FROM WHICH IT WILL BE SEEN THAT MARTIN BECAME A LION OF HIS OWN ACCOUNT.
TOGETHER WITH THE REASON WHY
As soon as it was generally known in the National Hotel, that the young
Englishman, Mr Chuzzlewit, had purchased a ‘lo-cation’ in the Valley
of Eden, and intended to betake himself to that earthly Paradise by the
next steamboat, he became a popular character. Why this should be, or
how it had come to pass, Martin no more knew than Mrs Gamp, of Kingsgate
Street, High Holborn, did; but that he was for the time being the lion,
by popular election, of the Watertoast community, and that his society
was in rather inconvenient request there could be no kind of doubt.
The first notification he received of this change in his position, was
the following epistle, written in a thin running hand--with here and
there a fat letter or two, to make the general effect more striking--on
a sheet of paper, ruled with blue lines.
‘NATIONAL HOTEL,
‘MONDAY MORNING.
‘Dear Sir--‘When I had the privillidge of being your fellow-traveller
in the cars, the day before yesterday, you offered some remarks upon the
subject of the tower of London, which (in common with my fellow-citizens
generally) I could wish to hear repeated to a public audience.
‘As secretary to the Young Men’s Watertoast Association of this town,
I am requested to inform you that the Society will be proud to hear
you deliver a lecture upon the Tower of London, at their Hall to-morrow
evening, at seven o’clock; and as a large issue of quarter-dollar
tickets may be expected, your answer and consent by bearer will be
considered obliging.
‘Dear Sir,
‘Yours truly,
‘LA FAYETTE KETTLE.
‘The Honourable M. Chuzzlewit.
‘P.S.--The Society would not be particular in limiting you to the Tower
of London. Permit me to suggest that any remarks upon the Elements of
Geology, or (if more convenient) upon the Writings of your talented and
witty countryman, the honourable Mr Miller, would be well received.’
Very much aghast at this invitation, Martin wrote back, civilly
declining it; and had scarcely done so, when he received another letter.
‘No. 47, Bunker Hill Street,
‘Monday Morning.
‘(Private).
‘Sir--I was raised in those interminable solitudes where our mighty
Mississippi (or Father of Waters) rolls his turbid flood.
‘I am young, and ardent. For there is a poetry in wildness, and every
alligator basking in the slime is in himself an Epic, self-contained. I
aspirate for fame. It is my yearning and my thirst.
‘Are you, sir, aware of any member of Congress in England, who would
undertake to pay my expenses to that country, and for six months after
my arrival?
‘There is something within me which gives me the assurance that this
enlightened patronage would not be thrown away. In literature or art;
the bar, the pulpit, or the stage; in one or other, if not all, I feel
that I am certain to succeed.
‘If too much engaged to write to any such yourself, please let me have
a list of three or four of those most likely to respond, and I will
address them through the Post Office. May I also ask you to favour me
with any critical observations that have ever presented themselves to
your reflective faculties, on “Cain, a Mystery,” by the Right Honourable
Lord Byron?
‘I am, Sir,
‘Yours (forgive me if I add, soaringly),
‘PUTNAM SMIF
‘P.S.--Address your answer to America Junior, Messrs. Hancock & Floby,
Dry Goods Store, as above.’
Both of which letters, together with Martin’s reply to each, were,
according to a laudable custom, much tending to the promotion of
gentlemanly feeling and social confidence, published in the next number
of the Watertoast Gazette.
He had scarcely got through this correspondence when Captain Kedgick,
the landlord, kindly came upstairs to see how he was getting on. The
Captain sat down upon the bed before he spoke; and finding it rather
hard, moved to the pillow.
‘Well, sir!’ said the Captain, putting his hat a little more on one
side, for it was rather tight in the crown: ‘You’re quite a public man I
calc’late.’
‘So it seems,’ retorted Martin, who was very tired.
‘Our citizens, sir,’ pursued the Captain, ‘intend to pay their respects
to you. You will have to hold a sort of le-vee, sir, while you’re here.’
‘Powers above!’ cried Martin, ‘I couldn’t do that, my good fellow!’
‘I reckon you MUST then,’ said the Captain.
‘Must is not a pleasant word, Captain,’ urged Martin.
