CHAPTER XXXVI
Enthusiasm
I BEGAN THE NEXT DAY WITH ANOTHER DIVE INTO
THE ROMAN bath, and then started for Highgate. I was not dispirited
now. I was not afraid of the shabby coat, and had no yearnings
after gallant greys. My whole manner of thinking of our late
misfortune was changed. What I had to do, was to show my aunt that
her past goodness to me had not been thrown away on an insensible,
ungrateful object. What I had to do was to turn the painful
discipline of my younger days to account, by going to work with a
resolute and steady heart. What I had to do was to take my
woodman’s axe in my hand, and clear my own way through the forest
of difficulty, by cutting down the trees until I came to Dora. And
I went on at a mighty rate, as if it could be done by
walking.
When I found myself on the familiar Highgate road,
pursuing such a different errand from that old one of pleasure,
with which it was associated, it seemed as if a complete change had
come on my whole life. But that did not discourage me. With the new
life came new purpose, new intention. Great was the labour,
priceless the reward. Dora was the reward, and Dora must be
won.
I got into such a transport that I felt quite sorry
my coat was not a little shabby already. I wanted to be cutting at
those trees in the forest of difficulty, under circumstances that
should prove my strength. I had a good mind to ask an old man, in
wire spectacles, who was breaking stones upon the road, to lend me
his hammer for a little while, and let me begin to beat a path to
Dora out of granite. I stimulated myself into such a heat, and got
so out of breath, that I felt as if I had been earning I don’t know
how much. In this state, I went into a cottage that I saw was to
let, and examined it narrowly—for I felt it necessary to be
practical. It would do for me and Dora admirably, with a little
front garden for Jip to run about in, and bark at the tradespeople
through the railings, and a capital room upstairs for my aunt. I
came out again, hotter and faster than ever, and dashed up to
Highgate, at such a rate that I was there an hour too early, and,
though I had not been, should have been obliged to stroll about to
cool myself, before I was at all presentable.
My first care, after putting myself under this
necessary course of preparation, was to find the Doctor’s house. It
was not in that part of Highgate where Mrs. Steerforth lived, but
quite on the opposite side of the little town. When I had made this
discovery, I went back, in an attraction I could not resist, to a
lane by Mrs. Steerforth‘s, and looked over the comer of the garden
wall. His room was shut up close. The conservatory doors were
standing open, and Rosa Dartle was walking, bare headed, with a
quick impetuous step, up and down a gravel walk on one side of the
lawn. She gave me the idea of some fierce thing, that was dragging
the length of its chain to and fro upon a beaten track, and wearing
its heart out.
I came softly away from my place of observation,
and avoiding that part of the neighbourhood, and wishing I had not
gone near it, strolled about until it was ten o‘clock. The church
with the slender spire, that stands on the top of the hill now, was
not there then to tell me the time. An old red-brick mansion, used
as a school, was in its place, and a fine old house it must have
been to go to school at, as I recollect it.
When I approached the Doctor’s cottage—a pretty old
place, on which he seemed to have expended some money, if I might
judge from the embellishments and repairs that had the look of
being just completed—I saw him walking in the garden at the side,
gaiters and all, as if he had never left off walking since the days
of my pupilage. He had his old companions about him, too, for there
were plenty of high trees in the neighbourhood, and two or three
rooks were on the grass, looking after him as if they had been
written to about him by the Canterbury rooks, and were observing
him closely in consequence.
Knowing the utter hopelessness of attracting his
attention from that distance, I made bold to open the gate, and
walk after him, so as to meet him when he should turn round. When
he did, and came towards me, he looked at me thoughtfully for a few
moments, evidently without thinking about me at all, and then his
benevolent face expressed extraordinary pleasure, and he took me by
both hands.
“Why, my dear Copperfield,” said the Doctor, “you
are a man! How do you do? I am delighted to see you. My dear
Copperfield, how very much you have improved! You are
quite—yes—dear me!”
I hoped he was well, and Mrs. Strong too.
“Oh dear, yes!” said the Doctor, “Annie’s quite
well, and she’ll be delighted to see you. You were always her
favourite. She said so, last night, when I showed her your letter.
And —yes, to be sure—you recollect Mr. Jack Maldon,
Copper-Seld?”
“Perfectly, sir.”
