy otherwise.'",
"'Do you mean the M... |
3,377 | 963_book_1,_chapter_3 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur gets to London on Sunday. The narrator has a little aside to talk about how dumb it is that everything is closed on Sundays, the one day of the week that laborers have off. So anyway. Arthur sits at an inn thinking back on his miserable childhood. His mom was a crazy religious nutcase, and she and his dad were c... | [
"It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and stale. Maddening\nchurch bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked\nand clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar echoes hideous. Melancholy streets, in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of\nthe people who were condemned to l... |
3,378 | 963_book_1,_chapter_4 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Affery goes to bed. Then she has what she thinks is a dream. She "dreams" that she goes downstairs and sees Flintwinch talking to himself - no, literally, talking to a double of himself. She totally freaks out and becomes sort of catatonic and paralyzed with fear. The double picks up an iron box and goes out the door. ... | [
"When Mrs Flintwinch dreamed, she usually dreamed, unlike the son of her\nold mistress, with her eyes shut. She had a curiously vivid dream that\nnight, and before she had left the son of her old mistress many hours.\nIn fact it was not at all like a dream; it was so very real in every\nrespect. It happened in this... |
3,379 | 963_book_1,_chapter_5 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The next day Arthur tells his mom that he doesn't want to work for the Clennam House of Terror - ahem, we mean the Clennam House of Banking or Some Other Kind of Unspecified Financial Stuff - any longer. As predicted, Mrs. C. gets mad. But she gets a grip and declares that this is exactly the kind of God-sent punishmen... | [
"As the city clocks struck nine on Monday morning, Mrs Clennam was\nwheeled by Jeremiah Flintwinch of the cut-down aspect to her tall\ncabinet. When she had unlocked and opened it, and had settled herself\nat its desk, Jeremiah withdrew--as it might be, to hang himself more\neffectually--and her son appeared.",
"... |
3,380 | 963_book_1,_chapter_6 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Marshalsea is a prison that was originally divided into two parts: one part for those who couldn't pay their debts and the other for smugglers. . But over time, the prison buildings have fallen into disrepair, and all these prisoners now mingle together. One day Mr. Dorrit is taken to Marshalsea. He is in his 40s, ... | [
"Thirty years ago there stood, a few doors short of the church of Saint\nGeorge, in the borough of Southwark, on the left-hand side of the way\ngoing southward, the Marshalsea Prison. It had stood there many years\nbefore, and it remained there some years afterwards; but it is gone now,\n and the world is none t... |
3,381 | 963_book_1,_chapter_7 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The prison turnkey becomes Little Dorrit's godfather, and they are very close. He takes her on walks outside the prison. Sometimes she asks him questions about what life is like outside the prison and what people who aren't prisoners do. He doesn't know what to say and gives her treats as a distraction. The turnkey wan... | [
"The baby whose first draught of air had been tinctured with Doctor\nHaggage's brandy, was handed down among the generations of collegians,\n like the tradition of their common parent. In the earlier stages of her\n existence, she was handed down in a literal and prosaic sense; it being\n almost a part of ... |
3,382 | 963_book_1,_chapter_8 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur's stalking has paid off and he gets to the gates of the Marshalsea. As luck would have it, he runs into Frederick Dorrit, who explains some of the deal about Little Dorrit and how her dad is supposed to be kept in the dark about her working. They go into Dorrit's room, where he is about to eat dinner. Dorrit act... | [
"Arthur Clennam stood in the street, waiting to ask some passer-by what\nplace that was. He suffered a few people to pass him in whose face there\nwas no encouragement to make the inquiry, and still stood pausing in the\nstreet, when an old man came up and turned into the courtyard.",
"He stooped a good deal, and... |
3,383 | 963_book_1,_chapter_9 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur sleeps badly, wakes up early, and gets the heck out of Dodge - um, Marshalsea - as soon as possible. Then he decides to speak to Little Dorrit again and leaves her a message saying to meet him at her uncle Frederick's house. He waits in Frederick Dorrit's disgusting little room just outside the prison and realiz... | [
"The morning light was in no hurry to climb the prison wall and look in\nat the Snuggery windows; and when it did come, it would have been more\nwelcome if it had come alone, instead of bringing a rush of rain with\nit. But the equinoctial gales were blowing out at sea, and the impartial\nsouth-west wind, in its fl... |
3,384 | 963_book_1,_chapter_10 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Dickens is not a fan of career bureaucrats. Hang on a sec, Shmoop, not a fan of who now? Well, in all democracies there are two kinds of jobs in the government. There are the elected guys - you know, "vote for me, I'm awesome" - who run on a party ticket and in theory can be voted out of office. And then there are thos... | [
"The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told)\n the most important Department under Government. No public business of\n any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of\n the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie,\n and in the sma... |
3,385 | 963_book_1,_chapter_11 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | A traveler walks into a roadside inn in France. At the inn, the landlady and some customers are talking about Rigaud's case - the newspapers say that he was acquitted and released. Someone brings up the idea of "philosophical philanthropy" - the idea that there's no difference between morally good and bad actions or pe... | [
"A late, dull autumn night was closing in upon the river Saone. The\nstream, like a sullied looking-glass in a gloomy place, reflected the\nclouds heavily; and the low banks leaned over here and there, as if they\nwere half curious, and half afraid, to see their darkening pictures in\nthe water. The flat expanse of... |
3,386 | 963_book_1,_chapter_12 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Doyce takes Arthur to Bleeding Heart Yard, home of Doyce's factory, where Little Dorrit's friend Plornish also happens to live. Arthur looks for Plornish's house and finds Mrs. Plornish and a couple of kids. They're waiting for Plornish to come back from looking for work. Turns out that the Plornishes are part of the w... | [
"In London itself, though in the old rustic road towards a suburb of note\nwhere in the days of William Shakespeare, author and stage-player, there\nwere Royal hunting-seats--howbeit no sport is left there now but for\nhunters of men--Bleeding Heart Yard was to be found; a place much\nchanged in feature and in fort... |
