China and the West

Thackeray, William Makepeace. Works.
1840
Thackeray, William Makepeace. George Cruikshank. In : Westminster review ; vol. 34, no 1 (June 1840).
"The books on Phrenology and Time have been imitated by the same nation; and even in France, whither reputation travels slower than to any country except China, we have seen copies of the works of George Cruikshank."

1840
Thackeray, William Makepeace. The Paris sketch book. (London : John Macrone, 1840).
"Her cheeks were as pink as the finest Chinese rouge could make them."
"Fancy these heads and beards under all sorts of caps--Chinese caps, Mandarin caps, Greek skull- caps, English jockey-caps, Russian or Kuzzilbash caps, Middle-age caps (such as are called, in heraldry, caps of maintenance), Spanish nets, and striped worsted nightcaps."
"Let the big-wigs despise us; such contempt of their neighbors is the custom of all barbarous tribes;--witness, the learned Chinese: Tippoo Sultaun declared that there were not in all Europe ten thousand men…"
"Would a Chinese playwright or painter have stranger notions about the barbarians than our neighbors, who are separated from us but by two hours of salt water?"

1842-1843
Thackeray, William Makepeace. The Fitz-Boodle Papers. In Fraser's Magazine ; June, 1842-Feb. 1843.
"She had none of your Chinese feet, nor waspy, unhealthy waists, which those may admire who will."
"…some common French forged crockery for the old delightful, delicate, Dresden china…"
"Of china, of jewelry, of gold-headed canes, valuable arms, picturesque antiquities, with what eloquent entrainement might he not speak!"
"He takes up a pearl necklace with as much delight as any beauty who was sighing to wear it round her own snowy throat, and hugs a china monster with as much joy as the oldest duchess could do."
"Chance, it is said by Mr. Charles Lamb, 'which burnt down a Chinaman's house, with a litter of sucking-pigs that were unable to escape from the interior, discovered to the world the excellence of roast-pig.' Gunpowder, we know, was invented by a similar fortuity."

1843
Thackeray, William Makepeace. Men's wives. In : Fraser's magazine vol. 27 (1843).
"I forgot to say that while Mrs. C. was sipping her eternal tea or washing up her endless blue china, you might often hear Miss Morgiana employed at the little red-silk cottage piano."
"The cook made the policeman a present of a china punch-bowl which Mrs. Walker had given her."

1844
Thackeray, William Makepeace. The luck of Barry Lyndon : a romance of the last century. In : Fraser's magazine, vol. 29 (1844).
"I had the finest natural taste for lace and china of any man I ever knew."
"Her rooms were crowded with hideous China magots, and all sorts of objects of vertu."
"Little Bullingdon had long since been asleep in one of Lady Charlemont's china closets."
"This I kept pretty much in its antique condition, but had the old armour eventually turned out and consigned to the lumber-rooms upstairs; replacing it with china monsters, gilded settees from France, and elegant marbles, of which the broken noses and limbs, and ugliness, undeniably proved their antiquity: and which an agent purchased for me at Rome."

1847-1848
Thackeray, William Makepeace. Vanity fair : a novel without a hero. In : Punch ; jan. 1847-July 1848. = (London : Bradbury and Evans, 1847-1848).
"She liked pretty faces near her; as she liked pretty pictures and nice china."
"When the allied sovereigns were here last year, and we gave ’em that dinner in the City, sir, and we saw the Temple of Concord, and the fireworks, and the Chinese bridge in St. James’s Park…"
"Dammy, George said to a confidential friend, she looked like a China doll, which has nothing to do all day but to grin and wag its head."
"Nothing occurred during dinner-time except smiling Mr. Frederick’s flagging confidential whispers, and the clinking of plate and china, to interrupt the silence of the repast."
"Such a bull in a china-shop I never saw."
"He ordered and sent a box of scarfs and a grand ivory set of chess-men from China."
"Sir Pitt’s house, to superintend the female band engaged in stitching the blinds and hangings, to poke and rummage in the drawers and cupboards crammed with the dirty relics and congregated trumperies of a couple of generations of Lady Crawleys, and to take inventories of the china, the glass, and other properties in the closets and store-rooms."
"You may be sure they occupied a conspicuous place in the china bowl on the drawing-room table…"
"Wine, wax-lights, comestibles, rouge, crinoline-petticoats, diamonds, wigs, Louis- Quatorze gimcracks, and old china…"