“Of course,” said the Doctor. “To be sure. He’s
pretty well, too.”
“Has he come home, sir?” I inquired.
“From India?” said the Doctor. “Yes. Mr. Jack
Maldon couldn’t bear the climate, my dear. Mrs. Markleham—you have
not forgotten Mrs. Markleham?”
Forgotten the Old Soldier! And in that short
time!
“Mrs. Markleham,” said the Doctor, “was quite vexed
about him, poor thing, so we have got him at home again, and we
have bought him a little Patent place, which agrees with him much
better.”
I knew enough of Mr. Jack Maldon to suspect from
this account that it was a place where there was not much to do,
and which was pretty well paid. The Doctor, walking up and down
with his hand on my shoulder, and his kind face turned
encouragingly to mine, went on:
“Now, my dear Copperfield, in reference to this
proposal of yours. It’s very gratifying and agreeable to me, I am
sure, but don’t you think you could do better? You achieved
distinction, you know, when you were with us. You are qualified for
many good things. You have laid a foundation that any edifice may
be raised upon, and is it not a pity that you should devote the
springtime of your life to such a poor pursuit as I can
offer?”
I became very glowing again, and, expressing myself
in a rhapsodical style, I am afraid, urged my request strongly,
reminding the Doctor that I had already a profession.
“Well, well,” returned the Doctor, “that’s true.
Certainly, your having a profession, and being actually engaged in
studying it, makes a difference. But, my good young friend, what’s
seventy pounds a year?”
“It doubles our income, Doctor Strong,” said
I.
“Dear me!” replied the Doctor. “To think of that!
Not that I mean to say it’s rigidly limited to seventy pounds a
year, because I have always contemplated making any young friend I
might thus employ, a present too. Undoubtedly,” said the Doctor,
still walking me up and down with his hand on my shoulder, “I have
always taken an annual present into account.”
“My dear tutor,” said I (now, really, without any
nonsense) “to whom I owe more obligations already than I ever can
acknowledge—”
“No, no,” interposed the Doctor. “Pardon me!”
“If you will take such time as 1 have, and that is
my mornings and evenings, and can think it worth seventy pounds a
year, you will do me such a service as I cannot express.”
“Dear me!” said the Doctor, innocently. “To think
that so little should go for so much! Dear, dear! And when you can
do better, you will? On your word, now?” said the Doctor—which he
had always made a very grave appeal to the honour of us boys.
“On my word, sir!” I returned, answering in our old
school manner.
“Then be it so,” said the Doctor, clapping me on
the shoulder; and still keeping his hand there, as we still walked
up and down.
“And I shall be twenty times happier, sir,” said I,
with a little—I hope innocent—flattery, “if my employment is to be
on the Dictionary.”
The Doctor stopped, smilingly clapped me on the
shoulder again, and exclaimed, with a triumph most delightful to
behold, as if I had penetrated to the profoundest depths of mortal
sagacity, “My dear young friend, you have hit it. It is the
Dictionary!”
How could it be anything else! His pockets were as
full of it as his head. It was sticking out of him in all
directions. He told me that since his retirement from scholastic
life, he had been advancing with it wonderfully, and that nothing
could suit him better than the proposed arrangements for morning
and evening work, as it was his custom to walk about in the
day-time with his considering cap on. His papers were in a little
confusion, in consequence of Mr. Jack Maldon having lately
proffered his occasional services as an amanuensis, and not being
accustomed to that occupation, but we should soon put right what
was amiss, and go on swimmingly. Afterwards, when we were fairly at
our work, I found Mr. Jack Maldon’s efforts more troublesome to me
than I had expected, as he had not confined himself to making
numerous mistakes, but had sketched so many soldiers, and ladies’
heads, over the Doctor’s manuscript, that I often became involved
in labyrinths of obscurity.
The Doctor was quite happy in the prospect of our
going to work together on that wonderful performance, and we
settled to begin next morning at seven o‘clock. We were to work two
hours every morning, and two or three hours every night, except on
Saturdays, when I was to rest. On Sundays, of course, I was to rest
also, and I considered these very easy terms.