3,387 | 963_book_1,_chapter_13 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur goes off to Mr. Casby's house. Turns out he's the father of Flora Casby, Arthur's long-ago love. Casby is the definition of "don't judge a book by its cover." In his case, he's a great-looking, seemingly deep and wise book who's shallow and sort of dumb on the inside. He's been asked several times to pose for pa... | [
"The mention of Mr Casby again revived in Clennam's memory the\nsmouldering embers of curiosity and interest which Mrs Flintwinch had\nfanned on the night of his arrival. Flora Casby had been the beloved of\nhis boyhood; and Flora was the daughter and only child of wooden-headed\nold Christopher (so he was still oc... |
3,388 | 963_book_1,_chapter_14 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | What on earth are Little Dorrit and Maggy doing at Arthur's house at midnight? Turns out they were watching Fanny perform and got locked out of the Marshalsea. Little Dorrit told her dad she was going to a party. Arthur is horrified by how thin her clothes are considering it's a cold fall night. As she is warming by th... | [
"Arthur Clennam rose hastily, and saw her standing at the door. This\nhistory must sometimes see with Little Dorrit's eyes, and shall begin\nthat course by seeing him.",
"Little Dorrit looked into a dim room, which seemed a spacious one to\nher, and grandly furnished.",
"Courtly ideas of Covent Garden, as a pla... |
3,389 | 963_book_1,_chapter_15 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Clennam house is creepy and gloomy and never sees sunlight or moonlight. It's also a beat-up wreck. One night Affery has another "dream" She "dreams" the she overhears Flintwinch and Mrs. Clennam arguing. Flintwinch tells Mrs. Clennam never to yell at him, and Mrs. Clennam is angry that he implied too much to Arthu... | [
"The debilitated old house in the city, wrapped in its mantle of soot,\n and leaning heavily on the crutches that had partaken of its decay and\n worn out with it, never knew a healthy or a cheerful interval, let what\n would betide. If the sun ever touched it, it was but with a ray, and\n that was gone... |
3,390 | 963_book_1,_chapter_16 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur sets out for a long walk to Mr. Meagles's house. He thinks about all sorts of things, but mainly about what he should do for a living now and how he can make a lot of money to set up Little Dorrit with a house. On the way he runs into Doyce, who - it turns out - has already met with success all over Europe. But ... | [
"The time being come for the renewal of his acquaintance with the Meagles\nfamily, Clennam, pursuant to contract made between himself and Mr\nMeagles within the precincts of Bleeding Heart Yard, turned his face\non a certain Saturday towards Twickenham, where Mr Meagles had a\ncottage-residence of his own. The weat... |
3,391 | 963_book_1,_chapter_17 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur, Pet, Meagles, Henry Gowan, Doyce, Clarence Barnacle The next morning Henry Gowan comes down to the Meagleses. Arthur immediately hates him. Or he would, he tells himself, if he were in love with Pet. But since he's not, yay Gowan! To which we say, yeah right. Gowan is a lackadaisical cool guy who just coasts th... | [
"Before breakfast in the morning, Arthur walked out to look about him.\nAs the morning was fine and he had an hour on his hands, he crossed the\nriver by the ferry, and strolled along a footpath through some meadows.\nWhen he came back to the towing-path, he found the ferry-boat on the\nopposite side, and a gentlem... |
3,392 | 963_book_1,_chapter_18 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The prison's new turnkey has a son named John Chivery, who is basically an emo boy: thin, pale, emotional, and constantly fantasizing about what his tombstone will say. This John Chivery has a huge crush on Little Dorrit. His parents are into the two of them getting married, thinking that he will bring money and she wi... | [
"Little Dorrit had not attained her twenty-second birthday without\nfinding a lover. Even in the shallow Marshalsea, the ever young Archer\nshot off a few featherless arrows now and then from a mouldy bow, and\nwinged a Collegian or two.",
"Little Dorrit's lover, however, was not a Collegian. He was the\nsentimen... |
3,393 | 963_book_1,_chapter_19 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Dorrit and his brother Frederick are walking up and down the prison yard. As usual, Dorrit is acting like he owns the place. Also, like he owns his brother. Patronizingly, he starts telling Frederick to clean himself up. On top of that, Dorrit tries to set himself up as some kind of lifestyle example. He's really got s... | [
"The brothers William and Frederick Dorrit, walking up and down the\nCollege-yard--of course on the aristocratic or Pump side, for the Father\nmade it a point of his state to be chary of going among his children\non the Poor side, except on Sunday mornings, Christmas Days, and other\noccasions of ceremony, in the o... |
3,394 | 963_book_1,_chapter_20 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Little Dorrit goes to check out Fanny dancing in the theater. It's a gross hole in the wall and seems like a totally crazy and chaotic place to Little Dorrit. Still, she goes backstage to talk to her sister. Fanny is floored that Little Dorrit was able to find the place, let alone get backstage. Which is funny, since L... | [
"If Young John Chivery had had the inclination and the power to write a\nsatire on family pride, he would have had no need to go for an avenging\nillustration out of the family of his beloved. He would have found it\namply in that gallant brother and that dainty sister, so steeped in mean\nexperiences, and so lofti... |
3,395 | 963_book_1,_chapter_21 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Merdles are the top of the social heap. Mr. Merdle is rolling in dough. He has bought himself everything Society requires: a wife with a huge rack for jewelry display, a stepson who is dumb but popular, a fancy mansion, and the world's most impressive butler. Merdle throws fancy dinner parties, which he barely atte... | [
"Upon that establishment of state, the Merdle establishment in Harley\nStreet, Cavendish Square, there was the shadow of no more common wall\nthan the fronts of other establishments of state on the opposite side of\nthe street. Like unexceptionable Society, the opposing rows of houses in\nHarley Street were very gr... |
3,396 | 963_book_1,_chapter_22 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur visits the Marshalsea all the time, although Dorrit is really starting to dislike him. Why? Because he keeps not giving the old man any money. Really. The nerve. One day Clennam is waylaid by Mrs. Chivery, who wants to show him her son John. Ever since Little Dorrit turned him down, John Chivery has been a shell... | [
"Mr Clennam did not increase in favour with the Father of the Marshalsea\nin the ratio of his increasing visits. His obtuseness on the great\nTestimonial question was not calculated to awaken admiration in the\npaternal breast, but had rather a tendency to give offence in that\nsensitive quarter, and to be regarded... |
