Bees," and Shaftesbury, the author of the "Characteristics," divided a
great portion of mankind on a question which is now no question at all.
That there are, assuredly, some instances to be met with of rational
bipeds, who exhibit scarcely any traces of a moral sense, and act
altogether upon the principle of selfishness, we do not deny; but this
admission does not bind us to the selfish theory, for the very good
reason, that we hold these creatures to be nothing better than a species
of monsters. Nor do we think the world, with the tendency to self-love
that prevails in it, would have been the better for the want of these
living, walking exemplars of their patron--the devil; for, of a surety,
they show us the fallen creature in all his naked deformity, and make us
hate the principle of evil through the ugly flesh-case in which it
works, and the noisome overt acts it turns up in the repugnant nostrils
of good men. Now, if you are an inhabitant of that scandalous freestone
village that lies near Arthur Seat, and took its name from the
Northumbrian king, Edwin--corrupted, by the conceit of the inhabitants,
into Edin--you will say that we mean something personal in these
remarks; and, very probably, when we mention the name of Mr Samuel
Ramsay Thriven, who, about twenty years after Mr John Neal introduced to
the admiring eyes of the inhabitants of the Scottish metropolis the term
haberdasher, carried on that trade in one of the principal streets of
the city, our intention will be held manifest. And what then? We will
only share the fate, without exhibiting the talent, of Horace, and shall
care nothing if we return his good-humour--a quality of far greater
importance to mankind than even that knowledge "which is versant with
the stars."
Now, this Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven, who took up, as we have already
signified, the trade designated by the strange appellative introduced by
the said John Neal, was one of those dabblers in morals who endeavour to
make the whole system of morality accord with their own wishes. As to
the moral sense, so strongly insisted for by the noble author of the
"Characteristics," he considered it as a _taste_ something like that for
_vertu_, which a man might have or not have, just as it pleased Dame
Nature or Mr Syntax Pedagogue, but which he could pretend to have as
often and in as great profusion as it pleased himself. It was, he
acknowledged, a very good thing to have, sometimes, about one, but there
were many things in the world far better--such as money, a good house,
good victuals, good clothing, and so forth. It was again, sometimes, a
thing a man might be much better without. It formed a stumbling-block to
prosperity; and when, at the long run, a man had made to it many
sacrifices, and become a beggar, "rich in the virtue of good offices,"
he did not find that it got him a softer bed in an almshouse, or a
whiter piece of bread at the door of the rich. These sentiments were
probably strengthened by the view he took of the world, and especially
of our great country, where there is a mighty crying, and a mighty
printing, about virtue, magnanimity, and honesty, in the abstract, while
there is, probably, less real active honesty than might be found among
the Karomantyns--yea, or the Hottentots or Cherokees. Then, too, it
could not be denied that "riches cover a multitude of sins;" why, then,
should not Mr Thriven strive to get rich?
Upon such a theory did Mr Samuel Thriven propose to act. It had clearly
an advantage over theories in general, insomuch as it was every day
reduced to practice by a great proportion of mankind, and so proved to
be a good workable speculation. That he intended to follow out the
practical part of his scheme with the same wisdom he had exhibited in
choosing his theory of morals, may be safely doubted. Caution, which is
of great use to all men in a densely-populated country, is an
indispensable element in the composition of one who would be rich at the
expense of others. A good-natured man will often allow himself to be
cheated out of a sum which is not greater than the price of his ease;
and there are a great number of such good-natured men in all
communities. It is upon these that clever men operate--without them a
great portion of the cleverest would starve. They are the lambs with
sweet flesh and soft wool, making the plains a paradise for the wolves.
A system of successful operations carried on against these quiet
subjects, for a number of years, might have enabled Mr Samuel Ramsay
Thriven to have retired, with his feelings of enjoyment blunted, and his
conscience quickened, to some romantic spot, where he might have turned
poetical. An idle man is always, to some extent, a poet; and a rogue
makes often a good sentimentalist.
This ought clearly to have been the course which worldly caution should
have suggested as the legitimate working out of the theory of
selfishness. But Mr Thriven was not gifted with the virtue of patience
to the same extent that he was with the spirit of theorising on the
great process of getting rich. He wanted to seize Plutus by a _coup de
main_, and hug the god until he got out of him a liberal allowance. The
plan has been attended with success; but it is always a dangerous one.