Our plans being thus arranged to our mutual
satisfaction, the Doctor took me into the house to present me to
Mrs. Strong, whom we found in the Doctor’s new study, dusting his
books—a freedom which he never permitted anybody else to take with
those sacred favourites. [She looked very youthful, and extremely
beautiful, and received me with great kindness, though I thought
with some uneasiness. But I was uneasy myself in the old suspicious
feeling which the sight of her revived within me, and I don’t know
how much of the constraint between us may have been on my
side.]
They had postponed their breakfast on my account,
and we sat down to table together. We had not been seated long,
when I saw an approaching arrival in Mrs. Strong’s face, before I
heard any sound of it. A gentleman on horseback came to the gate,
and, leading his horse into the little court, with the bridle over
his arm, as if he were quite at home, tied him to a ring in the
empty coach-house wall, and came into the breakfast-parlour, whip
in hand. It was Mr. Jack Maldon, and Mr. Jack Maldon was not at all
improved by India, I thought. I was in a state of ferocious virtue,
however, as to young men who were not cutting down the trees in the
forest of difficulty, and my impression must be received with due
allowance.
“Mr. Jack!” said the Doctor. “Copperfield!”
Mr. Jack Maldon shook hands with me, but not very
warmly, I believed, and with an air of languid patronage, at which
I secretly took great umbrage. But his languor altogether was quite
a wonderful sight, except when he addressed himself to his cousin
Annie.
“Have you breakfasted this morning, Mr. Jack?” said
the Doctor.
“I hardly ever take breakfast, sir,” he replied,
with his head thrown back in an easy-chair. “I find it bores
me.”
“Is there any news today?” inquired the
Doctor.
“Nothing at all, sir,” replied Mr. Maldon. “There’s
an account about the people being hungry and discontented down in
the North, but they are always being hungry and discontented
somewhere.”
The Doctor looked grave, and said, as though he
wished to change the subject, “Then there’s no news at all, and no
news, they say, is good news.”
“There’s a long statement in the papers, sir, about
a murder,” observed Mr. Maldon. “But somebody is always being
murdered, and I didn’t read it.”
A display of indifference to all the actions and
passions of mankind was not supposed to be such a distinguished
quality at that time, I think, as I have observed it to be
considered since. I have known it very fashionable indeed. I have
seen it displayed with such success that I have encountered some
fine ladies and gentlemen who might as well have been bom
caterpillars. Perhaps it impressed me the more then, because it was
new to me, but it certainly did not tend to exalt my opinion of, or
to strengthen my confidence in, Mr. Jack Maldon.
“I came out to inquire whether Annie would like to
go to the opera tonight,” said Mr. Maldon, turning to her. “It’s
the last good night there will be, this season, and there’s a
singer there, whom she really ought to hear. She is perfectly
exquisite. Besides which, she is so charmingly ugly,” relapsing
into languor.
The Doctor, ever pleased with what was likely to
please his young wife, turned to her and said:
“You must go, Annie. You must go.”
“I would rather not,” she said to the Doctor. “I
prefer to remain at home. I would much rather remain at
home.”
Without looking at her cousin, she then addressed
me, and asked me about Agnes, and whether she should see her, and
whether she was not likely to come that day, and was so much
disturbed, that I wondered how even the Doctor, buttering his
toast, could be blind to what was so obvious.
But he saw nothing. He told her, good-naturedly,
that she was young and ought to be amused and entertained, and must
not allow herself to be made dull by a dull old fellow. Moreover,
he said, he wanted to hear her sing all the new singer’s songs to
him, and how could she do that well, unless she went? So the Doctor
persisted in making the engagement for her, and Mr. Jack Maldon was
to come back to dinner. This concluded, he went to his Patent
place, I suppose, but at all events went away on his horse, looking
very idle.
I was curious to find out next morning, whether she
had been. She had not, but had sent into London to put her cousin
off, and had gone out in the afternoon to see Agnes, and had
prevailed upon the Doctor to go with her, and they had walked home
by the fields, the Doctor told me, the evening being delightful. I
wondered then whether she would have gone if Agnes had not been in
town, and whether Agnes had some good influence over her tool
She did not look very happy, I thought, but it was
a good face, or a very false one. I often glanced at it, for she
sat in the window all the time we were at work, and made our
breakfast, which we took by snatches as we were employed. When I
left, at nine o‘clock, she was kneeling on the ground at the
Doctor’s feet, putting on his shoes and gaiters for him. There was
a softened shade upon her face, thrown from some green leaves
overhanging the open window of the low room, and I thought, all the
way to Doctors’ Commons, of the night when I had seen it looking at
him as he read.