3,397 | 963_book_1,_chapter_23 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Arthur and Doyce deal is done, and now they're partners in Doyce's business. Everything is on the up and up, the total diametric opposite of how the Clennam business was run before. Arthur is psyched, Doyce is psyched, Meagles is psyched for having set the whole thing up. Awesome. One day, working in his new little... | [
"Mr Meagles bestirred himself with such prompt activity in the matter of\nthe negotiation with Daniel Doyce which Clennam had entrusted to him,\n that he soon brought it into business train, and called on Clennam at\n nine o'clock one morning to make his report.",
"'Doyce is highly gratified by your good op... |
3,398 | 963_book_1,_chapter_24 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Plornish tells Little Dorrit that she's got a new gig at Flora's place. Little Dorrit is psyched, because a little extra coin is always welcome around the Dorrit household of denial. At the Casby's, Flora is super-duper nice. She makes Little Dorrit eat some food, which immediately marks her as some kind of saint in th... | [
"Little Dorrit received a call that same evening from Mr Plornish, who,\n having intimated that he wished to speak to her privately, in a series\n of coughs so very noticeable as to favour the idea that her father, as\n regarded her seamstress occupation, was an illustration of the axiom\n t... |
3,399 | 963_book_1,_chapter_25 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | OK, mysterious meeting time at Pancks's house. His landlord, Mr. Rugg, is there. So is Miss Rugg, Mr. Rugg's daughter, whose main claim to fame is that she sued a former fiance for breach of contract for breaking off an engagement - and won! That's right, folks - that was the law back then. Also there is Young John Chi... | [
"The private residence of Mr Pancks was in Pentonville, where he lodged\non the second-floor of a professional gentleman in an extremely small\nway, who had an inner-door within the street door, poised on a spring\nand starting open with a click like a trap; and who wrote up in the\nfan-light, RUGG, GENERAL AGENT, ... |
3,400 | 963_book_1,_chapter_26 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Oh, Arthur, Arthur. He's still trying to convince himself that he's not in love with Pet Meagles. This means that not only is he stressed about the Gowan situation, he's also stressed about pretending not to be stressed about the Gowan situation. Oh yeah. It's like an onion. Layers. Doyce is on to Arthur's poorly kept ... | [
"If Arthur Clennam had not arrived at that wise decision firmly to\nrestrain himself from loving Pet, he would have lived on in a state of\nmuch perplexity, involving difficult struggles with his own heart. Not\nthe least of these would have been a contention, always waging within\nit, between a tendency to dislike... |
3,401 | 963_book_1,_chapter_27 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur is bumming because Little Dorrit is staying in her room and won't come out and play as often as she used to. Also, he's a little worried about Pancks and his Dorrit family research. Cross fingers and hope for the best! Coming home from the Marshalsea one night, Arthur finds Meagles in his room, freaking out. Tur... | [
"A frequently recurring doubt, whether Mr Pancks's desire to collect\ninformation relative to the Dorrit family could have any possible\nbearing on the misgivings he had imparted to his mother on his return\nfrom his long exile, caused Arthur Clennam much uneasiness at this\nperiod. What Mr Pancks already knew abou... |
3,402 | 963_book_1,_chapter_28 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Meagles writes a couple of letters to Miss Wade to try to get Tattycoram back. No dice. He then puts some ads in the paper and gets a bunch of responses from random people asking for money, but still no Tattycoram. One day Arthur goes out to the Meagleses, and Pet meets him before they get to the house. She is strangel... | [
"Not resting satisfied with the endeavours he had made to recover his\nlost charge, Mr Meagles addressed a letter of remonstrance, breathing\nnothing but goodwill, not only to her, but to Miss Wade too. No answer\ncoming to these epistles, or to another written to the stubborn girl\nby the hand of her late young mi... |
3,403 | 963_book_1,_chapter_29 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Same old same old at Mrs. Clennam's place. Well, sort of. Affery notices that suddenly business seems to be picking up, and Flintwinch is constantly going out to the City. This stresses Affery out. Also, the constant weird house noises also stress her out. One day, when Little Dorrit is doing needlework at Mrs. Clennam... | [
"The house in the city preserved its heavy dulness through all these\ntransactions, and the invalid within it turned the same unvarying\nround of life. Morning, noon, and night, morning, noon, and night, each\nrecurring with its accompanying monotony, always the same reluctant\nreturn of the same sequences of machi... |
3,404 | 963_book_1,_chapter_30 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Blandois recognizes Flintwinch and is floored to see him. Flintwinch has no idea what's going on and starts choking Affery. After a little while, Blandois interrupts and kind of laughs off the domestic abuse, basically saying that Flintwinch puts the fun in dysfunctional. In any case, Blandois has a letter of introduct... | [
"When Mr and Mrs Flintwinch panted up to the door of the old house in the\ntwilight, Jeremiah within a second of Affery, the stranger started back.\n'Death of my soul!' he exclaimed. 'Why, how did you get here?'",
"Mr Flintwinch, to whom these words were spoken, repaid the stranger's\nwonder in full. He gazed at ... |
3,405 | 963_book_1,_chapter_31 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | So there's a sad, decrepit old dude wandering around the streets. He's clearly from the workhouse. Brain snack: Workhouses were places where poor people who couldn't support themselves were sent to basically be worked to death. Why? Well, let's do a quick rundown of England in the 19th century. No welfare? Check. No Me... | [
"Anybody may pass, any day, in the thronged thoroughfares of the\nmetropolis, some meagre, wrinkled, yellow old man (who might be supposed\n to have dropped from the stars, if there were any star in the Heavens\n dull enough to be suspected of casting off so feeble a spark), creeping\nalong with a sca... |
3,406 | 963_book_1,_chapter_32 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Oh, this chapter is a doozy. It's like all the emotional melodrama of high school, packed into a ten-minute conversation. Get ready to get kind of punchy - all Shmoop wants to do is smack Arthur and Little Dorrit around a bit. So, yeah, alone at last. Arthur is all, hey, how come you're kind of MIA recently? Little Dor... | [
"Maggy sat at her work in her great white cap with its quantity of opaque\nfrilling hiding what profile she had (she had none to spare), and her\nserviceable eye brought to bear upon her occupation, on the window side\nof the room. What with her flapping cap, and what with her unserviceable\neye, she was quite part... |
