If you feel any of that compassion which you recommend to others, you will
not disregard a case which I have reason from observation to believe very
common, and which I know by experience to be very miserable. And though
the querulous are seldom received with great ardour of kindness, I hope
to escape the mortification of finding that my lamentations spread the
contagion of impatience, and produce anger rather than tenderness. I
write not merely to vent the swelling of my heart, but to inquire by what
means I may recover my tranquillity; and shall endeavour at brevity in
my narrative, having long known that complaint quickly tires, however
elegant, or however just.
I was born in a remote county, of a family that boasts alliances with the
greatest names in English history, and extends its claims of affinity to
the Tudors and Plantagenets. My ancestors, by little and little, wasted
their patrimony, till my father had not enough left for the support
of a family, without descending to the cultivation of his own grounds,
being condemned to pay three sisters the fortunes allotted them by my
grandfather, who is suspected to have made his will when he was incapable
of adjusting properly the claims of his children, and who, perhaps without
design, enriched his daughters by beggaring his son. My aunts being, at
the death of their father, neither young nor beautiful, nor very eminent
for softness of behaviour, were suffered to live unsolicited, and by
accumulating the interest of their portions grew every day richer and
prouder. My father pleased himself with foreseeing that the possessions
of those ladies must revert at last to the hereditary estate, and that
his family might lose none of its dignity, resolved to keep me untainted
with a lucrative employment; whenever therefore I discovered any
inclination to the improvement of my condition, my mother never failed
to put me in mind of my birth, and charged me to do nothing with which I
might be reproached when I should come to my aunts' estate.
In all the perplexities or vexations which want of money brought upon
us, it was our constant practice to have recourse to futurity. If any
of our neighbours surpassed us in appearance, we went home and contrived
an equipage, with which the death of my aunts was to supply us. If any
purse-proud upstart was deficient in respect, vengeance was referred to
the time in which our estate was to be repaired. We registered every act
of civility and rudeness, inquired the number of dishes at every feast,
and minuted the furniture of every house, that we might, when the hour
of affluence should come, be able to eclipse all their splendour, and
surpass all their magnificence.
Upon plans of elegance and schemes of pleasure the day rose and set,
and the year went round unregarded, while we were busied in laying out
plantations on ground not yet our own, and deliberating whether the
manor-house should be rebuilt or repaired. This was the amusement of
our leisure, and the solace of our exigencies; we met together only to
contrive how our approaching fortune should be enjoyed; for in this our
conversation always ended, on whatever subject it began. We had none of
the collateral interests which diversify the life of others with joys and
hopes, but had turned our whole attention on one event, which we could
neither hasten nor retard, and had no other object of curiosity than the
health or sickness of my aunts, of which we were careful to procure very
exact and early intelligence.
This visionary opulence for a while soothed our imagination, but
afterwards fired our wishes, and exasperated our necessities, and my
father could not always restrain himself from exclaiming, that _no
creature had so many lives as a cat and an old maid_. At last, upon
the recovery of his sister from an ague, which she was supposed to have
caught by sparing fire, he began to lose his stomach, and four months
afterwards sunk into his grave.
My mother, who loved her husband, survived him but a little while, and
left me the sole heir of their lands, their schemes, and their wishes.
As I had not enlarged my conceptions either by books or conversation,
I differed only from my father by the freshness of my cheeks, and the
vigour of my step; and, like him, gave way to no thoughts but of enjoying
the wealth which my aunts were hoarding.
At length the eldest fell ill. I paid the civilities and compliments which
sickness requires with the utmost punctuality. I dreamed every night
of escutcheons and white gloves, and inquired every morning at an early
hour, whether there were any news of my dear aunt. At last a messenger
was sent to inform me that I must come to her without the delay of a
moment. I went and heard her last advice, but opening her will, found
that she had left her fortune to her second sister.
I hung my head; the youngest sister threatened to be married, and every
thing was disappointment and discontent. I was in danger of losing
irreparably one third of my hopes, and was condemned still to wait for
the rest. Of part of my terror I was soon eased; for the youth whom his
relations would have compelled to marry the old lady, after innumerable
stipulations, articles, and settlements, ran away with the daughter of
his father's groom; and my aunt, upon this conviction of the perfidy of
man, resolved never to listen more to amorous addresses.
Ten years longer I dragged the shackles of expectation, without ever
suffering a day to pass, in which I did not compute how much my chance
was improved of being rich to-morrow. At last the second lady died,
after a short illness, which yet was long enough to afford her time for
the disposal of her estate, which she gave to me after the death of her
sister.
I was now relieved from part of my misery; a larger fortune, though not
in my power, was certain and unalienable; nor was there now any danger,
that I might at last be frustrated of my hopes by a fret of dotage,
the flatteries of a chambermaid, the whispers of a tale-bearer, or the
officiousness of a nurse. But my wealth was yet in reversion, my aunt was
to be buried before I could emerge to grandeur and pleasure; and there
were yet, according to my father's observation, nine lives between me
and happiness.
I however lived on, without any clamours of discontent, and comforted
myself with considering, that all are mortal, and they who are
continually decaying must at last be destroyed.
But let no man from this time suffer his felicity to depend on the death
of his aunt. The good gentlewoman was very regular in her hours, and
simple in her diet, and in walking or sitting still, waking or sleeping,
had always in view the preservation of her health. She was subject to
no disorder but hypochondriac dejection; by which, without intention,
she increased my miseries, for whenever the weather was cloudy, she would
take her bed and send me notice that her time was come. I went with all
the haste of eagerness, and sometimes received passionate injunctions
to be kind to her maid, and directions how the last offices should be
performed; but if before my arrival the sun happened to break out, or
the wind to change, I met her at the door, or found her in the garden,
bustling and vigilant, with all the tokens of long life.
Sometimes, however, she fell into distempers, and was thrice given over by
the doctor, yet she found means of slipping through the gripe of death,
and after having tortured me three months at each time with violent
alternations of hope and fear, came out of her chamber without any other
hurt than the loss of flesh, which in a few weeks she recovered by broths
and jellies.
As most have sagacity sufficient to guess at the desires of an heir, it
was the constant practice of those who were hoping at second hand, and
endeavoured to secure my favour against the time when I should be rich,
to pay their court, by informing me that my aunt began to droop, that
she had lately a bad night, that she coughed feebly, and that she could
never climb May-hill; or, at least, that the autumn would carry her off.
Thus was I flattered in the winter with the piercing winds of March, and
in summer, with the fogs of September. But she lived through spring and
fall, and set heat and cold at defiance, till, after near half a century,
I buried her on the fourteenth of last June, aged ninety-three years,
five months, and six days.
For two months after her death I was rich, and was pleased with that
obsequiousness and reverence which wealth instantaneously procures.
But this joy is now past, and I have returned again to my old habit of
wishing. Being accustomed to give the future full power over my mind,
and to start away from the scene before me to some expected enjoyment,
I deliver up myself to the tyranny of every desire which fancy suggests,
and long for a thousand things which I am unable to procure. Money
has much less power than is ascribed to it by those that want it. I had
formed schemes which I cannot execute, I had supposed events which do not
come to pass, and the rest of my life must pass in craving solicitude,
unless you can find some remedy for a mind, corrupted with an inveterate
disease of wishing, and unable to think on any thing but wants, which
reason tells me will never be supplied.