‘Well! I didn’t fix the mother language, and I can’t unfix it,’ said the
Captain coolly; ‘else I’d make it pleasant. You must re-ceive. That’s
all.’
‘But why should I receive people who care as much for me as I care for
them?’ asked Martin.
‘Well! because I have had a muniment put up in the bar,’ returned the
Captain.
‘A what?’ cried Martin.
‘A muniment,’ rejoined the Captain.
Martin looked despairingly at Mark, who informed him that the
Captain meant a written notice that Mr Chuzzlewit would receive the
Watertoasters that day, at and after two o’clock which was in effect
then hanging in the bar, as Mark, from ocular inspection of the same,
could testify.
‘You wouldn’t be unpop’lar, I know,’ said the Captain, paring his nails.
‘Our citizens an’t long of riling up, I tell you; and our Gazette could
flay you like a wild cat.’
Martin was going to be very wroth, but he thought better of it, and
said:
‘In Heaven’s name let them come, then.’
‘Oh, THEY’ll come,’ returned the Captain. ‘I have seen the big room
fixed a’purpose, with my eyes.’
‘But will you,’ said Martin, seeing that the Captain was about to go;
‘will you at least tell me this? What do they want to see me for? what
have I done? and how do they happen to have such a sudden interest in
me?’
Captain Kedgick put a thumb and three fingers to each side of the
brim of his hat; lifted it a little way off his head; put it on again
carefully; passed one hand all down his face, beginning at the forehead
and ending at the chin; looked at Martin; then at Mark; then at Martin
again; winked, and walked out.
‘Upon my life, now!’ said Martin, bringing his hand heavily upon the
table; ‘such a perfectly unaccountable fellow as that, I never saw.
Mark, what do you say to this?’
‘Why, sir,’ returned his partner, ‘my opinion is that we must have got
to the MOST remarkable man in the country at last. So I hope there’s an
end to the breed, sir.’
Although this made Martin laugh, it couldn’t keep off two o’clock.
Punctually, as the hour struck, Captain Kedgick returned to hand him
to the room of state; and he had no sooner got him safe there, than
he bawled down the staircase to his fellow-citizens below, that Mr
Chuzzlewit was ‘receiving.’
Up they came with a rush. Up they came until the room was full, and,
through the open door, a dismal perspective of more to come, was shown
upon the stairs. One after another, one after another, dozen after
dozen, score after score, more, more, more, up they came; all shaking
hands with Martin. Such varieties of hands, the thick, the thin,
the short, the long, the fat, the lean, the coarse, the fine; such
differences of temperature, the hot, the cold, the dry, the moist,
the flabby; such diversities of grasp, the tight, the loose, the
short-lived, and the lingering! Still up, up, up, more, more, more; and
ever and anon the Captain’s voice was heard above the crowd--‘There’s
more below! there’s more below. Now, gentlemen you that have been
introduced to Mr Chuzzlewit, will you clear gentlemen? Will you clear?
Will you be so good as clear, gentlemen, and make a little room for
more?’
Regardless of the Captain’s cries, they didn’t clear at all, but stood
there, bolt upright and staring. Two gentlemen connected with the
Watertoast Gazette had come express to get the matter for an article on
Martin. They had agreed to divide the labour. One of them took him below
the waistcoat. One above. Each stood directly in front of his subject
with his head a little on one side, intent on his department. If Martin
put one boot before the other, the lower gentleman was down upon him;
he rubbed a pimple on his nose, and the upper gentleman booked it. He
opened his mouth to speak, and the same gentleman was on one knee before
him, looking in at his teeth, with the nice scrutiny of a dentist.
Amateurs in the physiognomical and phrenological sciences roved about
him with watchful eyes and itching fingers, and sometimes one, more
daring than the rest, made a mad grasp at the back of his head, and
vanished in the crowd. They had him in all points of view: in front, in
profile, three-quarter face, and behind. Those who were not professional
or scientific, audibly exchanged opinions on his looks. New lights shone
in upon him, in respect of his nose. Contradictory rumours were abroad
on the subject of his hair. And still the Captain’s voice was heard--so
stifled by the concourse, that he seemed to speak from underneath a
feather-bed--exclaiming--‘Gentlemen, you that have been introduced to Mr
Chuzzlewit, WILL you clear?’