The great deity of wealth has been painted lame, blind, and foolish,
because he gives, without distinction, to the undeserving as well as to
the worthy--to the bad often more than to the good. It is seldom his
godship will be coaxed into a gift; and if he is attempted to be forced,
he can use his lame leg, and send the rough worshipper to the devil.
Neither can we say that Mr Thriven's scheme was new or ingenious, being
no other than to "_break_ with the full hand"--a project of great
antiquity in Scotland, and struck at for the first time by the act 1621,
cap. 18. It existed, indeed, in ancient Rome, and was comprehended under
the general term of stellionate, from stelio, a little subtle serpent,
common in Italy. Always in great vogue in our country, it at one time
roused the choler of our judges to such an extent, that they condemned
the culprits either to wear the yellow cap and stockings of different
colours, or be for ever at the mercy of their creditors. But these times
had gone by, and a man might make a very respectable thing of a break,
if he could manage it adroitly enough to make it appear that he had
himself been the victim of misplaced confidence. So Mr Samuel having
given large orders to the English houses for goods, at a pretty long
credit, got himself in debt to an amount proportioned to the sum he
wished to make by his failure. There is no place in the world where a
man may get more easily in debt than in Scotland. We go for a decent,
composed, shrewd, honest people; and, though we are very adequately and
sufficiently hated by the volatile English, whom we so often beat on
their own ground, and at their own weapons, we enjoy a greater share of
their confidence in mercantile matters than their own countrymen.
Vouchsafe to John the privilege of abusing Sawney, and calling him all
manner of hard names, and he will allow his English neck to be placed in
the Scottish noose with a civility and decorum that is just as
commendable as his abuse of our countryman is ungenerous and unmanly. Mr
Thriven's warehouses were accordingly soon filled with goods from both
England and Scotland; and it is no inconsiderable indication of a man's
respectability that he is able to get pretty largely in debt. When a man
is to enter upon the speculation of failing, the step we have now
mentioned is the first and most important preliminary. Debt is the Ossa
from which the successful speculator rolls into the rich vale of Tempe.
There are some rugged rocks in the side of his descent to
independence--such as the examinations under the statutes--that are next
to be guarded against, and the getting over these is a more difficult
achievement than the getting himself regularly constituted a debtor. The
running away of a trusty servant with a hundred pounds, especially if he
has forged the cheque, may be the making of a good speculator in
bankruptcy, because the loss of a thousand or two may be safely laid to
the charge of one who dare not appear to defend himself. The failure and
flight of a relation, to whom one gives a hundred pounds to leave him in
his books a creditor in a thousand, is also a very good mode of
overcoming some of the difficulties of failing; and a clever man, with a
sharp foresight, ought to be working assiduously for a length of time in
collecting the names of removing families, every one of whom will make a
good "bad debtor." These things were not unknown to Mr Thriven; but
accident did what the devil was essaying to do for him, or rather,
speaking in a more orthodox manner, the great enemy, taking the form of
the mighty power yclept Chance, set the neighbouring uninsured premises,
belonging to Miss Fortune, the milliner, in a blaze; and a large back
warehouse, in which there was scarcely anything save Mr Thriven's
ledgers, was burned so effectually, that no person could have told
whether they were full of Manchester goods or merely atmospheric air of
the ordinary weight--that is, thirty-one grains to a hundred cubic
inches.
When a respectable man wishes ardently for a calamity, he arrays his
face in comely melancholy, because he has too much respect for public
decorum to outrage the decencies of life. Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven
accordingly _looked_ the loss he had sustained with a propriety that
might have done honour to a widower between whom and a bad wife the cold
grave has been shut for the space of a day, and then set about writing
circulars to his creditors, stating that, owing to his having sustained
a loss through the burning of a warehouse where he had deposited three
thousand pounds' worth of goods, he was under the necessity of stopping
payment. No attorney ever made more of letter-writing than Mr Samuel did
on that day: in place of three shillings and fourpence for two pages,
every word he penned was equal to a pound.
CHAP. II.--THE INSCRIPTION.
"Well," said Mr Samuel Thriven, after he had retired to his house, "this
has been hard and hot work; but a man has a satisfaction in doing his
duty, and that satisfaction may not be diminished by a bottle of port."
