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Wheelwright, hoping that he was the bearer of agreeable tidings from
his estates, threw him all but his last quarter, and Thady took his
leave with,
UPS AND DOWNS
IN THE LIFE OF
A DISTRESSED GENTLEMAN.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
"TALES AND SKETCHES, SUCH AS THEY ARE."
WILLIAM L. STONE
If fortune wrap thee warm,
Then friends about thee swarm,
Like flies about a honey pot;
But if fortune frown,
And cast thee down,
Thou mayest lie and rot.
NEW-YORK:
LEAVITT, LORD & CO. 180 BROADWAY.
BOSTON:--CROCKER & BREWSTER.
1836.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, by LEAVITT, LORD & Co., in the
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, in the
Clerk's office of the southern district of New-York.
WEST & TROW, PRS.
TO
ALL DOATING PARENTS,
WHO IMAGINE THAT
WISDOM WILL DIE WITH THEIR OWN CHILDREN,
THIS LITTLE RECORD OF THE
LIFE AND MISFORTUNES OF A GENIUS,
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED,
BY THEIR FRIEND AND WELL WISHER,
THE AUTHOR.
BILL OF LADING.
INTRODUCTION.
How to keep a secret--Unique illustration of the way to do
it--Historical truth--Anecdote of a Chinese Emperor 9
CHAPTER I.
Wherein the Author discourses of cycles, of which he enumerates a
great variety, illustrates the uses of some, and speaks of the
genesis of others. As to the intent or application of this chapter,
the reader will be kept in the dark for a time 13
CHAPTER II.
Of pedigree--Introduction to a beautiful section of country--Birth
of the hero--The secret of obtaining the root of all evil 20
CHAPTER III.
Genius in its juvenility--Indulgent mothers--Women sure to carry
their points--Preparation for the university--How he gets in 27
CHAPTER IV.
Intellectual development--Learned societies--The progress of
genius--Idleness and incompetency no bar to academic
advancement--Literary exercises--A bit of knotty and doubtful
metre--The hill of science--The crowning honor 33
CHAPTER V.
The learned professions--Why a man should not be a lawyer--Contention
respecting the birthplace of Homer--Any body can be a doctor--_Bas
bleus_--Medical studies and lectures--A studious genius in
New-York--Gallantry--Sad effects of choosing the wrong profession 46
CHAPTER VI.
Easy methods of pulpit preparation--Revival of ancient pulpit
eloquence--Style of living--The mercantile profession not
incompatible with genius--Parallel between Burke and the last
man that would be thought of in Rhode-Island--The art of sinking
capital--A profitable clerk--A fire--And a mercantile catastrophe 57
CHAPTER VII.
A claim upon the public treasury--Amy Darden--Mr. Whittlesey--Life in
Washington--Swells and _attaches_--Fortune's frolics--Difficulty
of getting rich by lotteries--Pockets to let 69
CHAPTER VIII.
Ancient edifice--Brief lecture upon the arts--of architecture
in particular--Summons from a gentleman in distress--Poppy
Lownds--Prison discipline--Not improved since the days of the
Vicar of Wakefield--Unexpected meeting with a genius--A scene
in limbo--The bastile--An aged prisoner--Illiberality of a
landlord--Paying debts by the assistance of the Record 80
CHAPTER IX.
Unexpected morning scene at the foot of Courtlandt-street--An
agreeable surprise--Some things can be done as well as
others--Fashionable travelling--Touches of the sublime and
beautiful--Ancient history of Lake George--Darkness
visible--Ludicrous situation of the hero--A skeleton dance
which did not take place--Fire works, and a midnight view
of mountain, wood, and water scenery 95
CHAPTER X.
The yellow fever--The Genius appearing by the side of a
mysterious lady--Unsatisfied curiosity--Fortune-hunting--Bright
prospects ahead--Obscured by a little cloud of dubiousness 111
CHAPTER XI.
Mistake of Mr. Pope--Anticipation--Value of editorial
assistance in the march of mind--Female education--Model
of a modern prospectus--Advantages of travel in the art
of imparting female embellishments, mental and physical 124
CHAPTER XII.
Village excitement and ambition--A pattern seminary--Beautiful
embroidery and blending of languages--Flight of a flock of
girls--A touch of the brogue--An explosion--Miss Fortune turns
out to be a humbug--A sad development 139
CHAPTER XIII.
Reflections on poverty--Mistakes of country people concerning the
supposed wealth and comfort of every body that lives in town--The
narrative resumed--Visit from the hero in a snow-storm--Evidences
of misfortune, with a colloquy thereon--Hard way to earn a
living--Destitution--Relief therefrom--Miss Edgeworth's tale of
Murad, the Unlucky--Seneca--Closing moralities of the chapter 155
CHAPTER XIV.
Visit to the abode of Famine--Unexampled state of destitution--A
spectacle that would have melted the heart of Shylock--Singular
affection of a wife who loved her husband too well to keep him
from starvation--Charitable character of New-Yorkers--Visit
to the Lombards--Painful scenes--Frauds and oppression of
those establishments--Avarice--How it chills the current of
sympathy--Chapter breaks off unfinished 171
CHAPTER XV.
