Mr Pitskiver's origin, like that of early Greece, is lost in the
depths of antiquity. Through an infinite variety of posts and offices,
he had risen to his present position, and was perhaps the most
multifariously occupied gentleman in her majesty's dominions. He was
chairman of three companies, steward of six societies, general agent,
and had lately reached the crowning eminence of his hopes by being
appointed trustee of unaudited accounts. In the midst of all these
labours, he had gone on increasing in breadth and honour till his name
was a symbol of every thing respectable and well to do in the world.
With each new office his ambition rose, and a list of his residences
would be a perfect index to the state of his fortunes. We can trace
him from Stepney to Whitechapel; from Whitechapel to Finsbury square;
from Finsbury square to Hammersmith; and finally, the last office
(which, by the by, was without a salary) had raised him, three months
before our account of him begins, to the centre of Harley Street. With
his fortune and ambition, we must do him the justice to say, his
liberality equally increased. He was a patron, and, would have
travelled fifty miles to entertain a poet at his table; he had
music-masters (without any other pupils) who were Mozarts and Handels
for his daughters--Turners and Landseers (whose names were yet
unknown) to teach them drawing--for, by a remarkable property
possessed by him, in common with a great majority of mankind, every
thing gained a new value when it came into contact with himself. He
bought sets of china because they were _artistic_; changed his silver
plate for a more _picturesque_ pattern; employed Stultz for his
clothes, and, above all, Bell and Rannie for his wines. His cook was
superb; and, thanks to the above-named Bell and Rannie, there were
fewer headachs in the morning after a Mæcenatian dinner at
Pitskiver's, than could have been expected by Father Matthew himself.
With these two exceptions--wine and clothes--his patronage was more
indiscriminate than judicious. In fact, he patronized for the sake of
patronizing; and as he was always in search of a new miracle, it is no
wonder that he was sometimes disappointed--that his Landseers
sometimes turned out to have no eyes, and his musicians more fitted to
play the Handel to a pump than an organ. But Pitskiver never lost
heart. If he failed in one he was sure to succeed in another; he saw
his name occasionally in the newspaper, by giving an invitation to one
of the literary gentlemen who enliven the public with accounts of
fearful accidents and desperate offences; had his picture at the
Exhibition in the character of the "Portrait of a gentleman," and his
bust in the same place as the semblance of the honorary Secretary to
the Poor Man's Pension and Perpetual Annuity Institution. He was a
widower, and looked dreadful things at all the widows of his
acquaintance. And it was thought that, if he succeeded in marrying off
his girls, he should himself become once more a candidate for the holy
estate; and by this wise manoeuvre--for, in fact, he made no secret of
his intention--he enlisted in his daughters' behalf all the elderly
ladies who thought they had any claims on the attentions of that
charming creature Mr Pitskiver. There were certainly no young ladies I
have ever heard of, so well supplied with assistants in the great art
of catching husbands as the two plump damsels whom we have already
seen enter the house in Harley Street, and one of whom we have
perceived placed in possession of the mysterious letter by the
skittle-minded Mr Snipe.
Miss Sophia Pitskiver, according to all ordinary ideas of romance and
true love, had no right whatever to indulge in such luxuries, being
more adapted to make pies than enter into the beauty of sonnets to the
moon. She was short, stout--shall we be pardoned for saying the
hateful word?--she was dumpy, but a perfect picture of rosy health and
hilarious good-nature. And yet, if she had been half a foot taller,
and half a yard thinner, and infinitely paler, she could not have been
one jot more sentimental. She cultivated sentiment, because it was so
pleasant, and her father approved of it because it was genteel. Her
enthusiasm was tremendous. Her ideas were all crackers, and exploded
at the slightest touch. She had a taste for every thing--poetry,
history, fine arts in general, philosophy, glory, puseyism, and,
perhaps more than all, for a certain tall young man, with an
interesting complexion, whom we have introduced to the courteous
reader by the name of the long-backed Ticket. It was this gentleman's
note she was now about to read. Sundry palpitations about the robust
regions of the heart might, to common eyes, have appeared to arise
from her speed in running up stairs. But she knew better. She took but
one look of the cheval glass, and broke the seal.
"Stanzas!" she said; and, taking one other glance at the mirror, she
exclaimed to the agitated young lady represented there, "only think!"
and devoured the following lines:--
"There is a tear that will not fall
To cool the burning heart and brain;
Oh, I would give my life, my all,
To feel once more that blessed rain!
"There is a grief--I feel, in sooth,
It rends my soul, it quells my tongue;
It dims the sunshine of my youth,
But, oh, it will not dim it long!
"There is a place where life is o'er,
And sorrow's blasts innocuous rave;
A place where sadness comes no more.
Know'st thou the place? It is the grave.
"Yes, if within that gentle breast
Mild pity ever held her sway,
Thou'lt weep for one who finds no rest--
The reason he can never say.
"P.S.--Miss Hendy is an angel upon earth. My friend Mr Bristles, of
the _Universal Surveyor_, one of the most distinguished literary men
of the age, has got me an invitation to go to her house to-night, to
read the first act of my tragedy. Shall I have the happiness of seeing
thee? Would to my stars my fate were so fortunate! I enclose you the
above lines, which Bristles says are better than any of Lord Byron's,
and will publish next week in the _Universal_. Mayest thou like them,
sweetest, for they are dedicated to thee, Thine ever--ALMANSOR." What
she might have done beyond reading the lines and letter six times
over, and crying "beautiful, beautiful!" as fast as she could, it is
impossible to say, for at that moment she was called by her venerable
sire. She crumpled the note up after the manner of all other heroines,
and hid it in her bosom; and hurried to the drawing-room, where she
found her father in full dress, pulling on a pair of new kid gloves.
"Well, Soph, I'm off for Miss Hendy's--don't give me any nonsense now
about her being low, and all that sort of thing; she don't move in the
same circle of society, certainly, as we do, but she has always
distinguished people about her."
"Oh, papa!" interrupted the young lady. "I don't object to Miss Hendy
in the least. I love her of all things, and would give worlds to be
going with you!"
"That's right! You've heard of the new poet then? Tremendous they say;
equal to Shakspeare--quite a great man."
"Indeed! Oh, how I long to see him!"
"Well, perhaps you may one of these days. Bristles--my friend Bristles
of the _Universal_-says he's a perfect--what do they call that pretty
street in Southampton?--Paragon--a perfect paragon, Bristles says:
I'll ask him to dinner some day."
"What day?--Oh, let it be soon, dear papa!"
"There's a dear delightful enthusiastic girl! We ought to encourage
people of genius. Curious we never heard of him before, for he was our
neighbour, I hear, in Finsbury; but poor, I suppose, and did not mix
with our set even then."
Mr Pitskiver looked at the opposite side of the street while he spoke,
as if to assure himself that he was in a still higher altitude above
the poet now than some few years before. But, as if feeling called on
to show his increased superiority by greater condescension, he said,
as he walked out of the room, "I shall certainly have him to dinner,
and Bristles, and some more men of talent to meet him--
'The feast of reason, and the flow of soul!'"
the only quotation, by the way, in which Mr Pitskiver was ever known
to indulge.