Now the port was as good as Ofleys; and Mr Thriven's thirst was nothing
the less for the fire of the previous night, which he had done his
utmost not to extinguish, and as he was in good spirits, he, like those
people in good health who, to make themselves better, begin to take in a
load of Morrison's pills, drew another cork, with that increased sound
which belongs peculiarly to second bottles, and in a short time was well
through with his potation. "How much, now," said he, as he pretended, in
a knowing way, to look for a dead fly in the glass, which he held up
between him and the candle, shutting, in the operation, the left eye,
according to the practice of connoisseurs--"how much may I make of this
transanction in the way of business?--Let me see--let me see."
And, as he accordingly tried to see, he took down from the mantelpiece
an ink-bottle and a pen, and, having no paper within reach--he laid hold
of a small book, well known to serious-minded people, and which was no
other, in fact, than the "Pilgrim's Progress." But it was all one to Mr
Samuel Ramsay Thriven, in the middle of his second bottle, what the book
was, provided it had a blank leaf at the beginning or end thereof. It
might, indeed, have been the "Louping-on-Stone for Heavy-Bottomed
Believers," or the "Economy of Human Life," or the "Young Man's Best
Companion," or "A New Way to Pay Old Debts;" or any other book or
brochure in the wide republic of letters which the wisdom or wit of man
has ever produced. It may verily be much doubted if he knew himself what
book it was.
"Well, let me see," he said again, as he seized the pen, and held the
blank leaf open before him. "The three thousand pounds lost by the fire
is a very good item; I can easily make a very good list of very bad
debts to the extent of five hundred pounds; I have three thousand of
good banknotes in the house; and if I get off with a dividend of five
shillings in the pound, which I can pay out of my stock, I may clear by
this single transaction, in the way of business, as much as may make me
comfortable for the whole period of my natural life."
And having made some monologue of this kind, he began to jot down
particulars; laying on the table his pen, occasionally, to take another
glass of the port wine, and resuming his operation again, with that
peculiar zest which accompanies a playfulness of the fancy on a subject
of darling interest. So he finished his arithmetical operation and
dream, just about the time when the wine finished him; fell sound
asleep; and awoke about two in the morning, with a headache, and no more
recollection of having committed his secret to the blank leaf of the
"Pilgrim's Progress," than if he had never written a word thereon at
all.
CHAP. III.--THE FACING OF CREDITORS.
Of all men in the world, a bankrupt requires to wear a lugubrious look.
It is proper, too, that he should keep the house, hold out the flag of
distress, and pretend that he is an unfortunate mortal, who has been the
prey either of adverse fate or designing rogues. Of all this Mr Thriven
was well aware as ever man could be; no man could have acted the dyvour
better than he, even though he had been upon the pillory, with the
bankrupt's yellow cap on his head. Creditors kept calling upon him--some
threatening imprisonment, and some trying to cajole him out of a
preference; but Mr Samuel was a match for them all.
"It is all very well to look thus concernedly," said Mr Horner, a large
creditor; "but will this pay the two hundred pounds you owe me?"
"Would to heaven that it might!" replied Mr Thriven, drawing his hand
over his eyes; "but, alas! it is the peculiar feature of the misfortune
of bankruptcy, that a man who has been himself ruined--ay, burned out of
his stock by a fire that he had no hand in raising, and thus made a
beggar of, probably for ever--receives not a single drop of sympathy in
return for all the tears he sheds for his unfortunate creditors. Your
case concerns me, sir, most of all; and, were it for nothing in the wide
world but to make up your loss, I will strive with all my energies, even
to the urging of the blood from the ends of my laborious fingers, and to
the latest period of a wretched existence."
And Mr Horner being mollified, he was next attacked by Mr Wrench.
"It is but fair to inform you, sir," said the vulture-faced dealer in
ginghams, "that I intend to try the effect of the prison upon you."
"That is because the most wicked of nature's elements-fire--has rendered
me a beggar," replied Mr Samuel, rubbing again his eyes. "It is just the
way of this world; when fate has rendered a man unfortunate, his
fellow-creature, man, falls upon him to complete his wretchedness; even
like the creatures of the forest, who fall upon the poor stag that has
been wounded by the fall from the crags, man is ever cruellest to him
who is already down. Yet you, who threaten to put me in jail, are the
creditor of all others whose case concerns me most. The feeling for my
own loss is nothing to what I suffer for yours; and I will never be
satisfied till, by hard labour, I make up to you what I have been the
unwilling and unconscious instrument of depriving you of."