3,407 | 963_book_1,_chapter_33 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Whoa, whiplash. Guess we'll find out about Pancks and the Dorrit revelation later. Mrs. Gowan goes to visit her dear friend Mrs. Merdle. And by that, we mean that Mrs. Merdle is the most popular girl at school... ahem, in society... and Mrs. Gowan wants to be cool by association. Also, Mrs. Gowan wants to complete her ... | [
"Resigning herself to inevitable fate by making the best of those people,\n the Miggleses, and submitting her philosophy to the draught upon it, of\n which she had foreseen the likelihood in her interview with Arthur,\n Mrs Gowan handsomely resolved not to oppose her son's marriage. In he... |
3,408 | 963_book_1,_chapter_34 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Finally Pet and Gowan's wedding day is here. Mrs. Gowan has done her best to get as many of the fancy members of the Barnacle family to come as possible, in order to play into the whole charade that Gowan is somehow marrying down and that Mrs. Gowan wants to class up the joint. Arthur decides to go, thinking this is wh... | [
"Mr Henry Gowan and the dog were established frequenters of the cottage,\n and the day was fixed for the wedding. There was to be a convocation of\n Barnacles on the occasion, in order that that very high and very large\n family might shed as much lustre on the marriage as so dim an event was\n capable of r... |
3,409 | 963_book_1,_chapter_35 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | OK, ready for the grand reveal? It turns out Pancks has discovered that Dorrit is actually... the heir to a huge unclaimed fortune! He can pay off his debts and get out of prison! Arthur is totally floored and thanks Pancks over and over again. Yay! Little Dorrit can be free! Pancks tells him how he figured it out. App... | [
"It was at this time that Mr Pancks, in discharge of his compact with\nClennam, revealed to him the whole of his gipsy story, and told him\nLittle Dorrit's fortune. Her father was heir-at-law to a great estate\nthat had long lain unknown of, unclaimed, and accumulating. His right\nwas now clear, nothing interposed ... |
3,410 | 963_book_1,_chapter_36 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | So what's old Dorrit like with money? Well, pretty much the same as without money: egotistical, conceited, snobby, and generally thoughtless. He spends his last few days in prison putting on airs in front of as many people as he can. He orders fancy clothes for himself, Fanny, Tip, and even his brother Frederick. He pa... | [
"And now the day arrived when Mr Dorrit and his family were to leave the\nprison for ever, and the stones of its much-trodden pavement were to\nknow them no more.",
"The interval had been short, but he had greatly complained of its\nlength, and had been imperious with Mr Rugg touching the delay. He had\nbeen high... |
3,411 | 963_book_2,_chapter_1 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Shmoop just wants to point out that this chapter has the same title as Book 1, Chapter 2. Might be important, might not - but it's always good to notice these things. We're suddenly in the Alps, visiting the famous Saint Bernard Pass monastery . It's cold, dark, snowy, and generally unpleasant. Inside all the travelers... | [
"In the autumn of the year, Darkness and Night were creeping up to the\nhighest ridges of the Alps.",
"It was vintage time in the valleys on the Swiss side of the Pass of the\nGreat Saint Bernard, and along the banks of the Lake of Geneva.\nThe air there was charged with the scent of gathered grapes. Baskets,\n ... |
3,412 | 963_book_2,_chapter_2 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Traveling with our friends is Mrs. General, who is basically a governess for the young Dorrit ladies but is way too self-important to allow herself to be called that. Who is Mrs. General? She's kind of an intensely severe, very proper lady. She used to be married to an army guy, who died and left her with way less mone... | [
"It is indispensable to present the accomplished lady who was of\nsufficient importance in the suite of the Dorrit Family to have a line\nto herself in the Travellers' Book.",
"Mrs General was the daughter of a clerical dignitary in a cathedral\ntown, where she had led the fashion until she was as near forty-five... |
3,413 | 963_book_2,_chapter_3 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The next morning the Dorrits and their huge retinue of servants pack up to go down the mountains into Italy. Amy tells Tip that Pet Gowan is doing better, and he worries that she's been trying to take care of her - which is low-class and something only servants are supposed to do. Fanny overhears this exchange and lose... | [
"The bright morning sun dazzled the eyes, the snow had ceased, the mists\nhad vanished, the mountain air was so clear and light that the\nnew sensation of breathing it was like the having entered on a new\nexistence. To help the delusion, the solid ground itself seemed gone,\n and the mountain, a shining waste o... |
3,414 | 963_book_2,_chapter_4 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | This chapter is just a short letter from Amy to Arthur. Amy is all mopey and homesick and a little passive aggressive in the letter - much like in real life. She writes about meeting Mrs. Gowan and goes on and on how super-beautiful Pet is, and how much Amy is not nearly as beautiful, and how she totally could never me... | [
"Dear Mr Clennam,",
"I write to you from my own room at Venice, thinking you will be glad to\n hear from me. But I know you cannot be so glad to hear from me as I am\n to write to you; for everything about you is as you have been accustomed\n to see it, and you miss nothing--unless it should be me, wh... |
3,415 | 963_book_2,_chapter_5 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | During a little break in his social life, Dorrit summons Mrs. General. The way he does it shows how pretentiously the Dorrits now live: one servant is told to find a second servant to pass a message to a third servant to ask Mrs. General to join Dorrit in the study. Turns out Dorrit kind of wants to do a parent-teacher... | [
"The family had been a month or two at Venice, when Mr Dorrit, who was\nmuch among Counts and Marquises, and had but scant leisure, set an hour\nof one day apart, beforehand, for the purpose of holding some conference\nwith Mrs General.",
"The time he had reserved in his mind arriving, he sent Mr Tinkler, his\nva... |
3,416 | 963_book_2,_chapter_6 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Ah, the Gowans. What a sad, sad mess of a marriage. Turns out that pretty much everywhere they go, the story is that he married way down and she married way up, and wasn't it so super-duper romantic and decent of him to convince his family to accept her? After being yelled at by Uncle Frederick, Fanny has been nice to ... | [
"To be in the halting state of Mr Henry Gowan; to have left one of two\npowers in disgust; to want the necessary qualifications for finding\npromotion with another, and to be loitering moodily about on neutral\nground, cursing both; is to be in a situation unwholesome for the mind,\n which time is not likely to ... |