I was pretty busy now, up at five in the morning,
and home at nine or ten at night. But I had infinite satisfaction
in being so closely engaged, and never walked slowly on any
account, and felt enthusiastically that the more I tired myself,
the more I was doing to deserve Dora. I had not revealed myself in
my altered character to Dora yet, because she was coming to see
Miss Mills in a few days, and I deferred all I had to tell her
until then, merely informing her in my letters (all our
communications were secretly forwarded through Miss Mills) that I
had much to tell her. In the meantime, I put myself on a short
allowance of bear’s grease, wholly abandoned scented soap and
lavender water, and sold off three waistcoats at a prodigious
sacrifice, as being too luxurious for my stem career.
Not satisfied with all these proceedings, but
burning with impatience to do something more, I went to see
Traddles, now lodging up behind the parapet of a house in Castle
Street, Holborn. Mr. Dick, who had been with me to Highgate twice
already, and had resumed his companionship with the Doctor, I took
with me.
I took Mr. Dick with me because, acutely sensitive
to my aunt’s reverses, and sincerely believing that no galley-slave
or convict worked as I did, he had begun to fret and worry himself
out of spirits and appetite, as having nothing useful to do. In
this condition, he felt more incapable of finishing the Memorial
than ever, and the harder he worked at it, the oftener that unlucky
head of King Charles the First got into it. Seriously apprehending
that his malady would increase, unless we put some innocent
deception upon him and caused him to believe that he was useful, or
unless we could put him in the way of being really useful (which
would be better), I made up my mind to try if Traddles could help
us. Before we went, I wrote Traddles a full statement of all that
had happened, and Traddles wrote me back a capital answer,
expressive of his sympathy and friendship.
We found him hard at work with his inkstand
and papers, refreshed by the sight of the flower-pot-stand and the
little round table in a comer of the small apartment. He received
us cordially, and made friends with Mr. Dick in a moment. Mr. Dick
professed an absolute certainty of having seen him before, and we
both said, “Very likely.”
The first subject on which I had to consult
Traddles was this: I had heard that many men distinguished in
various pursuits had begun life by reporting the debates in
Parliament. Traddles having mentioned newspapers to me, as one of
his hopes, I had put the two things together, and told Traddles in
my letter that I wished to know how I could qualify myself for this
pursuit. Traddles now informed me, as the result of his inquiries,
that the mere mechanical acquisition necessary, except in rare
cases, for thorough excellence in it, that is to say, a perfect and
entire command of the mystery of shorthand writing and reading, was
about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages, and that
it might perhaps be attained, by dint of perseverance, in the
course of a few years. Traddles reasonably supposed that this would
settle the business, but I, only feeling that here indeed were a
few tall trees to be hewn down, immediately resolved to work my way
on to Dora through this thicket, axe in hand.
“I am very much obliged to you, my dear Traddles!”
said I. “I’ll begin tomorrow.”
Traddles looked astonished, as he well might, but
he had no notion as yet of my rapturous condition.
“I’ll buy a book,” said I, “with a good scheme of
this art in it, I’ll work at it at the Commons, where I haven’t
half enough to do, I’ll take down the speeches in our court for
practice—Traddles, my dear fellow, I’ll master it!”
“Dear me,” said Traddles, opening his eyes, “I had
no idea you were such a determined character, Copperfield!”
I don’t know how he should have had, for it was new
enough to me. I passed that off, and brought Mr. Dick on the
carpet.
“You see,” said Mr. Dick, wistfully, “if I could
exert myself, Mr. Traddles—if I could beat a drum—or blow
anything!”
Poor fellow! I have little doubt he would have
preferred such an employment in his heart to all others. Traddles,
who would not have smiled for the world, replied composedly:
“But you are a very good penman, sir. You told me
so, Copperfield?”
“Excellent!” said I. And indeed he was. He wrote
with extraordinary neatness.
“Don’t you think,” said Traddles, “you could copy
writings, sir, if I got them for you?”
Mr. Dick looked doubtfully at me. “Eh,
Trotwood?”
I shook my head. Mr. Dick shook his, and sighed.
“Tell him about the Memorial,” said Mr. Dick.
