Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens (ebooks children's books free TXT) 📕

It has been remarked that Mr Pecksniff was a moral man. So he was. Perhaps there never was a more moral man than Mr Pecksniff, especially in his conversation and correspondence. It was once said of him by a homely admirer, that he had a Fortunatus’s purse of good sentiments in his inside. In this particular he was like the girl in the fairy tale, except that if they were not actual diamonds which fell from his lips, they were the very brightest paste, and shone prodigiously. He was a most exemplary man; fuller of virtuous precept than a copy book. Some people likened him to a direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there; but these were his enemies, the shadows cast by his brightness; that was all. His very throat was moral. You saw a good deal of it. You looked over a very low fence of white cravat (whereof no man had ever beheld the tie for he fastened it behind), and there it lay, a valley between two jutting heights of collar, serene and whiskerless before you. It seemed to say, on the part of Mr Pecksniff, ‘There is no deception, ladies and gentlemen, all is peace, a holy calm pervades me.’ So did his hair, just grizzled with an iron-grey which was all brushed off his forehead, and stood bolt upright, or slightly drooped in kindred action with his heavy eyelids. So did his person, which was sleek though free from corpulency. So did his manner, which was soft and oily. In a word, even his plain black suit, and state of widower and dangling double eye-glass, all tended to the same purpose, and cried aloud, ‘Behold the moral Pecksniff!’

The brazen plate upon the door (which being Mr Pecksniff’s, could not lie) bore this inscription, ‘PECKSNIFF, ARCHITECT,’ to which Mr Pecksniff, on his cards of business, added, AND LAND SURVEYOR.’ In one sense, and only one, he may be said to have been a Land Surveyor on a pretty large scale, as an extensive prospect lay stretched out before the windows of his house. Of his architectural doings, nothing was clearly known, except that he had never designed or built anything; but it was generally understood that his knowledge of the science was almost awful in its profundity.

Mr Pecksniff’s professional engagements, indeed, were almost, if not entirely, confined to the reception of pupils; for the collection of rents, with which pursuit he occasionally varied and relieved his graver toils, can hardly be said to be a strictly architectural employment. His genius lay in ensnaring parents and guardians, and pocketing premiums. A young gentleman’s premium being paid, and the young gentleman come to Mr Pecksniff’s house, Mr Pecksniff borrowed his case of mathematical instruments (if silver-mounted or otherwise valuable); entreated him, from that moment, to consider himself one of the family; complimented him highly on his parents or guardians, as the case might be; and turned him loose in a spacious room on the two-pair front; where, in the company of certain drawing-boards, parallel rulers, very stiff-legged compasses, and two, or perhaps three, other young gentlemen, he improved himself, for three or five years, according to his articles, in making elevations of Salisbury Cathedral from every possible point of sight; and in constructing in the air a vast quantity of Castles, Houses of Parliament, and other Public Buildings. Perhaps in no place in the world were so many gorgeous edifices of this class erected as under Mr Pecksniff’s auspices; and if but one-twentieth part of the churches which were built in that front room, with one or other of the Miss Pecksniffs at the altar in the act of marrying the architect, could only be made available by the parliamentary commissioners, no more churches would be wanted for at least five centuries.

‘Even the worldly goods of which we have just disposed,’ said Mr Pecksniff, glancing round the table when he had finished, ‘even cream, sugar, tea, toast, ham—’

‘And eggs,’ suggested Charity in a low voice.

‘And eggs,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘even they have their moral. See how they come and go! Every pleasure is transitory. We can’t even eat, long. If we indulge in harmless fluids, we get the dropsy; if in exciting liquids, we get drunk. What a soothing reflection is that!’

‘Don’t say WE get drunk, Pa,’ urged the eldest Miss Pecksniff.

‘When I say we, my dear,’ returned her father, ‘I mean mankind in general; the human race, considered as a body, and not as individuals. There is nothing personal in morality, my love. Even such a thing as this,’ said Mr Pecksniff, laying the forefinger of his left hand upon the brown paper patch on the top of his head, ‘slight casual baldness though it be, reminds us that we are but’— he was going to say ‘worms,’ but recollecting that worms were not remarkable for heads of hair, he substituted ‘flesh and blood.’

‘Which,’ cried Mr Pecksniff after a pause, during which he seemed to have been casting about for a new moral, and not quite successfully, ‘which is also very soothing. Mercy, my dear, stir the fire and throw up the cinders.’

The young lady obeyed, and having done so, resumed her stool, reposed one arm upon her father’s knee, and laid her blooming cheek upon it. Miss Charity drew her chair nearer the fire, as one prepared for conversation, and looked towards her father.

‘Yes,’ said Mr Pecksniff, after a short pause, during which he had been silently smiling, and shaking his head at the fire—‘I have again been fortunate in the attainment of my object. A new inmate will very shortly come among us.’