Even when they began to clear it was no better; for then a stream of
gentlemen, every one with a lady on each arm (exactly like the chorus
to the National Anthem when Royalty goes in state to the play), came
gliding in--every new group fresher than the last, and bent on staying
to the latest moment. If they spoke to him, which was not often, they
invariably asked the same questions, in the same tone; with no more
remorse, or delicacy, or consideration, than if he had been a figure of
stone, purchased, and paid for, and set up there for their delight. Even
when, in the slow course of time, these died off, it was as bad as ever,
if not worse; for then the boys grew bold, and came in as a class
of themselves, and did everything that the grown-up people had done.
Uncouth stragglers, too, appeared; men of a ghostly kind, who being in,
didn’t know how to get out again; insomuch that one silent gentleman
with glazed and fishy eyes and only one button on his waistcoat (which
was a very large metal one, and shone prodigiously), got behind the
door, and stood there, like a clock, long after everybody else was gone.
Martin felt, from pure fatigue, and heat, and worry, as if he could have
fallen on the ground and willingly remained there, if they would but
have had the mercy to leave him alone. But as letters and messages,
threatening his public denouncement if he didn’t see the senders, poured
in like hail; and as more visitors came while he took his coffee by
himself; and as Mark, with all his vigilance, was unable to keep them
from the door; he resolved to go to bed--not that he felt at all sure
of bed being any protection, but that he might not leave a forlorn hope
untried.
He had communicated this design to Mark, and was on the eve of escaping,
when the door was thrown open in a great hurry, and an elderly gentleman
entered; bringing with him a lady who certainly could not be considered
young--that was matter of fact; and probably could not be considered
handsome--but that was matter of opinion. She was very straight, very
tall, and not at all flexible in face or figure. On her head she wore a
great straw bonnet, with trimmings of the same, in which she looked as
if she had been thatched by an unskillful labourer; and in her hand she
held a most enormous fan.
‘Mr Chuzzlewit, I believe?’ said the gentleman.
‘That is my name.’
‘Sir,’ said the gentleman, ‘I am pressed for time.’
‘Thank God!’ thought Martin.
‘I go back Toe my home, sir,’ pursued the gentleman, ‘by the return
train, which starts immediate. Start is not a word you use in your
country, sir.’
‘Oh yes, it is,’ said Martin.
‘You air mistaken, sir,’ returned the gentleman, with great decision:
‘but we will not pursue the subject, lest it should awake your
preju--dice. Sir, Mrs Hominy.’
Martin bowed.
‘Mrs Hominy, sir, is the lady of Major Hominy, one of our chicest
spirits; and belongs Toe one of our most aristocratic families. You air,
p’raps, acquainted, sir, with Mrs Hominy’s writings.’
Martin couldn’t say he was.
‘You have much Toe learn, and Toe enjoy, sir,’ said the gentleman.
‘Mrs Hominy is going Toe stay until the end of the Fall, sir, with her
married daughter at the settlement of New Thermopylae, three days this
side of Eden. Any attention, sir, that you can show Toe Mrs Hominy
upon the journey, will be very grateful Toe the Major and our
fellow-citizens. Mrs Hominy, I wish you good night, ma’am, and a
pleasant pro-gress on your route!’
Martin could scarcely believe it; but he had gone, and Mrs Hominy was
drinking the milk.
‘A’most used-up I am, I do declare!’ she observed. ‘The jolting in
the cars is pretty nigh as bad as if the rail was full of snags and
sawyers.’
‘Snags and sawyers, ma’am?’ said Martin.
‘Well, then, I do suppose you’ll hardly realise my meaning, sir,’ said
Mrs Hominy. ‘My! Only think! DO tell!’
It did not appear that these expressions, although they seemed to
conclude with an urgent entreaty, stood in need of any answer; for Mrs
Hominy, untying her bonnet-strings, observed that she would withdraw to
lay that article of dress aside, and would return immediately.
‘Mark!’ said Martin. ‘Touch me, will you. Am I awake?’
‘Hominy is, sir,’ returned his partner--‘Broad awake! Just the sort of
woman, sir, as would be discovered with her eyes wide open, and her mind
a-working for her country’s good, at any hour of the day or night.’