I explained to Traddles that there was a difficulty
in keeping King Charles the First out of Mr. Dick’s manuscripts,
Mr. Dick in the meanwhile looking very deferentially and seriously
at Traddles, and sucking his thumb.
“But these writings, you know, that I speak of, are
already drawn up and finished,” said Traddles after a little
consideration. “Mr. Dick has nothing to do with them. Wouldn’t that
make a difference, Copperfield? At all events, wouldn’t it be well
to try?”
This gave us new hope. Traddles and I laying our
heads together apart, while Mr. Dick anxiously watched us from his
chair, we concocted a scheme in virtue of which we got him to work
next day, with triumphant success.
On a table by the window in Buckingham Street, we
set out the work Traddles procured for him—which was to make, I
forget how many copies of a legal document about some right of
way—and on another table we spread the last unfinished original of
the great Memorial. Our instructions to Mr. Dick were that he
should copy exactly what he had before him, without the least
departure from the original, and that when he felt it necessary to
make the slightest allusion to King Charles the First, he should
fly to the Memorial. We exhorted him to be resolute in this, and
left my aunt to observe him. My aunt reported to us, afterwards,
that, at first, he was like a man playing the kettle-drums, and
constantly divided his attentions between the two, but that,
finding this confuse and fatigue him, and having his copy there,
plainly before his eyes, he soon sat at it in an orderly
business-like manner, and postponed the Memorial to a more
convenient time. In a word, although we took great care that he
should have no more to do than was good for him, and although he
did not begin with the beginning of a week, he earned by the
following Saturday night ten shillings and ninepence, and never,
while I live, shall I forget his going about to all the shops in
the neighbourhood to change this treasure into sixpences, or his
bringing them to my aunt arranged in the form of a heart upon a
waiter, with tears of joy and pride in his eyes. He was like one
under the propitious influence of a charm, from the moment of his
being usefully employed, and, if there were a happy man in the
world, that Saturday night, it was the grateful creature who
thought my aunt the most wonderful woman in existence, and me the
most wonderful young man.
“No starving now, Trotwood,” said Mr. Dick, shaking
hands with me in a comer. “I’ll provide for her, sir!” and he
flourished his ten fingers in the air, as if they were ten
banks.
I hardly know which was the better pleased,
Traddles or I. “It really,” said Traddles, suddenly, taking a
letter out of his pocket, and giving it to me, “put Mr. Micawber
quite out of my head!”
The letter (Mr. Micawber never missed any possible
opportunity of writing a letter) was addressed to me, “By the
kindness of T. Traddles, Esquire, of the Inner Temple.” It ran
thus:
“MY DEAR COPPERFIELD,
“You may possibly not be unprepared to receive the
intimation that something has turned up. I may have mentioned to
you on a former occasion that I was in expectation of such an
event.
“I am about to establish myself in one of the
provincial towns of our favoured island (where the society may be
described as a happy admixture of the agricultural and the
clerical), in immediate connexion with one of the learned
professions. Mrs. Micawber and our offspring will accompany me. Our
ashes, at a future period, will probably be found commingled in the
cemetery attached to a venerable pile, for which the spot to which
I refer, has acquired a reputation, shall I say from China to
Peru?
“In bidding adieu to the modern Babylon, where we
have undergone many vicissitudes, I trust not ignobly, Mrs.
Micawber and myself cannot disguise from our minds that we part, it
may be for years and it may be for ever, with an individual linked
by strong associations to the altar of our domestic life. If, on
the eve of such a departure, you will accompany our mutual friend,
Mr. Thomas Traddles, to our present abode, and there reciprocate
the wishes natural to the occasion, you will confer a boon
“On
”One
“Who
”Is
“Ever yours,
”WILKINS MICAWBER.“
”One
“Who
”Is
“Ever yours,
”WILKINS MICAWBER.“
I was glad to find that Mr. Micawber had got rid of
his dust and ashes, and that something really had turned up at
last. Learning from Traddles that the invitation referred to the
evening then wearing away, I expressed my readiness to do honour to
it, and we went off together to the lodging which Mr. Micawber
occupied as Mr. Mortimer, and which was situated near the top of
the Gray’s Inn Road.