3,417 | 963_book_2,_chapter_7 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Amy does her best to learn all about prunes and prism. It's totally miserable, but at least Fanny is being nice to her now, which is something, we guess. One day Fanny announces to Amy that Mrs. General clearly has designs on snagging their totally eligible father. Amy is all, really? And Fanny is all, duh. Amy tries t... | [
"Mrs General, always on her coach-box keeping the proprieties well\ntogether, took pains to form a surface on her very dear young friend,\n and Mrs General's very dear young friend tried hard to receive it. Hard\n as she had tried in her laborious life to attain many ends, she had\n never tried harder than... |
3,418 | 963_book_2,_chapter_8 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Hey! Arthur! Remember him? So the whole Doyce & Clennam operation is going quite well. They are good friends, good business partners, and generally getting along swimmingly. Having Arthur do the CFO stuff is great and makes it so Doyce can do the COO stuff. Doyce is still bummed that his awesome invention has never bee... | [
"While the waters of Venice and the ruins of Rome were sunning themselves\nfor the pleasure of the Dorrit family, and were daily being sketched\nout of all earthly proportion, lineament, and likeness, by travelling\npencils innumerable, the firm of Doyce and Clennam hammered away in\nBleeding Heart Yard, and the vi... |
3,419 | 963_book_2,_chapter_9 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | All right, everyone, get ready for the plot to thicken! Fasten your seatbelts - it's about to get crazy! Oh, right, sorry - first this. Meagles tells Arthur that he and Mrs. Meagles are going to take off for Italy to go be with Pet, pay Gowan's debts, and generally provide moral support for their daughter. Arthur promi... | [
"'Arthur, my dear boy,' said Mr Meagles, on the evening of the following\nday, 'Mother and I have been talking this over, and we don't feel\ncomfortable in remaining as we are. That elegant connection of\nours--that dear lady who was here yesterday--'",
"'I understand,' said Arthur.",
"'Even that affable and co... |
3,420 | 963_book_2,_chapter_10 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur goes to visit his mommy dearest. Every step closer to the house makes him more and more miserable. Suddenly, he sees... Blandois! Blandois is running fast, and Arthur loses him, but then he sees him knocking on Mrs. Clennam's door just as Arthur is coming up. Affery opens the door and Blandois walks right in lik... | [
"The shady waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office, where he passed a\ngood deal of time in company with various troublesome Convicts who were\nunder sentence to be broken alive on that wheel, had afforded Arthur\nClennam ample leisure, in three or four successive days, to exhaust the\nsubject of his late glimps... |
3,421 | 963_book_2,_chapter_11 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Amy tries to recap some stuff to Arthur. We actually know most of what she's about to tell him, but this is the narrative's handy way of giving Arthur information about people that he is otherwise not really in touch with. The Dorrits and the Gowans are in Rome. Amy can tell that Pet is super lonely and that their hous... | [
"Dear Mr Clennam,",
"As I said in my last that it was best for nobody to write to me, and\n as my sending you another little letter can therefore give you no other\n trouble than the trouble of reading it (perhaps you may not find leisure\n for even that, though I hope you will some day), I am... |
3,422 | 963_book_2,_chapter_12 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Oh, Merdle, Merdle, Merdle. Everyone worships the ground he walks on because of his money. Which is sort of a crazy reason, especially since none of that money does anyone any good. While Mrs. Merdle is gone, society still hangs out at the Merdle house. Merdle himself lurks there too, but since he's not really all that... | [
"The famous name of Merdle became, every day, more famous in the land. Nobody knew that the Merdle of such high renown had ever done any good\nto any one, alive or dead, or to any earthly thing; nobody knew that he\nhad any capacity or utterance of any sort in him, which had ever thrown,\n for any creature, the ... |
3,423 | 963_book_2,_chapter_13 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The narrator does a little thing about infections - mental ones are kind of like physical ones, spreading and spreading until they are epidemics. So. Merdle, Merdle, Merdle. His name is on everyone's lips, even the poor people in Bleeding Heart Yard. When Pancks goes around to collect rent, those who don't have money s... | [
"That it is at least as difficult to stay a moral infection as a physical\none; that such a disease will spread with the malignity and rapidity of\nthe Plague; that the contagion, when it has once made head, will spare\nno pursuit or condition, but will lay hold on people in the soundest\nhealth, and become develop... |
3,424 | 963_book_2,_chapter_14 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | So, lots of congratulations all around for Sparkler getting this awesome job. And by awesome job, we mean a fat paycheck for twiddling his thumbs all day. Mrs. Merdle makes it out to be like Sparkler is doing everyone a favor by working in the city, when he'd much rather be in the country. Gowan is totally furious that... | [
"When it became known to the Britons on the shore of the yellow Tiber\nthat their intelligent compatriot, Mr Sparkler, was made one of the\nLords of their Circumlocution Office, they took it as a piece of news\nwith which they had no nearer concern than with any other piece of\nnews--any other Accident or Offence--... |
3,425 | 963_book_2,_chapter_15 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Dorrit accepts the engagement with his usual pompousness. Mostly for him it's a way to secure the family further in society, so it's all to the good. Mrs. Merdle also likes the match. Dorrit and Merdle write a few letters back and forth to settle money questions, and then it's off to the races. Or, you know, to the wed... | [
"Mr Dorrit, on being informed by his elder daughter that she had accepted\nmatrimonial overtures from Mr Sparkler, to whom she had plighted her\ntroth, received the communication at once with great dignity and with a\nlarge display of parental pride; his dignity dilating with the widened\nprospect of advantageous g... |
3,426 | 963_book_2,_chapter_16 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The happy couple is back in England and is welcomed very warmly by Merdle. Or rather, the already not-all-that happy couple is greeted in a limp and strange way by Merdle. But either way, Fanny sees that she is in the lap of ultimate luxury. Dorrit stays nearby in a hotel, and the next morning Merdle comes to see him. ... | [
"The newly married pair, on their arrival in Harley Street, Cavendish\nSquare, London, were received by the Chief Butler. That great man was\nnot interested in them, but on the whole endured them. People must\ncontinue to be married and given in marriage, or Chief Butlers would not\nbe wanted. As nations are made t... |
