Mr Nicodemus Easy was a gentleman who lived down in Hampshire; he was a
married man, and in very easy circumstances. Most couples find it very
easy to have a family, but not always quite so easy to maintain them.
Mr Easy was not at all uneasy on the latter score, as he had no
children; but he was anxious to have them, as most people covet what
they cannot obtain. After ten years, Mr Easy gave it up as a bad job.
Philosophy is said to console a man under disappointment, although
Shakespeare asserts that it is no remedy for toothache; so Mr Easy
turned philosopher, the very best profession a man can take up, when he
is fit for nothing else; he must be a very incapable person indeed who
cannot talk nonsense. For some time, Mr Easy could not decide upon
what description his nonsense should consist of; at last he fixed upon
the rights of man, equality, and all that; how every person was born to
inherit his share of the earth, a right at present only admitted to a
certain length that is about six feet, for we all inherit our graves,
and are allowed to take possession without dispute. But no one would
listen to Mr Easy's philosophy. The women would not acknowledge the
rights of men, whom they declared always to be in the wrong; and, as the
gentlemen who visited Mr Easy were all men of property, they could not
perceive the advantages of sharing with those who had none. However,
they allowed him to discuss the question, while they discussed his port
wine. The wine was good, if the arguments were not, and we must take
things as we find them in this world.
While Mr Easy talked philosophy, Mrs Easy played patience, and they
were a happy couple, riding side by side on their hobbies, and never
interfering with each other. Mr Easy knew his wife could not
understand him, and therefore did not expect her to listen very
attentively; and Mrs Easy did not care how much her husband talked,
provided she was not put out in her game. Mutual forbearance will
always ensure domestic felicity.
There was another cause for their agreeing so well. Upon any disputed
question Mr Easy invariably gave it up to Mrs Easy, telling her that
she should have her own way--and this pleased his wife; but, as Mr Easy
always took care, when it came to the point, to have his way, he was
pleased as well. It is true that Mrs Easy had long found out that she
did not have her own way long; but she was of an easy disposition, and
as, in nine cases out of ten, it was of very little consequence how
things were done, she was quite satisfied with his submission during the
heat of the argument. Mr Easy had admitted that she was right, and if
like all men he would do wrong, why what could a poor woman do? With a
lady of such a quiet disposition, it is easy to imagine that the
domestic felicity of Mr Easy was not easily disturbed. But, as people
have observed before, there is a mutability in human affairs. It was at
the finale of the eleventh year of their marriage that Mrs Easy at
first complained that she could not enjoy her breakfast. Mrs Easy had
her own suspicions, everybody else considered it past doubt, all except
Mr Easy; he little "thought, good easy man, that his greatness was
ripening;" he had decided that to have an heir was no easy task, and it
never came into his calculations that there could be a change in his
wife's figure. You might have added to it, subtracted from it, divided
it, or multiplied it, but as it was a zero, the result would be always
the same. Mrs Easy also was not quite sure--she believed it might be
the case, there was no saying; it might be a mistake, like that of Mrs
Trunnion's in the novel, and, therefore, she said nothing to her husband
about the matter. At last Mr Easy opened his eyes, and when, upon
interrogating his wife, he found out the astounding truth, he opened his
eyes still wider, and then he snapped his fingers, and danced, like a
bear upon hot plates, with delight, thereby proving that different
causes may produce similar effects in two instances at one and the same
time. The bear dances from pain, Mr Easy from pleasure; and again,
when we are indifferent, or do not care for anything, we snap our
fingers at it, and when we are overjoyed and obtain what we most care
for, we also snap our fingers. Two months after Mr Easy snapped his
fingers, Mrs Easy felt no inclination to snap hers, either from
indifference or pleasure. The fact was, that Mrs Easy's time was come,
to undergo what Shakespeare pronounces "the pleasing punishment that
women bear;" but Mrs Easy, like the rest of her sex, declared, "that
all men were liars," and most particularly poets.
But while Mrs Easy was suffering, Mr Easy was in ecstasies. He
laughed at pain, as all philosophers do when it is suffered by other
people, and not by themselves.
In due course of time, Mrs Easy presented her husband with a fine boy,
whom we present to the public as our hero.