1848
Thackeray, William Makepeace. The book of snobs = The snobs of England, by one of themselves. In : Punch (1846-1847). = (London : Punch Office, 1848).
"He also invented Maraschino punch, a shoe-buckle (this was in the vigour of his youth, and the prime force of his invention), and a Chinese pavilion, the most hideous building in the world."
"She knew already her importance, and how all the world of England, how all the would-be-genteel people, how all the silver-fork worshippers, how all the tattle-mongers, how all the grocers' ladies, the tailors' ladies, the attorneys' and merchants' ladies, and the people living at Clapham and Brunswick Square,—who have no more chance of consorting with a Snobky than my beloved reader has of dining with the Emperor of China—yet watched the movements of the Snobkys with interest and were glad to know when they came to London and left it."
"You stuff the little rosy foot of a Chinese young lady of fashion into a slipper that is about the size of a salt-cruet, and keep the poor little toes there imprisoned and twisted up so long that the dwarfishness becomes irremediable."
"Well, then—now they are ALL away, let us frisk at our ease, and have at everything like the bull in the china-shop."
"We have good and abundant dinners on CHINA though we have plate (5), and just as good when alone as with company."

1849
Thackeray, William Makepeace. The history of Pendennis : his fortunes and misfortunes, his friends and his greates enemy. Vol. 1-2. (London : Bradbury and Evans, 1849-1850).
"Mr. Spicer's china and glass was in a dreadfully dismantled condition…"
"…double-handed swords and battle-axes made of carton-pierre, looking-glasses, statuettes of saints, and Dresden china--nothing, in a word, could be chaster…"
"…the pretty little china boat swims gaily till the big bruised brazen one bumps him and sends him down…"
"There sits the Chinese Ambassador with the Mandarins of his suite, Fou-choo-foo brought me over letters of introduction from the Governor-General of India, my most intimate friend, and I was for some time very kind to him, and he had his chopsticks laid for him at my table whenever he chose to come and dine."
"Alnaschar, who kicked down the china, was not a married man…"

1852
Thackeray, William Makepeace. The history of Henry Esmond, Esq., a colonel in the service of Her Majesty Q. Anne. (London : Printed for Smith, Elder & Co., 1852).
"Harry Esmond had been a Jesuit priest ere he was a dozen years older, and might have finished his days a martyr in China or a victim on Tower Hill…"
"The flowers were in the window in a china vase; and there was a fine new counterpane on the bed…"
"I have a pretty taste for dress, diamonds, gambling, and old China."

1853-1855
Thackeray, William Makepeace. The newcomes : memoirs of a most respectable family. (London : Bradbury and Evans, 1853-1855).
"And your ladyship is fond of mice," says the fox. "The Chinese eat them," says the owl, "and I have read that they are very fond of dogs," continued the old lady."
"Mr. Newcome, arriving on a Saturday night; hears he is gone, says "Oh!" and begins to ask about the new gravel-walk along the cliff, and whether it is completed, and if the China pig fattens kindly upon the new feed."
"…her mother had washed her own china many scores of years ago…"
"The wine was of his own sending, and so were the China fire-screens…"
"…having walked over with Colonel Newcome to see the new studio, with its tall centre window, and its curtains, and carved wardrobes, china jars, pieces of armour, and other artistical properties…"
"Good Lady Walham was for improving the shining hour by reading amusing extracts from her favourite volumes, gentle anecdotes of Chinese and Hottentot converts, and incidents from missionary travel."

1856
Thackeray, William Makepeace. The fatal boots, and Cox's diary. (London : Bradbury & Evans, 1856).
"Then I bought papa a pretty china tobacco-stopper…"