3,427 | 963_book_2,_chapter_17 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | After almost two weeks Dorrit is about to go back to Italy. His servant announces a Mrs. Finching. Dorrit has no idea who this might be, but the servant says she claims to know Amy. Worried that she's going to spill the beans about prison, Dorrit asks her up. Flora introduces herself. And by "introduces herself" we of ... | [
"The term of Mr Dorrit's visit was within two days of being out, and he\nwas about to dress for another inspection by the Chief Butler (whose\n victims were always dressed expressly for him), when one of the servants\nof the hotel presented himself bearing a card. Mr Dorrit, taking it,\n read:",
"'Mrs Fi... |
3,428 | 963_book_2,_chapter_18 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Merdle has a farewell dinner for Dorrit, after which he walks him out to his carriage. This is high honor. Dorrit says good-bye to Fanny, praises her awesomeness, and wishes that Amy were more like her sister. As Dorrit goes back to his hotel, he sees Young John Chivery waiting for him. The servants say that Chivery cl... | [
"Manifold are the cares of wealth and state. Mr Dorrit's satisfaction in\nremembering that it had not been necessary for him to announce himself\nto Clennam and Co., or to make an allusion to his having had any\nknowledge of the intrusive person of that name, had been damped\nover-night, while it was still fresh, b... |
3,429 | 963_book_2,_chapter_19 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Dorrit's carriage arrives home late at night. Along the way he kept thinking the carriage was about to be robbed or he was about to be killed, despite all evidence to the contrary. No one is ready for his return, since it's so late that they assumed he would stay overnight somewhere and come the next day. Dorrit finds ... | [
"The sun had gone down full four hours, and it was later than most\ntravellers would like it to be for finding themselves outside the walls\nof Rome, when Mr Dorrit's carriage, still on its last wearisome\nstage, rattled over the solitary Campagna. The savage herdsmen and\nthe fierce-looking peasants who had cheque... |
3,430 | 963_book_2,_chapter_20 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur gets off the boat at Calais, the French town across the Channel from England. There's a mob of French scam artists there, jockeying for the tourists - kind of like taxicabs at an airport. He gets around them and goes to find a specific address, which apparently was found by Pancks in some of Casby's papers. It's... | [
"The passengers were landing from the packet on the pier at Calais. A low-lying place and a low-spirited place Calais was, with the tide\nebbing out towards low water-mark. There had been no more water on the\nbar than had sufficed to float the packet in; and now the bar itself,\n with a shallow break of sea ove... |
3,431 | 963_book_2,_chapter_21 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | OK, so get ready, folks - Miss Wade is a doozy and a half. It's actually hard to know how to even characterize what she is saying, so we'll let a bunch of this summary happen in her own words. For now, let's just begin at the beginning, like she does. She grows up with a woman she thinks is her grandma, in a boarding s... | [
"I have the misfortune of not being a fool. From a very early age I have\ndetected what those about me thought they hid from me. If I could have\nbeen habitually imposed upon, instead of habitually discerning the\ntruth, I might have lived as smoothly as most fools do.",
"My childhood was passed with a grandmothe... |
3,432 | 963_book_2,_chapter_22 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Forget you, Circumlocution Office, Doyce is taking himself and his engineering awesomeness elsewhere. Namely, to Russia, where they apparently appreciate people who invent useful things. All his things are packed, and Doyce is ready. He leaves Arthur in charge of the money stuff and says that he trusts him completely. ... | [
"Arthur Clennam had made his unavailing expedition to Calais in the midst\nof a great pressure of business. A certain barbaric Power with valuable\npossessions on the map of the world, had occasion for the services of\none or two engineers, quick in invention and determined in execution:\npractical men, who could m... |
3,433 | 963_book_2,_chapter_23 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur can't let the Blandois thing go. Why on earth is his mother dealing with this guy? He decides to investigate and goes to his mother's house to speak to Affery. Flintwinch is at the door, which is too bad, because obviously he won't get anything out of him. Flintwinch is none too friendly, says they've had no new... | [
"Left alone, with the expressive looks and gestures of Mr Baptist,\n otherwise Giovanni Baptista Cavalletto, vividly before him, Clennam\n entered on a weary day. It was in vain that he tried to control his\n attention by directing it to any business occupation or train of\n thought; it ... |
3,434 | 963_book_2,_chapter_24 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Things are looking up for Merdle. Now he wants a title, and not just be a Baronet . The Barnacles are looking into it. Meanwhile Fanny and Sparkler are now in their new house. It's kind of a tiny, crappy house in the best possible location. Fanny is super bored. Her house is boring, her reflection is boring, the view o... | [
"That illustrious man and great national ornament, Mr Merdle, continued\nhis shining course. It began to be widely understood that one who had\ndone society the admirable service of making so much money out of it,\n could not be suffered to remain a commoner. A baronetcy was spoken of\n with confidence; a p... |
3,435 | 963_book_2,_chapter_25 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | There's a party at Physician's house. Merdle didn't want to go to it with Mrs. Merdle, which is why he went over to the Sparklers' instead. Physician is taken seriously by everyone, since he's seen more of the human condition than most of them. He's also seen almost everyone there naked. Bar is trying to get Mrs. Merdl... | [
"The dinner-party was at the great Physician's. Bar was there, and in\nfull force. Ferdinand Barnacle was there, and in his most engaging\nstate. Few ways of life were hidden from Physician, and he was oftener\nin its darkest places than even Bishop. There were brilliant ladies\nabout London who perfectly doted on ... |
3,436 | 963_book_2,_chapter_26 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Hey, guess who invested a lot of money in the Merdle business? That's right, it was Arthur. Poor, dumb Arthur. And guess whose money it all was? It wasn't just his - it was Doyce's too. Oh, yeah. Arthur invested all the company money! Which is now all gone. Pancks finds Arthur with his head on his desk. Pancks commiser... | [
"With a precursory sound of hurried breath and hurried feet, Mr Pancks\nrushed into Arthur Clennam's Counting-house. The Inquest was over, the\nletter was public, the Bank was broken, the other model structures of\nstraw had taken fire and were turned to smoke. The admired piratical\nship had blown up, in the midst... |