They had no opportunity of saying more, for Mrs Hominy stalked in
again--very erect, in proof of her aristocratic blood; and holding in
her clasped hands a red cotton pocket-handkerchief, perhaps a parting
gift from that choice spirit, the Major. She had laid aside her bonnet,
and now appeared in a highly aristocratic and classical cap, meeting
beneath her chin: a style of headdress so admirably adapted to her
countenance, that if the late Mr Grimaldi had appeared in the lappets of
Mrs Siddons, a more complete effect could not have been produced.
Martin handed her to a chair. Her first words arrested him before he
could get back to his own seat.
‘Pray, sir!’ said Mrs Hominy, ‘where do you hail from?’
‘I am afraid I am dull of comprehension,’ answered Martin, ‘being
extremely tired; but upon my word I don’t understand you.’
Mrs Hominy shook her head with a melancholy smile that said, not
inexpressively, ‘They corrupt even the language in that old country!’
and added then, as coming down a step or two to meet his low capacity,
‘Where was you rose?’
‘Oh!’ said Martin ‘I was born in Kent.’
‘And how do you like our country, sir?’ asked Mrs Hominy.
‘Very much indeed,’ said Martin, half asleep. ‘At least--that is--pretty
well, ma’am.’
‘Most strangers--and partick’larly Britishers--are much surprised by
what they see in the U-nited States,’ remarked Mrs Hominy.
‘They have excellent reason to be so, ma’am,’ said Martin. ‘I never was
so much surprised in all my life.’
‘Our institutions make our people smart much, sir,’ Mrs Hominy remarked.
‘The most short-sighted man could see that at a glance, with his naked
eye,’ said Martin.
Mrs Hominy was a philosopher and an authoress, and consequently had a
pretty strong digestion; but this coarse, this indecorous phrase,
was almost too much for her. For a gentleman sitting alone with a
lady--although the door WAS open--to talk about a naked eye!
A long interval elapsed before even she--woman of masculine and towering
intellect though she was--could call up fortitude enough to resume the
conversation. But Mrs Hominy was a traveller. Mrs Hominy was a writer
of reviews and analytical disquisitions. Mrs Hominy had had her letters
from abroad, beginning ‘My ever dearest blank,’ and signed ‘The Mother
of the Modern Gracchi’ (meaning the married Miss Hominy), regularly
printed in a public journal, with all the indignation in capitals, and
all the sarcasm in italics. Mrs Hominy had looked on foreign countries
with the eye of a perfect republican hot from the model oven; and Mrs
Hominy could talk (or write) about them by the hour together. So Mrs
Hominy at last came down on Martin heavily, and as he was fast asleep,
she had it all her own way, and bruised him to her heart’s content.
It is no great matter what Mrs Hominy said, save that she had learnt it
from the cant of a class, and a large class, of her fellow countrymen,
who in their every word, avow themselves to be as senseless to the high
principles on which America sprang, a nation, into life, as any Orson in
her legislative halls. Who are no more capable of feeling, or of caring
if they did feel, that by reducing their own country to the ebb of
honest men’s contempt, they put in hazard the rights of nations yet
unborn, and very progress of the human race, than are the swine who
wallow in their streets. Who think that crying out to other nations,
old in their iniquity, ‘We are no worse than you!’ (No worse!) is high
defence and ‘vantage-ground enough for that Republic, but yesterday let
loose upon her noble course, and but to-day so maimed and lame, so full
of sores and ulcers, foul to the eye and almost hopeless to the sense,
that her best friends turn from the loathsome creature with disgust.
Who, having by their ancestors declared and won their Independence,
because they would not bend the knee to certain Public vices and
corruptions, and would not abrogate the truth, run riot in the Bad,
and turn their backs upon the Good; and lying down contented with the
wretched boast that other Temples also are of glass, and stones which
batter theirs may be flung back; show themselves, in that alone, as
immeasurably behind the import of the trust they hold, and as unworthy
to possess it as if the sordid hucksterings of all their little
governments--each one a kingdom in its small depravity--were brought
into a heap for evidence against them.
Martin by degrees became so far awake, that he had a sense of a terrible
oppression on his mind; an imperfect dream that he had murdered a
particular friend, and couldn’t get rid of the body. When his eyes
opened it was staring him full in the face. There was the horrible
Hominy talking deep truths in a melodious snuffle, and pouring forth her
mental endowments to such an extent that the Major’s bitterest enemy,
hearing her, would have forgiven him from the bottom of his heart.