‘A youth, papa?’ asked Charity.

‘Ye-es, a youth,’ said Mr Pecksniff. ‘He will avail himself of the eligible opportunity which now offers, for uniting the advantages of the best practical architectural education with the comforts of a home, and the constant association with some who (however humble their sphere, and limited their capacity) are not unmindful of their moral responsibilities.’

‘Oh Pa!’ cried Mercy, holding up her finger archly. ‘See advertisement!’

‘Playful—playful warbler,’ said Mr Pecksniff. It may be observed in connection with his calling his daughter a ‘warbler,’ that she was not at all vocal, but that Mr Pecksniff was in the frequent habit of using any word that occurred to him as having a good sound, and rounding a sentence well without much care for its meaning. And he did this so boldly, and in such an imposing manner, that he would sometimes stagger the wisest people with his eloquence, and make them gasp again.

His enemies asserted, by the way, that a strong trustfulness in sounds and forms was the master-key to Mr Pecksniff’s character.

‘Is he handsome, Pa?’ inquired the younger daughter.

‘Silly Merry!’ said the eldest: Merry being fond for Mercy. ‘What is the premium, Pa? tell us that.’

‘Oh, good gracious, Cherry!’ cried Miss Mercy, holding up her hands with the most winning giggle in the world, ‘what a mercenary girl you are! oh you naughty, thoughtful, prudent thing!’

It was perfectly charming, and worthy of the Pastoral age, to see how the two Miss Pecksniffs slapped each other after this, and then subsided into an embrace expressive of their different dispositions.

‘He is well looking,’ said Mr Pecksniff, slowly and distinctly; ‘well looking enough. I do not positively expect any immediate premium with him.’

Notwithstanding their different natures, both Charity and Mercy concurred in opening their eyes uncommonly wide at this announcement, and in looking for the moment as blank as if their thoughts had actually had a direct bearing on the main chance.

‘But what of that!’ said Mr Pecksniff, still smiling at the fire. ‘There is disinterestedness in the world, I hope? We are not all arrayed in two opposite ranks; the OFfensive and the DEfensive. Some few there are who walk between; who help the needy as they go; and take no part with either side. Umph!’

There was something in these morsels of philanthropy which reassured the sisters. They exchanged glances, and brightened very much.

‘Oh! let us not be for ever calculating, devising, and plotting for the future,’ said Mr Pecksniff, smiling more and more, and looking at the fire as a man might, who was cracking a joke with it: ‘I am weary of such arts. If our inclinations are but good and open-hearted, let us gratify them boldly, though they bring upon us Loss instead of Profit. Eh, Charity?’

Glancing towards his daughters for the first time since he had begun these reflections, and seeing that they both smiled, Mr Pecksniff eyed them for an instant so jocosely (though still with a kind of saintly waggishness) that the younger one was moved to sit upon his knee forthwith, put her fair arms round his neck, and kiss him twenty times. During the whole of this affectionate display she laughed to a most immoderate extent: in which hilarious indulgence even the prudent Cherry joined.

‘Tut, tut,’ said Mr Pecksniff, pushing his latest-born away and running his fingers through his hair, as he resumed his tranquil face. ‘What folly is this! Let us take heed how we laugh without reason lest we cry with it. What is the domestic news since yesterday? John Westlock is gone, I hope?’

‘Indeed, no,’ said Charity.

‘And why not?’ returned her father. ‘His term expired yesterday. And his box was packed, I know; for I saw it, in the morning, standing in the hall.’

‘He slept last night at the Dragon,’ returned the young lady, ‘and had Mr Pinch to dine with him. They spent the evening together, and Mr Pinch was not home till very late.’

‘And when I saw him on the stairs this morning, Pa,’ said Mercy with her usual sprightliness, ‘he looked, oh goodness, SUCH a monster! with his face all manner of colours, and his eyes as dull as if they had been boiled, and his head aching dreadfully, I am sure from the look of it, and his clothes smelling, oh it’s impossible to say how strong, oh’—here the young lady shuddered—‘of smoke and punch.’

‘Now I think,’ said Mr Pecksniff with his accustomed gentleness, though still with the air of one who suffered under injury without complaint, ‘I think Mr Pinch might have done better than choose for his companion one who, at the close of a long intercourse, had endeavoured, as he knew, to wound my feelings. I am not quite sure that this was delicate in Mr Pinch. I am not quite sure that this was kind in Mr Pinch. I will go further and say, I am not quite sure that this was even ordinarily grateful in Mr Pinch.’

‘But what can anyone expect from Mr Pinch!’ cried Charity, with as strong and scornful an emphasis on the name as if it would have given her unspeakable pleasure to express it,