The resources of this lodging were so limited that
we found the twins, now some eight or nine years old, reposing in a
turn-up bedstead in the family sitting-room, where Mr. Micawber had
prepared, in a wash-hand-stand jug, what he called a “Brew” of the
agreeable beverage for which he was famous. I had the pleasure, on
this occasion, of renewing the acquaintance of Master Micawber,
whom I found a promising boy of about twelve or thirteen, very
subject to that restlessness of limb which is not an infrequent
phenomenon in youths of his age. I also became once more known to
his sister, Miss Micawber, in whom, as Mr. Micawber told us, “her
mother renewed her youth, like the Phœnix.”
“My dear Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, “yourself
and Mr. Traddles find us on the brink of migration, and will ex
cuse any little discomforts incidental to that position.”
Glancing round as I made a suitable reply, I
observed that the family effects were already packed, and that the
amount of luggage was by no means overwhelming. I congratulated
Mrs. Micawber on the approaching change.
“My dear Mr. Copperfield,” said Mrs. Micawber, “of
your friendly interest in all our affairs, I am well assured. My
family may consider it banishment, if they please, but I am a wife
and mother, and I never will desert Mr. Micawber.”
Traddles, appealed to by Mrs. Micawber’s eye,
feelingly acquiesced.
“That,” said Mrs. Micawber, “that, at least, is my
view, my dear Mr. Copperfield and Mr. Traddles, of the obligation
which I took upon myself when I repeated the irrevocable words, ‘I
Emma, take thee, Wilkins.’ I read the service over with a
flat-candle on the previous night, and the conclusion I derived
from it was that I never could desert Mr. Micawber. And,” said Mrs.
Micawber, “though it is possible I may be mistaken in my view of
the ceremony, I never will!”
“My dear,” said Mr. Micawber, a little impatiently,
“I am not conscious that you are expected to do anything of the
sort.”
“I am aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield,” pursued
Mrs.. Micawber, “that I am now about to cast my lot among
strangers, and I am also aware that the various members of my
family, to whom Mr. Micawber has written in the most gentlemanly
terms, announcing that fact, have not taken the least notice of Mr.
Micawber’s communication. Indeed I may be superstitious,” said Mrs.
Micawber, “but it appears to me that Mr. Micawber is destined never
to receive any answers whatever to the great majority of the
communications he writes. I may augur from the silence of my family
that they object to the resolution I have taken, but I should not
allow myself to be swerved from the path of duty, Mr. Copperfield,
even by my papa and mama, were they still living.”
I expressed my opinion that this was going in the
right direction.
“It may be a sacrifice,” said Mrs. Micawber, “to
immure oneself in a Cathedral town, but surely, Mr. Copperfield, if
it is a sacrifice in me, it is much more a sacrifice in a man of
Mr. Micawber’s abilities.”
“Oh! You are going to a Cathedral town?” said
I.
Mr. Micawber, who had been helping us all, out of
the wash-hand-stand jug, replied:
“To Canterbury. In fact, my dear Copperfield, I
have entered into arrangements, by virtue of which I stand pledged
and contracted to our friend Heep, to assist and serve him in the
capacity of—and to be—his confidential clerk.”
I stared at Mr. Micawber, who greatly enjoyed my
surprise.
“I am bound to state to you,” he said, with an
official air, “that the business habits, and the prudent
suggestions, of Mrs. Micawber, have in a great measure conducted to
this result. The gauntlet, to which Mrs. Micawber referred upon a
former occasion, being thrown down in the form of an advertisement,
was taken up by my friend Heep, and led to a mutual recognition. Of
my friend Heep,” said Mr. Micawber, “who is a man of remarkable
shrewdness, I desire to speak with all possible respect. My friend
Heep has not fixed the positive remuneration at too high a figure,
but he has made a great deal, in the way of extrication from the
pressure of pecuniary difficulties, contingent on the value of my
services, and on the value of those services, I pin my faith. Such
address and intelligence as I chance to possess,” said Mr.
Micawber, boastfully disparaging himself, with the old genteel air,
“will be devoted to my friend Heep’s service. I have already some
acquaintance with the law—as a defendant on civil process—and I
shall immediately apply myself to the Commentaries of one of the
most eminent and remarkable of our English Jurists. I believe it is
unnecessary to add that I allude to Mr. Justice Blackstone.”
These observations, and indeed the greater part of
the observations made that evening, were interrupted by Mrs.
