2-889-425 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Where You Should Not Dine on Christmas Day - drawn by Leech, 1850. Illustration to "Cold out of Doors, and Cold In-Doors, or, Tom Smithers's Christmas Day". '...in walked Tom, as bold as if he had been an invited guest...Tom's heart sank within him...In spite of lustres, and lamps, and mirrors, and curtains, and sofas...and a roaring fire in the grate...there was a cold, icy chill nipped every look, and cramped every movement of every soul in the room...here was the magnificent Mr. Tipton, whose selfishness was so far narrower than most men's...and frozen Mrs. Tipton, who never betrayed, by a spark in her eye, the presence of any warmth whatever in her heart; the poor girls, who...had subsided into dreary social machines...There was no move to ask Tom to dinner; and he felt grateful for it before he had been ten minutes there'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.