3,437 | 963_book_2,_chapter_27 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur is sad. Super duper sad. Also, he's thinking a bunch about Little Dorrit and how awesome she was and how nearly every good decision he ever made was under her influence. Chivery shows up, asks if Arthur needs anything, tells him that John Chivery will bring up his bags , and then asks Arthur not to mind if John ... | [
"The day was sunny, and the Marshalsea, with the hot noon striking\nupon it, was unwontedly quiet. Arthur Clennam dropped into a solitary\narm-chair, itself as faded as any debtor in the jail, and yielded\nhimself to his thoughts.",
"In the unnatural peace of having gone through the dreaded arrest, and\ngot there... |
3,438 | 963_book_2,_chapter_28 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur is still way depressed and behind bars. He is totally antisocial and mostly just mopes around, miserable. One day, Ferdinand Barnacle, the one not-so-dumb Circumlocution Office employee, comes to visit him. We have to admit, this visit is sort of confusing. Why on earth would this guy come see Arthur in jail? Bu... | [
"The opinion of the community outside the prison gates bore hard on\nClennam as time went on, and he made no friends among the community\nwithin. Too depressed to associate with the herd in the yard, who got\ntogether to forget their cares; too retiring and too unhappy to join in\nthe poor socialities of the tavern... |
3,439 | 963_book_2,_chapter_29 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Arthur's depression worsens. He has panic attacks and anxiety. Then, a week later, he falls ill and mildly hallucinates through his fever. That morning, he wakes up to find... Little Dorrit! Dressed in her old Marshalsea dress, she's been cleaning up his rooms, taking care of him, feeding him, and sewing him some curta... | [
"Haggard anxiety and remorse are bad companions to be barred up with.\nBrooding all day, and resting very little indeed at night, will not\narm a man against misery. Next morning, Clennam felt that his health was\nsinking, as his spirits had already sunk and that the weight under which\nhe bent was bearing him down... |
3,440 | 963_book_2,_chapter_30 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | OK, here we go with the meat of the mystery plot. What mystery plot? Yeah, we know, we know, it's kind of gotten lost in the rest of the novel. But yes, the mystery of Mrs. Clennam and Amy that Arthur was trying to figure out in the beginning of the novel - it's back! And it's about to be really confusingly explained! ... | [
"The last day of the appointed week touched the bars of the Marshalsea\ngate. Black, all night, since the gate had clashed upon Little Dorrit,\n its iron stripes were turned by the early-glowing sun into stripes of\n gold. Far aslant across the city, over its jumbled roofs, and through\n the open tracery o... |
3,441 | 963_book_2,_chapter_31 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Mrs. Clennam makes her way to the Marshalsea but gets lost and heckled. John Chivery rescues her, takes her to the prison, and gets Little Dorrit. Amy is floored to see Mrs. Clennam out of her wheelchair. She offers congrats... but Mrs. Clennam is in no mood. Mrs. Clennam asks Amy to read the packet that Blandois had g... | [
"The sun had set, and the streets were dim in the dusty twilight, when\nthe figure so long unused to them hurried on its way. In the immediate\nneighbourhood of the old house it attracted little attention, for there\nwere only a few straggling people to notice it; but, ascending from the\nriver by the crooked ways ... |
3,442 | 963_book_2,_chapter_32 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Pancks is going nuts with guilt over Arthur and the investments. He keeps going over and over the numbers in his head - and on paper they should both have been very rich by now. The more he stresses, the more Casby annoys him. But he is used to his job and has been harassing the Bleeding Heart Yard tenants like before.... | [
"Arthur continuing to lie very ill in the Marshalsea, and Mr Rugg\ndescrying no break in the legal sky affording a hope of his enlargement,\n Mr Pancks suffered desperately from self-reproaches. If it had not been\n for those infallible figures which proved that Arthur, instead of pining\n ... |
3,443 | 963_book_2,_chapter_33 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | After Merdle's suicide, Fanny, Sparkler, and Mrs. Merdle are now forced to live together on Sparkler's salary from his Circumlocution Office job. Which is fine - except they've become very accustomed to being super-rich, and now they're just snobby middle class. Also, Fanny and Mrs. Merdle do nothing but fight. Amy tel... | [
"The changes of a fevered room are slow and fluctuating; but the changes\nof the fevered world are rapid and irrevocable.",
"It was Little Dorrit's lot to wait upon both kinds of change. The\nMarshalsea walls, during a portion of every day, again embraced her in\ntheir shadows as their child, while she thought fo... |
3,444 | 963_book_2,_chapter_34 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Amy takes care of Arthur, who is slowly recovering from his illness in jail. She keeps playfully offering him half of her fortune. He says no every time. Finally she asks him if he wants to know how much her fortune actually is. Ready? It's... nothing at all. Dorrit had given all his money to Merdle to invest, so there... | [
"On a healthy autumn day, the Marshalsea prisoner, weak but otherwise\nrestored, sat listening to a voice that read to him. On a healthy autumn\nday; when the golden fields had been reaped and ploughed again, when the\nsummer fruits had ripened and waned, when the green perspectives of hops\nhad been laid low by th... |
3,445 | 11030_chapter_i | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Childhood In the first chapter, Jacobs begins her narrative by explaining that she did not know she was a slave until she was six years old. Her father was a carpenter and she had a brother named William. She was very fond of her maternal grandmother, known as Aunt Marthy, who was a remarkable woman. She was indispensi... | [
"I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away. My father was a carpenter, and considered so intelligent and skilful in his trade, that, when buildings out of the common line were to be erected, he was sent for from long distances, to be head workman. On condition of payi... |
3,446 | 11030_chapter_ii | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The New Master and Mistress Harriet introduces the master of her new house, Dr. Flint, her previous mistress's sister's husband. William also came to live at this house, which brought Harriet much joy. But, the brother and sister received "cold looks, cold words, and cold treatment. This situation was made worse when H... | [
"Dr. Flint, a physician in the neighborhood, had married the sister of my\nmistress, and I was now the property of their little daughter. It was not\nwithout murmuring that I prepared for my new home; and what added to my\nunhappiness, was the fact that my brother William was purchased by the same\nfamily. My fathe... |
