CONTAINING A MORSEL OF METAPHYSICS, WITH A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE
AUTHOR'S EXPERIENCE IN GOOD SOCIETY.
I was roused about nine o'clock in the evening by Tickle, who came,
according to promise, to squire me to Mrs. Pickup's and the Misses
Oldstyle's; and dressing myself in Mr. Dawkin's best, I accompanied him
forthwith to the mansion of the former.
It was yet summer, and the season of gayety was therefore afar off. All
genteel people were, or were supposed to be, out of town, according to
the rule which, at this season, drives the gentry of London to their
country-seats. The few of Philadelphia who could imitate the lords and
ladies in this particular, were now catching agues on the Schuylkill;
while the mass, consisting of those whose revenues did not allow
any rustication on their own lands, were killing sand-flies on the
seashore, or gnawing tough beef and grumbling over bad butter at some
fashionable watering-place in the interior. There were some, however,
as there always are, who considered themselves genteel, and who stayed
at home, either because they were tired of agues, sand-flies, tough
beef, and bad butter, as they freely professed; because they really
believed they were better off at home; or because they were, like
me and my friend Tickle, not rich enough to squander their money on
vanities, and so stayed at home from necessity.
Of such persons one can always, even in summer-time, assemble enough to
make a party of some kind or other, where the contented guests can be
uncommonly sociable, eat ices, and pity their friends, who may be at
the moment roasting in a ball-room at Saratoga.
It was undoubtedly a great misfortune that I should make my first
introduction to good society at a time when it was to be seen only
in its minimum of splendour; whereby I lost the opportunity of being
dazzled to the same degree in which I found myself capable of dazzling
others. Nevertheless, I was vastly captivated by what I saw, and
for the few brief weeks that my destiny permitted me to live among
the refined and exclusive, I considered myself an uncommonly happy
individual.
The reception I met at Mrs. Pickup's convinced me that, in entering
Mr. Dawkins's body, I had done the wisest thing in the world; for,
however much it endangered me with the tailors, it proved the best
recommendation to the ladies. I found myself ushered into a suite of
apartments magnificently furnished and lighted, and not so over crowded
(for the season was taken into consideration) but that the moschetoes
had room to exercise their talents. I thought I should be devoured by
Mrs. Pickup, she was so amazingly glad to see me; but I perceived,
by a sort of instinct I had acquired along with Dawkins's body, that
there was something plebeian about her, although a very fine woman as
far as appearances went; and, indeed, Tickle assured me she was a mere
_parvenue_, or upstart, whom everybody despised, and whom no one would
come nigh, were it not for her wealth, and the resolution she avowed to
give six different balls of the most splendid character in the course
of the season. She had a daughter, who was very handsome, and a decided
speculation; but I did not think much of her, especially as I found she
was already engaged to be married.
I found here that I knew everybody, or, what was the same thing, that
everybody knew me; and, with Tickle's help, I soon found myself as
much at home with Mr. I. D. Dawkins's fair acquaintances as if I had
known them all my life. It was still, as it had been before, a virtue
and peculiarity of my recollections, that they were always roused by
a few words of conversation with any one known to my prototype; from
which I infer, that the associations of the mind, as well as many of
its other qualities, are more dependant upon causes in the body than
metaphysicians are disposed to allow.
This dependance it has been my fate to know and feel more extensively,
perhaps, than any other man that ever lived. The spirit of Sheppard Lee
was widely different from those of John H. Higginson and I. D. Dawkins,
as, I think, the reader must have already seen; and yet, no sooner had
it entered the bodies of these two individuals, than the distinction
was almost altogether lost. Certain it is, that in stepping into each,
I found myself invested with new feelings, passions, and propensities--
as it were, with a new mind--and retaining so little of my original
character, that I was perhaps only a little better able to judge and
reason on the actions performed in my new body, without being able to
avoid them, even when sensible of their absurdity.
I do verily believe that much of the evil and good of man's nature
arises from causes and influences purely physical; that valour and
ambition are as often caused by a bad stomach as ill-humour by bad
teeth; that Socrates, in Bonaparte's body, could scarce have been
Socrates, although the combination might have produced a Timoleon or
Washington; and, finally, that those sages who labour to improve the
moral nature of their species, will effect their purpose only when they
have physically improved the stock. Strong minds may be indeed operated
upon without regard to bodily bias, and rendered independent of it; but
ordinary spirits lie in their bodies like water in sponges, diffused
through every part, affected by the part's affections, changed with its
changes, and so intimately united with the fleshly matrix, that the
mere cutting off of a leg, as I believe, will, in some cases, leave the
spirit limping for life.
But, as I said before, I am not writing a dissertation on metaphysics,
nor on morals either; and as my adventures will suggest such
reflections to all who care to indulge them, I will omit them for the
present, and hasten on with my story.
And here the reader may expect of me a description of those scenes and
persons in fashionable life to which and whom I was now introduced;
and if I valued the reader's approbation at a higher price than my own
conscience and reputation, I should undoubtedly gratify him, by putting
my imagination in requisition, and painting at once some dozen or two
of such fanciful pictures as are found in novels of fashionable life,
though never, I opine, in fashionable life itself. In such I should
have occasion to represent gentlemen more elegant and witty, and ladies
more charming and ethereal, than are to be found in any of the ordinary
circles of society; but, as I am writing truth and not fiction, and
represent things as I found, not as I imagined them, I declare that
the ladies and gentlemen of the exclusive circles to which I was
admitted, were very much like the ladies and gentlemen of other circles
--that is, as elegant and witty as they could be, and as charming and
celestial as it pleased Heaven:--and that, after due exercise of
judgment and memory, I cannot, in the adventures of three whole weeks
in such society, remember a single person or thing worth describing.
For which reason I will pass on to more important matters.