Continuation of the subject--Pawn-brokers' shops good
schools of study for the philosopher--Illustration of
intemperance--A loving husband--How to provide for one's
household--A young man about town--A benevolent gambler--A
shark in trouble--Unexpected development--An interesting
stranger--Gems--How to embezzle a jewel--The lady's
history--Ship of war going to sea--Forebodings--West India
climate and scenery--Venus and her glittering train--A
hurricane and a shipwreck in which the hero has no
concern--Return from the digression--Bedstead timber 183
CHAPTER XVI.
Dilemma of Garrick and the author hereof--Evils of
prosperity--Message from a gentleman in Bridewell--Account of a
domestic civil war--Tribulations of matrimony--Gallantry of a
husband in defence of his wife--Accident to a nose with a woman
behind it--Scene in the police, the actors in which were unhappily
born in exile from their native land--Clemency of the
magistrate--What sad care some people take of their virtue--How
to divide a quarrelsome house--COMPLETION OF THE CIRCLE--THE
MORAL 207
INTRODUCTION.
The best parallel to the conduct of the silly ostrich, that thrusts her
head into a thicket, or the sand, and fancies she is thereby hidden
from view, occurred some years since in the village of Catskill. A
printer, who was neither an observer of the Sabbath, nor a member of
the Temperance Society, went to a grocery one Sunday morning for a
bottle of gin. On coming out of the dram-shop, with his decanter of
fire-water, he perceived that the services in the church near by, were
just closed, and the congregation were returning to their homes. Not
having entirely lost his self-respect, and unwilling to be seen in the
public street by the whole village, on such a day, and with such a
burden, he hastily thrust his hand, holding the bottle, behind, for the
purpose of concealing it underneath the skirts of his coat: and in this
way, apparently with the greatest possible unconcern, the disciple of
Faust walked up the street, just in advance of the congregation.
Unfortunately, however, in his haste he had thrust his decanter quite
through between the folds of his coat-skirts, so that his hands and the
neck of the bottle only were concealed; while, to the irresistible
merriment of the people, the object which he wished to hide was ten
times more the subject of observation than it could have been before.
Very much in the same predicament stands the writer of the following
pages. His intention was to publish them anonymously, if at all. But an
unauthorized annunciation of his name, in the Booksellers' Advertiser,
a few weeks since, has rendered the effort as abortive as the trick of
the foolish bird, and the expedient of the printer. The mask, thus
torn, has therefore been entirely doffed.
And now a few words as to the sketches themselves.
Whatever else may be said of the writer, it cannot be predicated of
him, as by Addison of a certain class of biographers of his day, "that
they watched for the death of a great man, like so many undertakers, on
purpose to make a penny by him." The subject of this little volume is
neither a great man, nor, happily, is he yet numbered among the dead.
Should it then be asked, Why write about small men at all, or, in any
event, until after they are dead? The answer is at hand: it is the
fashion of the times in which we live. The present is the age of small
men, whose lives are necessarily written while living, lest, when dead,
and all hope of reward is past, nothing should be remembered to be
said of them. What, moreover, can be more agreeable, than for a man
to read his own biography, especially when drawn by the partial hand
of friendship, and retouched in each successive edition, as new
circumstances require, new virtues are disclosed, and new deeds demand
a record? It may be likened to the reading of one's own epitaph,
wherein one can see to it for himself, that SHAKSPEARE did not speak
advisedly when he wrote, "It is the evil only that men do that lives
after them, while the good is interred with their bones." And besides,
biography is history; and history has been defined to be "philosophy
teaching by example." By having his own biography in his library,
therefore, a man may become his own philosophical teacher, and save the
expense of a professor; while, at the same time, he can enjoy the
consolation of seeing how mankind around him are improving themselves
by the study of his example. Should the subject of the present sketches
object, that the writer has deviated from the course of most modern
biographers, by the indulgence of his old-fashioned notions of
impartiality and truth, he must plead guilty to the charge; but, in
mitigation of punishment, he would beg leave to relate a story:
It is written in the annals of the Celestial Empire, that there once,
and for ages, existed an historical tribunal, instituted for the
purpose of perpetuating the virtues and vices of their monarchs. One
day the Emperor Tai-t-song summoned the President of this tribunal
before him, and ordered him to exhibit the history of his own reign.
The President declined to obey the mandate, upon the ground that they
were required to keep an exact record of the virtues and vices of their
sovereigns, and would no longer be at liberty to record the truth, if
their register was to be subject to the royal inspection. "What!"
exclaimed the Father of the Sun and the Uncle of the Moon, "you
transmit my history to posterity, and do you assume the liberty of
acquainting it with my faults?" "It is inconsistent with my character,"
rejoined the President, "and with the dignity of my office, ever to
disguise the truth. I am bound to record the whole, even to the
slightest fault; and such is the exactness and severity of my duty,
that I am not suffered to omit a record of our present conversation."
Tai-t-song had an elevation of soul to be found in the hearts of few
monarchs, even in more civilized countries than the land of Confucius.
