Chapter Dombey to Donica of D by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Dombey to Donica

Dombey (Mr.), a purse-proud, self-contained London merchant, living in Portland Place, Bryanstone Square, with offices in the City. His god was wealth; and his one ambition was to have a son, that the firm might be known as “Dombey and Son.” When Paul was born, his ambition was attained, his whole heart was in the boy, and the loss of the mother was but a small matter. The boy’s death turned his heart to stone, and he treated his daughter Florence not only with utter indifference, but as an actual interloper. Mr. Dombey married a second time; but his wife cloped with his manager, James Carker, and the proud spirit of the merchant was brought low.

Paul Dombey, son of Mr. Dombey; a delicate, sensitive little boy, quite unequal to the great things expected of him. He was sent to Dr. Blimber’s school, but soon gave way under the strain of school discipline. In his short life he won the love of all who knew him, and his sister Florence was especially attached to him. His death is beautifully told. During his last days he was haunted by the sea, and was always wondering what the wild waves were saying.

Florence Dombey, Mr. Dombey’s daughter; a pretty, amiable, motherless child, who incurred her father’s hatred because she lived and thrived while her younger brother, Paul, dwindled and died. Florence hungered to be loved, but her father had no love to bestow on her. She married Walter Gay, and when Mr. Dombey was broken in spirit by the elopement of his second wife, his grandchildren were the solace of his old age.—Dickens: Dombey and Son (1846).

Dom-Daniel originally meant a public school for magic, established at Tunis; but what is generally underst ood by the word is that immense establishment, near Tunis, under the “roots of the ocean,” establis hed by Hal-il-Maugraby, and completed by his son. There were four entrances to it, each of which had a staircase of 4000 steps; and magicians, gnomes, and sorcerers of every sort were expected to do homage there at least once a year to Zatanaï [Satan]. Dom-Daniel was utterly destroyed by prince Habed-il-Rouman, son of the caliph of Syria.—Continuation of the Arabian Nights (“History of Maugraby”).

Southey has made the destruction of Dom-Daniel the subject of his Thalaba—in fact, Thalaba takes the office of Habed-il-Rouman; but the general incidents of the two tales have no other resemblance to each other.

Domestic Poet (The), William Cowper (1731–1800).

Domestic Poultry, in Dryden’s Hind and Panther, mean the Roman Catholic clergy; so called from an establishment of priests in the private chapel of Whitehall. The nuns are termed “sister partlet with the hooded head” (1687).

Domine Stekan (corruption of Dominus tecum, “the Lord be with thee”). A witch, being asked how she contrived to kill all the children of a certain family in infancy, replied, “Easily enough. When the infant sneezes, nobody says, ‘Domine stekan,’ and then I become mistress of the child.”—Rev. W. Webster: Basque Legends, 73 (1877).

Dominick, the “Spanish fryar,” a kind of ecclesiastical Falstaff. A most immoral, licentious Dominican, who for money would prostitute even the Church and Holy Scriptures. Dominick helped Lorenzo in his amour with Elvi’ra the wife of Gomez.

He is a huge, fat, religious gentleman … big enough to be a pope. His gills are as rosy as a turkey-cock’s. His big belly walks in state before him, like a harbinger; and his gouty legs come limping after it. Never was such a tun of devotion seen.—Dryden: The Spanish Fryar, ii. 3 (1680).

Dominie Sampson; his Christian name is Abel. He is the tutor at Ellangowan House, very poor, very modest, and crammed with Latin quotations. His constant exclamation is “Prodigious!”

Dominie Sampson is a poor, modest, humble scholar, who had won his way through the classics, but fallen to the leeward in the voyage of life.—Sir W. Scott: Guy Mannering (time, George II.).