Micawber’s discovering that Master Micawber was sitting on his
boots, or holding his head on with both arms as if he felt it
loose, or accidentally kicking Traddles under the table, or
shuffling his feet over one another, or producing them at distances
from himself apparently outrageous to nature, or lying sideways
with his hair among the wine-glasses, or developing his
restlessness of limb in some other form incompatible with the
general interests of society, and by Master Micawber’s receiving
those discoveries in a resentful spirit. I sat all the while,
amazed by Mr. Micawber’s disclosure, and wondering what it meant,
until Mrs. Micawber resumed the thread of the discourse, and
claimed my attention.
“What I particularly request Mr. Micawber to be
careful of is,” said Mrs. Micawber, “that he does not, my dear Mr.
Copperfield, in applying himself to this subordinate branch of the
law, place it out of his power to rise, ultimately, to the top of
the tree. I am convinced that Mr. Micawber, giving his mind to a
profession so adapted to his fertile resources, and his flow of
language, must distinguish himself. Now, for example, Mr.
Traddles,” said Mrs. Micawber, assuming a profound air, “a Judge,
or even say a Chancellor. Does an individual place himself beyond
the pale of those preferments by entering on such an office as Mr.
Micawber has accepted?”
“My dear,” observed Mr. Micawber—but glancing
inquisitively at Traddles, too, “we have time enough before us, for
the consideration of those questions.”
“Micawber,” she returned, “no! Your mistake in life
is that you do not look forward far enough. You are bound, in
justice to your family, if not to yourself, to take in at a
comprehensive glance the extremest point in the horizon to which
your abilities may lead you.”
Mr. Micawber coughed, and drank his punch with an
air of exceeding satisfaction—stilt glancing at Traddles, as if he
desired to have his opinion.
“Why, the plain state of the case, Mrs. Micawber,”
said Traddles, mildly breaking the truth to her, “I mean the real
prosaic fact, you know—”
“Just so,” said Mrs. Micawber, “my dear Mr.
Traddles, I wish to be as prosaic and literal as possible on a
subject of so much importance.”
“—Is,” said Traddles, “that this branch of the law,
even if Mr. Micawber were a regular solicitor—”
“Exactly so,” returned Mrs. Micawber. (“Wilkins,
you are squinting, and will not be able to get your eyes
back.”)
“—Has nothing” pursued Traddles, “to do with that.
Only a barrister is eligible for such preferments, and Mr. Micawber
could not be a barrister, without being entered at an inn of court
as a student, for five years.”
“Do I follow you?” said Mrs. Micawber, with her
most affable air of business. “Do I understand, my dear Mr.
Traddles, that, at the expiration of that period, Mr. Micawber
would be eligible as a Judge or Chancellor?”
“He would be eligible,” returned Traddles,
with a strong emphasis on that word.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Micawber. “That is quite
sufficient. If such is the case, and Mr. Micawber forfeits no
privilege by entering on these duties, my anxiety is set at rest. I
speak,” said Mrs. Micawber, “as a female, necessarily, but I have
always been of opinion that Mr. Micawber possesses what I have
heard my papa call, when I lived at home, the judicial mind, and I
hope Mr. Micawber is now entering on a field where that mind will
develop itself, and take a commanding station.”
I quite believe that Mr. Micawber saw himself, in
his judicial mind’s eye, on the woolsack. He passed his hand
complacently over his bald head, and said with ostentatious
resignation:
“My dear, we will not anticipate the decrees of
fortune. If I am reserved to wear a wig, I am at least prepared,
externally,” in allusion to his baldness, “for that distinction. I
do not,” said Mr. Micawber, “regret my hair, and I may have been
deprived of it for a specific purpose. I cannot say. It is my
intention, my dear Copperfield, to educate my son for the Church; I
will not deny that I should be happy, on his account, to attain to
eminence.”
“For the Church?” said I, still pondering, between
whiles, on Uriah Heep.
“Yes,” said Mr. Micawber. “He has a remarkable
head-voice, and will commence as a chorister. Our residence at
Canterbury, and our local connexion, will, no doubt, enable him to
take advantage of any vacancy that may arise in the Cathedral
corps.
On looking at Master Micawber again, I saw that he
had a certain expression of face, as if his voice were behind his
eyebrows, where it presently appeared to be, on his singing us (as
an alternative between that and bed) “The Wood-Pecker tapping.”