3,447 | 11030_chapter_iii | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Slaves' New Year's Day Harriet explains that Dr. Flint was wealthy, with a house in town, many farms, and about fifty slaves. Slaves in the south were hired on January 1st and work until Christmas Eve. After a few holidays, auctions were held. Slaves that were unwilling to go with their new masters were whipped. Ha... | [
"Dr. Flint owned a fine residence in town, several farms, and about fifty\nslaves, besides hiring a number by the year.",
"Hiring-day at the south takes place on the 1st of January. On the 2d, the\nslaves are expected to go to their new masters. On a farm, they work until\nthe corn and cotton are laid. They then ... |
3,448 | 11030_chapter_iv | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Slave Who Dared To Feel Like A Man Harriet's grandmother was now the mistress of her own "snug little home" and wished her grandchildren could share it with her. Benjamin and Harriet longed to join her. William was now twelve. The three of them hated Dr. Flint with a passion. Harriet writes "When he told me that I ... | [
"Two years had passed since I entered Dr. Flint's family, and those years\nhad brought much of the knowledge that comes from experience, though they\nhad afforded little opportunity for any other kinds of knowledge.",
"My grandmother had, as much as possible, been a mother to her orphan\ngrandchildren. By perseve... |
3,449 | 11030_chapter_v | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Trials Of Girlhood In chapter five, Harriet narrates how she had entered a dangerous time period for a slave girl. Her master began to whisper lecherous things into her ears. He was more than forty years older than her and she found him thoroughly repulsive. She had no help from her mistress, who was viciously jeal... | [
"During the first years of my service in Dr. Flint's family, I was\naccustomed to share some indulgences with the children of my mistress. Though this seemed to me no more than right, I was grateful for it, and\ntried to merit the kindness by the faithful discharge of my duties. But I\nnow entered on my fifteenth y... |
3,450 | 11030_chapter_vi | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Jealous Mistress Harriet continued to suffer from Dr. Flint's dogging of her steps. Her mistress could have helped these young slaves, but it was apparently a crime to want to be virtuous. Dr. Flint used exceedingly clever means to try and find Harriet and speak to her of vile things, and she would respond to him i... | [
"I would ten thousand times rather that my children should be the\nhalf-starved paupers of Ireland than to be the most pampered among the\nslaves of America. I would rather drudge out my life on a cotton\nplantation, till the grave opened to give me rest, than to live with an\nunprincipled master and a jealous mist... |
3,451 | 11030_chapter_vii | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Lover As detailed in this chapter, Harriet made the mistake of falling in love with a free black carpenter in the neighborhood. She had forgotten that "in the land of my birth the shadows are too dense for light to penetrate. Her lover wanted to buy her but Dr. Flint would not consent. Even Mrs. Flint did not want ... | [
"Why does the slave ever love? Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine\naround objects which may at any moment be wrenched away by the hand of\nviolence? When separations come by the hand of death, the pious soul can\nbow in resignation, and say, \"Not my will, but thine be done, O Lord!\" But\nwhen the ruthle... |
3,452 | 11030_chapter_viii | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | What Slaves Are Taught To Think Of The North Slaves were often misled about the conditions in the north. Slaveowners would venture there and then return with tales of how terrible it was for freed men and women. Slaves believed these stories, but Harriet would learn that they were not true. Similarly, some northerners ... | [
"Slaveholders pride themselves upon being honorable men; but if you were to\nhear the enormous lies they tell their slaves, you would have small respect\nfor their veracity. I have spoken plain English. Pardon me. I cannot use a\nmilder term. When they visit the north, and return home, they tell their\nslaves of th... |
3,453 | 11030_chapter_ix | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Sketches Of Neighboring Slaveholders In chapter nine, Harriet writes of an uneducated and mercilessly cruel slaveholder named Mr. Litch. He had many slaves and devised the most obscene ways to punish them. She catalogued many of his tortures, which led to the situation where "murder was so common on his plantation that... | [
"There was a planter in the country, not far from us, whom I will call Mr.\nLitch. He was an ill-bred, uneducated man, but very wealthy. He had six\nhundred slaves, many of whom he did not know by sight. His extensive\nplantation was managed by well-paid overseers. There was a jail and a\nwhipping post on his groun... |
3,454 | 11030_chapter_x | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | A Perilous Passage In The Slave Girl's Life Dr. Flint concocts a plan to build Harriet a small house in a secluded place outside of town so he could continue to pursue her. Harriet was determined that this should not happen. She alludes to moral failing, and explains that the memory of this experience made her ashamed ... | [
"After my lover went away, Dr. Flint contrived a new plan. He seemed to have\nan idea that my fear of my mistress was his greatest obstacle. In the\nblandest tones, he told me that he was going to build a small house for me,\n in a secluded place, four miles away from the town. I shuddered; but I was\n ... |
3,455 | 11030_chapter_xi | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The New Tie To Life Dr. Flint visited Harriet in her grandmother's house and showered her with curses and the vilest abuse. He said her mistress had forbidden her to come back. He said she was lucky he did not kill her, and told her that he would take care of her and her child if she would henceforth have no communicat... | [
"I returned to my good grandmother's house. She had an interview with Mr.\nSands. When she asked him why he could not have left her one ewe\nlamb,--whether there were not plenty of slaves who did not care about\ncharacter,--he made no answer, but he spoke kind and encouraging words. He\npromised to care for my chil... |
3,456 | 11030_chapter_xii | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Fear Of Insurrection Harriet details how Nat Turner's rebellion filled the white population in the south with fear and paranoia. One day the whites called together a muster , which the slaves thought would be another holiday. Everyone gathered out of doors and soldiers marched about while martial music played. Suddenly... | [
"Not far from this time Nat Turner's insurrection broke out; and the news\nthrew our town into great commotion. Strange that they should be alarmed,\nwhen their slaves were so \"contented and happy\"! But so it was.",
"It was always the custom to have a muster every year. On that occasion\nevery white man shoulde... |
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