"Continue," said he to the official historian, "to write the truth
without constraint. May my virtues and vices contribute to the public
utility, and be instructive to my successors. Your tribunal is free; I
will for ever protect it, and permit it to write my history with the
utmost impartiality."
It is readily admitted that the cases are not exactly parallel. Still,
the relation contains an excellent lesson, not only to princes, but to
other people. How happy would it be for the world, if we all lived
under the full persuasion of the fact, that the faithful hand of
history will not fail to send us down to posterity odious or respected,
as by our lives and conduct we shall have deserved! And if my friend
Wheelwright shall feel offended that I have kept a record of the most
striking incidents of his life, I have only to hope that he will dispel
his frowns, dismiss his objections, and, by his own example, illustrate
the value of such magnanimity as that displayed by the Emperor of China.
SOME PASSAGES
IN THE LIFE OF
MR. DANIEL WHEELWRIGHT.
CHAPTER I.
A DISQUISITION ON CIRCLES.
"In _circle_ following _circle_."
The horse at the cider-mill; the mules in the press-room of the
American Tract Society; and the watchman who walks his drowsy round
until he falls asleep; are not the only beings that spend their lives
in traversing a circle. As the curve is the true line of beauty, and as
the circle in Egyptian hieroglyphics is ever used as the symbol of
renewed life--the type or sign of the generative principle--so the
motion produced by the _centripetal_ and _centrifugal_ forces, seems
to be that of nature. We are often told of the never-ending domestic
duties of the faithful housewife, doomed--
"To tread the same dull circle round and round;"--
The parson often discourses touching the round of his parochial duties;
and who does not sympathize with the diurnal editor at the thought of
the harassing duties devolving upon him, "in circles incessant." The
man of the world, and the sensualist, dance the giddy round of pleasure.
The judge goes his circuit, to bring men to justice in this world, and
the self-denying missionary traverses his, to save them from it in the
next. It is very true that the periphery of the circles traversed by
some persons and objects, is greater than that of others. One man walks
the circumference of his duties in a single day; another in a week;
while it may require the whole life of the third to perform the
journey. Many members of Congress make speeches in circles, whether
arguing abstruse points of constitutional law, or the claims of a party
candidate; as do lawyers their cases at the bar, proving the foregoing
proposition by the following, and inferring the following from the
foregoing. Cast a stone into a lake or a mill-pond, and it will produce
a succession of motions, circle following circle in order, and
extending the radius until they disappear in the distance. The
political movements of nations are circular. Under the severe pressure
of despotism the people rise in their fury, and snap their chains
asunder. A republic follows; degenerating first into a rude and wild
democracy; and thence into a cruel and more turbulent anarchy. As a
relief from the evils of this, the people, sighing for repose, fly back
again into the arms of despotism. But with a people who have once
tasted the sweets of liberty, this kind of tranquillity is short.
Maddened by wrongs, real or supposed, they are soon prepared again to
rush into the death-dance of revolution. The "one eternal principle" of
the Chinese, forming "the first link in the great material chain" of
their system, is represented by a circle. Time wings his flight in
circles, and every year rolls round within itself. Hence the poets sing
of "the circling years." The sun turns round upon his own axis; and the
moon "changes monthly in her circled orb." The other celestial bodies
all wheel their courses in circles around the common centre. The moons
of Jupiter revolve around him in circles, and he carries them along
with him in his periodical circuit round the sun. Saturn always moves
within his rings, and thus adorned himself, walks in circles through
the regions of space:--
"And other planets circle other suns."
A ship on the ocean, though apparently bounding over a plain of waters,
rides in fact upon the circumference of a circle around the arch of the
earth's diameter. The brisk swallow cuts the air in circles; the
vampire wheels circularly about your head; the timid hare flees the
ravenous pack of the sportsman in a winding course, until in despair it
returns to die in its form. The lunar circle betokens a
tempest;--modern writers on pneumatics affirm every breeze that blows,
from the gentle-breathing zephyr to the rude northeastern blast, to be
a whirlwind; and the beautiful hues of the iris, bright with hope and
promise, play upon the melting clouds in the segment of a circle. The
eagle soars toward the heavens in curves, as though measuring the
angles of distant objects by geometrical figures; and the drunkard,
when unable longer to control his movements, describes a curvilinear
path as he reels homeward from his revels, and waits at his bed-side to
catch hold of a post as it "comes round again." Those German
principalities which are represented in the Diet, are denominated
circles; and if a man is so ignorant as not to know that the moss
always grows on the north side of a tree, and consequently gets lost in
the woods, he invariably makes the discovery by finding that he has
been unconsciously traversing a circle. Indeed, with most of our race
the journey of human life would be circular, were it not that it has
both a beginning and an end,--and so has a circle, if you could find
them. From all which it follows, that by the laws of the universe, all
things, animate and inanimate, move in revolutionary harmony; and
though complex in their machinery as the wheels of Ezekiel's vision,
are yet so perfect and beautiful in their order, as to have suggested
to the ancients the poetical idea of "the music of the spheres." And
now for the truth of the foregoing propositions in geometrical physics,
they shall, in at least one striking instance, be illustrated by a few
passages from the life and adventures of a quondam acquaintance of
mine, whose name stands at the head of this bit of biography.