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But beyond the fact of having a large house, where their several sets may assemble at stated periods, these would-be lady patronesses are utterly impotent to help or hinder; and their patronage is just so much pinchbeck, not worth the trouble of weighing.
To see a man of Paine's clear sense and simple tastes pleased by such flummery as this shows us how difficult it is not to be affected by the spirit of the generation we live with. How could he have supposed that the new heaven upon earth of his dreams would ever be constructed out of such pinchbeck materials? It was now the year 1. of the Republic.
Men are often ostentatious, often extravagant, and not unfrequently dishonest in that broadway of dishonesty which is called living beyond their means sometimes making up the deficit by practices which end in the dock of the Old Bailey; but, as a rule, they go in for the real thing in details, and their pinchbeck is at the core rather than on the surface.
'It looked, he said, 'as well as if it were real gold from Ophir. lndeed it would be odd if it should not, being formed in fact of that very metal: but, to do this honest creature justice, I believe the knowledge of its real value would not enhance his sense of my father's kindness supposing it, as he does, to be pinchbeck gilded.
One sees more mares' nests than would fill a book; the other pure gold in pinchbeck wares; and both are out for gudgeons.
If we can get the peasant statement of the heroic, that is excellent; its sincerity brings its illusion. But a mere imitation of the peasant statement of the heroic, such as Lady Gregory seems to aim at giving us in these sentences, is as pinchbeck and unreal as Macpherson's Ossian.
As we take dress to be the characteristic or efficient quality of a beau, we shall, instead of giving any character of this young gentleman, content ourselves with describing his dress only to our readers. He wore, then, a pair of white stockings on his legs, and pumps on his feet: his buckles were a large piece of pinchbeck plate, which almost covered his whole foot.
"Made of pinchbeck, my dear Major, both of them, and yet how genuine it looks on the surface, and what a lot of it is in circulation. Quite as good as the real thing if you don't know the difference," and again he laughed heartily. "And the boy," I asked, "was he disappointing?" "Young Breen? not a bit of it.
Mine had been removed by a little pinchbeck oriental in the outer courts, and I wandered within unpleasantly conscious of a hole in one sock, to find myself by no means the only obvious refugee from the rain. The bath was in fact inconveniently crowded. But at length I found a divan to suit me in an upstairs alcove.
As Frank had been in the habit of treating his friend thus almost every day since starting on their tour, he was quite prepared for it; smiled knowingly, ordered the vaquero to tether the mules and accompany him into the forest, and then, taking his bearings with a small pocket-compass, and critically inspecting the sun, and a huge pinchbeck watch which was the faithful companion of his wanderings, he shouldered his gun and went off, leaving the enthusiastic painter to revel in the glories of the landscape.
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