And having got quit of Wrench, who declared himself not satisfied,
though his threat, as he departed, was more feebly expressed, he was
accosted by Mr Bairnsfather.
"Your face, sir, tortures me," said Mr Samuel, turning away his head,
"even as one is tortured by the ghost of the friend he has murdered with
a bloody and relentless hand. All my creditors put together do not
furnish me matter of grief equal to your individual case. Do not I know
that you are the father of ten children, whom probably I have ruined.
Yet am I not also ruined, and all by a misfortune whose origin is beyond
the ken of mortals?"
"You have spoken a melancholy truth, Mr Thriven," replied the father;
"but will that truth feed my children?"
"No, sir; but I will feed them, when once discharged under a
sequestration," rejoined Mr Thriven. "Your case above all the others, it
shall be my care to assuage. Nor night nor day shall see my energies
relaxed, till this wrong shall be made right."
"Our present necessities must be relieved," rejoined "the parent."
"Could you not give us a part of our debt, in the meantime."
"And be dishonest in addition to being unfortunate!" ejaculated Mr
Samuel. "That, sir, is the worst cut of all. No, no. I may be
imprisoned, I may be fed on bread and water, I may be denied the benefit
of the act of grace, but I shall never be forced to give an undue
preference to one creditor over another. You forget, Mr Bairnsfather,
that a bankrupt may have a conscience."
After much more of such converse, Mr Bairnsfather retired. And the next
who came for the relief which she was not destined to receive, was Widow
Mercer.
"This is a dreadful business, Mr Thriven," said she, as she ran forward
in the confusion of unfeigned anguish.
"Dreadful, indeed, my good lady," answered he; "and who can feel it more
than myself--that is, after you."
"You are a man, and I am a woman," rejoined the disconsolate creditor;
"a woman who has struggled, since the death of her good husband, to
support herself and a headless family, who, but for their mother's
industry, might have, ere now, been reduced to seek their bread as the
boon of pity. But ah, sir, it cannot be that you are to class me with
the rest of your creditors. They are men, and may make up their losses
in some other way. To me the loss of fifty pounds would be total ruin.
Oh, sir, you will!--I know by that face of sympathy, you will make me an
exception. Heaven will bless you for it; and my children will pray for
you to the end of our lives."
"All this just adds to my misery," replied Mr Samuel; "and that misery,
Heaven knows, is great enough already. Your case is that of the mother
and the widow; and what need is there for a single word to tell me that
it stands apart from all the others. But, madam, were I to pay your
debt, do not you see that both you and I would be acting against the
laws of our country. What supports me, think ye, under my misfortune,
but the consciousness of innocence. Now, you would cruelly take away
from me that consciousness, whereby, for the sake of a fifty-pound note,
you would render me miserable here, and a condemned man hereafter. A
hotter fire, of a verity, there is than that which burned up my stock.
But I am bound to make amends for the loss I have brought upon you; and
you may rest assured that, as soon as I am discharged, I will do my best
for you and your poor bereaved sons and daughters."
And thus Mr Thriven managed these importunate beings, termed creditors,
in a manner that he, doubtless, considered highly creditable to himself,
in so far as he thereby spread more widely the fact that he had been
ruined by no fault of his own, at the same time that he proved himself
to be a man of feeling, justice, and sentiment. Meanwhile, his agent, Mr
Sharp, was as busy as ever an attorney could be, in getting out a
sequestration, with the indispensable adjunct of a personal protection,
which the lords very willingly granted upon the lugubrious appeal, set
forth in the petition, that Mr Thriven's misfortunes were attributable
to the element of fire. A fifty-pound note, too, sent his shopman, Mr
Joseph Clossmuns, over the Atlantic; and, the coast being clear, Mr
Thriven went through his examinations with considerable eclat.
CHAP. IV.--THE WINDFALL.
"These men," said Mr Thriven, after he got home to dinner, "have worried
me so by their questions, that they have imposed upon me the necessity
of taking some cooling liquor to allay the fervour of my blood. I must
drink to them, besides, for they were, upon the whole, less severe than
they might have been; and a bottle of cool claret will answer both ends.