Martin might have done something desperate if the gong had not sounded
for supper; but sound it did most opportunely; and having stationed Mrs
Hominy at the upper end of the table he took refuge at the lower end
himself; whence, after a hasty meal he stole away, while the lady was
yet busied with dried beef and a saucer-full of pickled fixings.
It would be difficult to give an adequate idea of Mrs Hominy’s freshness
next day, or of the avidity with which she went headlong into moral
philosophy at breakfast. Some little additional degree of asperity,
perhaps, was visible in her features, but not more than the pickles
would have naturally produced. All that day she clung to Martin. She
sat beside him while he received his friends (for there was another
Reception, yet more numerous than the former), propounded theories, and
answered imaginary objections, so that Martin really began to think he
must be dreaming, and speaking for two; she quoted interminable passages
from certain essays on government, written by herself; used the Major’s
pocket-handkerchief as if the snuffle were a temporary malady, of which
she was determined to rid herself by some means or other; and, in short,
was such a remarkable companion, that Martin quite settled it between
himself and his conscience, that in any new settlement it would be
absolutely necessary to have such a person knocked on the head for the
general peace of society.
In the meantime Mark was busy, from early in the morning until late
at night, in getting on board the steamboat such provisions, tools and
other necessaries, as they had been forewarned it would be wise to take.
The purchase of these things, and the settlement of their bill at the
National, reduced their finances to so low an ebb, that if the captain
had delayed his departure any longer, they would have been in almost as
bad a plight as the unfortunate poorer emigrants, who (seduced on board
by solemn advertisement) had been living on the lower deck a whole week,
and exhausting their miserable stock of provisions before the voyage
commenced. There they were, all huddled together with the engine and the
fires. Farmers who had never seen a plough; woodmen who had never used
an axe; builders who couldn’t make a box; cast out of their own land,
with not a hand to aid them: newly come into an unknown world, children
in helplessness, but men in wants--with younger children at their backs,
to live or die as it might happen!
The morning came, and they would start at noon. Noon came, and they
would start at night. But nothing is eternal in this world; not even the
procrastination of an American skipper; and at night all was ready.
Dispirited and weary to the last degree, but a greater lion than
ever (he had done nothing all the afternoon but answer letters from
strangers; half of them about nothing; half about borrowing money, and
all requiring an instantaneous reply), Martin walked down to the wharf,
through a concourse of people, with Mrs Hominy upon his arm; and went on
board. But Mark was bent on solving the riddle of this lionship, if he
could; and so, not without the risk of being left behind, ran back to
the hotel.
Captain Kedgick was sitting in the colonnade, with a julep on his knee,
and a cigar in his mouth. He caught Mark’s eye, and said:
‘Why, what the ‘Tarnal brings you here?’
‘I’ll tell you plainly what it is, Captain,’ said Mark. ‘I want to ask
you a question.’
‘A man may ASK a question, so he may,’ returned Kedgick; strongly
implying that another man might not answer a question, so he mightn’t.
‘What have they been making so much of him for, now?’ said Mark, slyly.
‘Come!’
‘Our people like ex-citement,’ answered Kedgick, sucking his cigar.
‘But how has he excited ‘em?’ asked Mark.
The Captain looked at him as if he were half inclined to unburden his
mind of a capital joke.
‘You air a-going?’ he said.
‘Going!’ cried Mark. ‘Ain’t every moment precious?’
‘Our people like ex-citement,’ said the Captain, whispering. ‘He ain’t
like emigrants in gin’ral; and he excited ‘em along of this;’ he winked
and burst into a smothered laugh; ‘along of this. Scadder is a smart
man, and--and--nobody as goes to Eden ever comes back alive!’
The wharf was close at hand, and at that instant Mark could hear them
shouting out his name; could even hear Martin calling to him to make
haste, or they would be separated. It was too late to mend the matter,
or put any face upon it but the best. He gave the Captain a parting
benediction, and ran off like a race-horse.
‘Mark! Mark!’ cried Martin.
‘Here am I, sir!’ shouted Mark, suddenly replying from the edge of the
quay, and leaping at a bound on board. ‘Never was half so jolly, sir.
All right. Haul in! Go ahead!’
The sparks from the wood fire streamed upward from the two chimneys, as
if the vessel were a great firework just lighted; and they roared away
upon the dark water.