Dora used to delight David Copperfield by singing enchanting ballads in the French language and accompanying herself ‘on a glorified instrument, resembling a guitar,’ though subsequent references show it was that instrument and none other.
We read in Little Dorrit that Young John Chivery wore ‘pantaloons so highly decorated with side stripes, that each leg was a three-stringed lute.’ This appears to be the only reference to this instrument, and a lute of three strings is the novelist's own conception, the usual number being about nine.
[ 9 ] Or, ‘Mix it up and make it nice.’
[ 10 ] The Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, 1837.
CHAPTER IV
VARIOUS INSTRUMENTS (continued)
Many musical instruments and terms are mentioned by way of illustration. Blathers, the Bow Street officer (O.T.), plays carelessly with his handcuffs as if they were a pair of castanets. Miss Miggs (B.R.) clanks her pattens as if they were a pair of cymbals. Mr. Bounderby (H.T.), during his conversation with Harthouse,
with his hat in his hand, gave a beat upon the crown at every division of his sentences, as if it were a tambourine;
and in the same work the electric wires rule ‘a colossal strip of music-paper out of the evening sky.’
Perhaps the most extraordinary comparison is that instituted by Mrs. Lirriper in reference to her late husband.