And now," he continued, after he drank off a bumper to the long lives of
his creditors--"the greatest part of my danger being over, I can see no
great risk of my failing in getting them to accept a composition of five
shillings in the pound. But what then? I have no great fancy to the
counter. After all, a haberdasher is at best but a species of
man-milliner; and I do no see why I should not, when I get my discharge
in my pocket, act the gentleman as well as the best of them. All that is
necessary is to get the devout Miss Angelina M'Falzen, who regenerates
the species by distributing good books, to consent to be my wife. She
has a spare figure, a sharp face, and a round thousand. Her fortune
will be a cover to my idleness; and then I can draw upon the sum I have
made by my failure, just as occasion requires."
At the end of this monologue, a sharp broken voice was heard in the
passage; and Mr Samuel Thriven's bottle of claret was, in the twinkling
of an eye, replaced by a jug of cool spring water.
"Ah, how do you do, my clear Miss M'Falzen?" cried Mr Samuel, as he rose
to meet his devout sweetheart.
"Sir," responded the devout distributor of tracts, stiffly and coldly,
"you are in far better spirits than becomes one who is the means of
bringing ruin on so many families. I expected to have found you contrite
of heart, and of a comely sadness of spirits and seriousness of look."
"And yet I am only feasting on cold water," replied Samuel, letting the
muscles of his face fall, as he looked at the jug. "But you know, Miss
Angelina, that I am innocent of the consequences of the fire, and, when
one has a clear conscience, he may be as happy in adversity over a cup
of water, as he may be in prosperity over a bottle of claret."
"A pretty sentiment, Mr Thriven--la! a beautiful sentiment," replied
Miss Angelina; "and satisfied as I am of your purity, let me tell you
that our intercourse shall not, with my will, be interrupted by your
misfortune. I would rather, indeed, feel a delight in soothing you under
your affliction, and administering the balm of friendship to the heart
that is contrite, under the stroke which cannot be averted."
"And does my Angelina," cried Samuel, "regard me with the same kindness
and tenderness in my present reduced circumstances, as when I was
engaged in a flourishing trade, which might have emboldened me to hope
for a still more intimate, ay, and sacred connection?"
"Mr Thriven," replied the other, gravely, "I have called in behalf of
Mrs Mercer." Samuel's face underwent some considerable change. "I have
called in behalf of Mrs Mercer, who has reported to me some sentiments
stated by you to her, of so beautiful and amiable a character, and so
becoming a Christian, that I admire you for them. You promised to do
your utmost, after you are discharged, to make amends to her and her
poor family for the loss she will sustain by your bankruptcy. Ah, sir,
that alone proves to me that you are an honest, innocent, and merely
unfortunate insolvent; and to show you that I am not behind you in
magnanimity, I have paid her the fifty pounds wherein you were indebted
to her, and got an assignation to her debt. You may pay me when you
please; and, meanwhile, I will accept of the composition you intend to
offer to your creditors."
"Fifty pounds off her tocher," muttered Samuel between his teeth, and
then took a drink of the cold water, in the full memory of the claret.
"It scarcely beseems a man," said he, "to be aught but a silent
listener, when his praise is spoken by one he loves and respects. But,
is it possible, Miss M'Falzen, that my misfortune has not changed those
feelings--those--excuse me, Miss Angelina--those intentions with which,
I had reason to believe, you regarded me."
And, with great gallantry, he seized the fair spinster round the waist,
as he had been in the habit of doing before he was a bankrupt, to show,
at least, that he was now no bankrupt in affection.
"To be plain with you, sir," replied she, wriggling herself out of his
hands, "my intention once was to wait until I saw whether you would come
unscathed and pure out of the fiery ordeal; but, on second thoughts, I
conceived that this would be unfair to one whom I had always looked upon
as an honest man, though, probably, not so seriously-minded a Christian
as I could have wished; therefore," she added, smiling--yet no smiling
matter to Samuel--"I have, you see, trusted you fifty pounds--a pretty
good earnest--he! he!--that my heart is just where it was."
Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven kissed Miss Angelina M'Falzen.
"But oh, sir," she added, by way of protest, "I hope and trust that not
one single spot shall be detected in your fair fame and reputation, and
that you will come forth out of trial as unsullied in the eyes of good
men, as you were pure in the estimation of one who thus proves for you
her attachment."
"Never doubt it," replied Mr Samuel. "Innocence gives me courage and
confidence."
He placed, theatrically, his hand on his heart.