1856
Thackeray, William Makepeace. A little dinner at Timmins's : and the Bedford-Row conspiracy. (London : Bradbury & Evans, 1856).
"Rosa conquered: she has the prettiest little foot possible (which in a red boot and silver heel looked so lovely that even the Chinese ambassador remarked it), whereas Mrs. Rowdy's foot is no trifle, as Lord Cornbury acknowledged when it came down on his lordship's boot-tip as they danced together amongst the Scythes."
"Mrs. G. said (she is always bragging about that confounded bread-basket), "we need not have any extra china dishes, and the table will look very pretty."
"Look at the preserved fruits, look at the golden ginger, the outspreading ananas, the darling little rogues of China oranges, ranged in the gleaming crystal cylinders."
"After the dinner and dessert were ordered (at Fubsby's they furnish everything: dinner and dessert, plate and china…"
"His large china christening-bowl was cracked by Mrs. Gashleigh altering the flowers in it…"
"…the cook went back to her pans, the housemaid busied herself with the china and glass, cleaning some articles and breaking others…"
"This accident created a laugh, and rather amused Fitzroy and the company, and caused Funnyman to say, bowing to Rosa, that she was mistress of herself, though China fall."
"…the breakage and hire of glass and china cost ever so much money…"

1857-1859
Thackeray, William Makepeace. The Virginians : a tale of the last century. Vol. 1-2. (London : Bradbury and Evans, 1857-1859).
"The plump landlady from her bar, surrounded by her china and punch-bowls…"
"Upon the mantelpiece, under the Colonel's portrait, stood a china cup, by which the widow set great store, as her father had always been accustomed to drink from it."
"The militia colonel, who had been offended by the first part of the talk, and very much puzzled by the last, had taken a modest draught from the great china bowl of apple-toddy which stood to welcome the guests in this as in all Virginian houses, and was further cooling himself by pacing the balcony in a very stately manner."
"They have softly trodden out of their guest's bedchamber by this time, and are in the adjoining dressing-closet, a snug little wainscoted room looking over gardens, with India curtains, more Japan chests and cabinets, a treasure of china, and a most refreshing odour of fresh lavender."
"What beautiful roses! cries Harry, looking at a fine China vase full of them that stood on the toilet-table, under the japan-framed glass."
"Only once, in place of a neat drawing of mine, in China-ink, representing Miles asleep after dinner…"
"What with jewels, laces, trinkets, and old china which she had gathered…"
"What wonderful little feet!-- Perfectly Chinese!"

1860-1867
Thackeray, William Makepeace. Roundabout papers. In : Cornhill Magazine, January 1860-November 1865 ; January 1866 ; January 1867.
"...that account of China is told by the man of all the empire most likely to know of what he speaks” = The Chinese and the Outer Barbarians." By Sir John Bowring."
"Years ago, in a time when we were very mad wags, Arcturus and myself met a gentleman from China who knew the language. We began to speak Chinese against him. We said we were born in China. We were two to one. We spoke the mandarin dialect with perfect fluency. We had the company with us; as in the old, old days, the squeak of the real pig was voted not to be so natural as the squeak of the sham pig.""And have we not just read of the actions of the Queen's galleys and their brave crews in the Chinese waters?"
"What a failure that special grand dinner was! How those dreadful occasional waiters did break the old china!"
"In that little back parlor there are Chinese gongs; there are old Saxe and Sevres plates."

1867
Thackeray, William Makepeace. The notch on the axe. In : Thackeray, William Makepeace. Early and late papers hitherto uncollected. (Boston : Ticknor and Fields, 1867).
"In that little back parlor there are Chinese gongs; there are old Saxe and Sevres plates; there is Furstenberg, Carl Theodor, Worcester, Amstel, Nankin and other jimcrockery."

1869
Thackeray, William Makepeace. Burlesques. (London : Smith, Elder, 1869).
"Wax-candles burning bright on the mantel, flowers in china vases, every variety of soap, and a flask of the precious essence manufactured at the neighboring city of Cologne, were displayed on his toilet-table."
"And REBECCA," he would have said; but the knight paused here in rather a guilty panic: and her Royal Highness the Princess Rowena (as she chose to style herself at home) looked so hard at him out of her china-blue eyes, that Sir Wilfrid felt as if she was reading his thoughts, and was fain to drop his own eyes into his flagon."
"The pourpoint worn by young Otto of Godesberg was of blue, handsomely decorated with buttons of carved and embossed gold; his haut-de-chausses, or leggings, were of the stuff of Nanquin, then brought by the Lombard argosies at an immense price from China."
"The Emperor of China, the Princess of the Moon, Julius Caesar, Saint Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, the Pope of Rome, the Cacique of Mexico, and several singular and illustrious personages who happened to be confined there, all held a council with Louis XVII."