An Account of Mr. Gamaliel Pickle--The Disposition of his Sister
described--He yields to her Solicitations, and returns to the Country.
In a certain county of England, bounded on one side by the sea, and at
the distance of one hundred miles from the metropolis, lived Gamaliel
Pickle, esq.; the father of that hero whose fortunes we propose to
record. He was the son of a merchant in London, who, like Rome, from
small beginnings had raised himself to the highest honours of the city,
and acquired a plentiful fortune, though, to his infinite regret, he
died before it amounted to a plum, conjuring his son, as he respected
the last injunction of a parent, to imitate his industry, and adhere to
his maxims, until he should have made up the deficiency, which was a sum
considerably less than fifteen thousand pounds.
This pathetic remonstrance had the desired effect upon his
representative, who spared no pains to fulfil the request of the
deceased: but exerted all the capacity with which nature had endowed
him, in a series of efforts, which, however, did not succeed; for by the
time he had been fifteen years in trade, he found himself five thousand
pounds worse than he was when he first took possession of his father's
effects; a circumstance that affected him so nearly, as to detach his
inclinations from business, and induce him to retire from the world to
some place where he might at leisure deplore his misfortunes, and, by
frugality, secure himself from want, and the apprehensions of a jail,
with which his imagination was incessantly haunted. He was often heard
to express his fears of coming upon the parish; and to bless God, that,
on account of his having been so long a housekeeper, he was entitled
to that provision. In short, his talents were not naturally active, and
there was a sort of inconsistency in his character; for, with all the
desire of amassing which any citizen could possibly entertain, he was
encumbered by a certain indolence and sluggishness that prevailed over
every interested consideration, and even hindered him from profiting by
that singleness of apprehension, and moderation of appetites, which have
so frequently conduced to the acquisition of immense fortunes;
qualities which he possessed in a very remarkable degree. Nature, in all
probability, had mixed little or nothing inflammable in his composition;
or, whatever seeds of excess she might have sown within him, were
effectually stifled and destroyed by the austerity of his education.
The sallies of his youth, far from being inordinate or criminal, never
exceeded the bounds of that decent jollity which an extraordinary pot,
on extraordinary occasions, may be supposed to have produced in a club
of sedate book-keepers, whose imaginations were neither very warm nor
luxuriant. Little subject to refined sensations, he was scarce ever
disturbed with violent emotions of any kind. The passion of love never
interrupted his tranquility; and if, as Mr. Creech says, after Horace,
Not to admire is all the art I know;
To make men happy, and to keep them so;
Mr. Pickle was undoubtedly possessed of that invaluable secret; at
least, he was never known to betray the faintest symptom of transport,
except one evening at the club, where he observed, with some
demonstrations of vivacity, that he had dined upon a delicate loin of
veal.
Notwithstanding this appearance of phlegm, he could not help feeling his
disappointments in trade; and upon the failure of a certain underwriter,
by which he lost five hundred pounds, declared his design of
relinquishing business, and retiring to the country. In this resolution
he was comforted and encouraged by his only sister, Mrs. Grizzle, who
had managed his family since the death of his father, and was now in
the thirtieth year of her maidenhood, with a fortune of five thousand
pounds, and a large stock of economy and devotion.
These qualifications, one would think, might have been the means of
abridging the term of her celibacy, as she never expressed any aversion
to wedlock; but, it seems, she was too delicate in her choice, to find
a mate to her inclination in the city: for I cannot suppose that she
remained so long unsolicited; though the charms of her person were
not altogether enchanting, nor her manner over and above agreeable.
Exclusive of a very wan (not to call it sallow) complexion, which,
perhaps, was the effects of her virginity and mortification, she had
a cast in her eyes that was not at all engaging; and such an extent of
mouth, as no art or affectation could contract into any proportionable
dimension; then her piety was rather peevish than resigned, and did
not in the least diminish a certain stateliness in her demeanour and
conversation, that delighted in communicating the importance and honour
of her family, which, by the bye, was not to be traced two generations
back by all the power of heraldry or tradition.
She seemed to have renounced all the ideas she had acquired before her
father served the office of sheriff; and the eye which regulated the
dates of all her observation, was the mayoralty of her papa. Nay, so
solicitous was this good lady for the support and propagation of the
family name, that, suppressing every selfish motive, she actually
prevailed upon her brother to combat with his own disposition, and
even surmount it so far, as to declare a passion for the person whom he
afterwards wedded, as we shall see in the sequel. Indeed, she was the
spur that instigated him in all his extraordinary undertakings; and I
question, whether he would or not have been able to disengage himself
from that course of life in which he had so long mechanically moved,
unless he had been roused and actuated by her incessant exhortations.
London, she observed, was a receptacle of iniquity, where an honest,
unsuspecting man was every day in danger of falling a sacrifice to
craft; where innocence was exposed to continual temptations, and virtue
eternally persecuted by malice and slander; where everything was ruled
by caprice and corruption, and merit utterly discouraged and despised.
This last imputation she pronounced with such emphasis and chagrin, as
plainly denoted how far she considered herself as an example of what she
advanced; and really the charge was justified by the constructions that
were put upon her retreat by her female friends, who, far from imputing
it to the laudable motives that induced her, insinuated, in sarcastic
commendations, that she had good reason to be dissatisfied with a place
where she had been so overlooked; and that it was certainly her
wisest course to make her last effort in the country, where, in all
probability, her talents would be less eclipsed, and her fortune more
attractive.
Be this as it will, her admonitions, though they were powerful enough to
convince, would have been insufficient to overcome the languor and
vis inertiae of her brother, had she not reinforced her arguments, by
calling in question the credit of two or three merchants, with whom he
was embarked in trade.
Alarmed at these hints of intelligence, he exerted himself effectually;
he withdrew his money from trade, and laying it out in Bank-stock, and
India-bonds, removed to a house in the country, which his father had
built near the sea-side, for the convenience of carrying on a certain
branch of traffic in which he had been deeply concerned.
Here then Mr. Pickle fixed his habitation for life, in the
six-and-thirtieth year of his age; and though the pangs he felt at
parting with his intimate companions, and quitting all his former
connections, were not quite so keen as to produce any dangerous disorder
in his constitution, he did not fail to be extremely disconcerted at his
first entrance into a scene of life to which he was totally a stranger.
Not but that he met with abundance of people in the country, who, in
consideration of his fortune, courted his acquaintance, and breathed
nothing but friendship and hospitality; yet, even the trouble of
receiving and returning these civilities was an intolerable fatigue to
a man of his habits and disposition. He therefore left the care of
the ceremonial to his sister, who indulged herself in all the pride of
formality; while he himself, having made a discovery of a public-house
in the neighbourhood, went thither every evening and enjoyed his pipe
and can; being very well satisfied with the behaviour of the landlord,
whose communicative temper was a great comfort to his own taciturnity;
for he shunned all superfluity of speech, as much as he avoided any
other unnecessary expense.