After many compliments on this performance, we fell into some
general conversation, and, as I was too full of my desperate
intentions to keep my altered circumstances to myself, I made them
known to Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. I cannot express how extremely
delighted they both were, by the idea of my aunt’s being in
difficulties, and how comfortable and friendly it made them.
When we were nearly come to the last round of the
punch, I addressed myself to Traddles, and reminded him that we
must not separate, without wishing our friends health, happiness,
and success in their new career. I begged Mr. Micawber to fill us
bumpers, and proposed the toast in due form, shaking hands with him
across the table, and kissing Mrs. Micawber, to commemorate that
eventful occasion. Traddles imitated me in the first particular,
but did not consider himself a sufficiently old friend to venture
on the second.
“My dear Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, rising
with one of his thumbs in each of his waistcoat pockets, “the
companion of my youth, if I may be allowed the expression—and my
esteemed friend Traddles, if I may be permitted to call him so—will
allow me, on the part of Mrs. Micawber, myself, and our offspring,
to thank them in the warmest and most uncompromising terms for
their good wishes. It may be expected that, on the eve of a
migration which will consign us to a perfectly new existence,” Mr.
Micawber spoke as if they were going five hundred thousand miles,
“I should offer a few valedictory remarks to two such friends as I
see before me. But all that I have to say in this way, I have said.
Whatever station in society I may attain, through the medium of the
learned profession of which I am about to become an unworthy
member, I shall endeavour not to disgrace, and Mrs. Micawber will
be safe to adorn. Under the temporary pressure of pecuniary
liabilities, contracted with a view to their immediate liquidation,
but remaining unliquidated through a combination of circumstances,
I have been under the necessity of assuming a garb from which my
natural instincts recoil—I allude to spectacles—and possessing
myself of a cognomen, to which I can establish no legitimate
pretensions. All I have to say on that score is that the cloud has
passed from the dreary scene, and the God of Day is once more high
upon the mountain tops. On Monday next, on the arrival of the four
o‘clock afternoon coach at Canterbury, my foot will be on my native
heath—my name, Micawber.”
Mr. Micawber resumed his seat on the close of these
remarks, and drank two glasses of punch in grave succession. He
then said with much solemnity:
“One thing more I have to do, before this
separation is complete, and that is to perform an act of justice.
My friend Mr. Thomas Traddles has, on two several occasions, ‘put
his name,’ if I may use a common expression, to bills of exchange
for my accomodation. On the first occasion Mr. Thomas Traddles was
left—let me say, in short, in the lurch. The fulfilment of the
second has not yet arrived. The amount of the first obligation,”
here Mr. Micawber carefully referred to papers, “was, I believe,
twenty-three, four, nine and a half; of the second, according to my
entry of that transaction, eighteen, six, two. These sums, united,
make a total, if my calculation is correct, amounting to forty-one,
ten, eleven and a half. My friend Copperfield will perhaps do me
the favour to check that total?”
I did so and found it correct. “To leave this
metropolis,” said Mr. Micawber, “and my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles,
without acquitting myself of the pecuniary part of this obligation,
would weigh upon my mind to an insupportable extent. I have,
therefore, prepared for my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles, and I now
hold in my hand, a document, which accomplishes the desired object.
I beg to hand to my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles my I O U for
forty-one, ten, eleven and a half, and I am happy to recover my
moral dignity, and to know that I can once more walk erect before
my fellow man!”
With this introduction (which greatly affected
him), Mr. Micawber placed his I O U in the hands of Traddles, and
said he wished him well in every relation of life. I am persuaded,
not only that this was quite the same to Mr. Micawber as paying the
money, but that Traddles himself hardly knew the difference until
he had had time to think about it.
Mr. Micawber walked so erect before his fellow man,
on the strength of this virtuous action, that his chest looked half
as broad again when he lighted us downstairs. We parted with great
heartiness on both sides, and, when I had seen Traddles to his own
door, and was going home alone, I thought, among the other odd and
contradictory things I mused upon, that, slippery as Mr. Micawber
was, I was probably indebted to some compassionate recollection he
retained of me as his boy-lodger, for never having been asked by
him for money. I certainly should not have had the moral courage to
refuse it, and I have no doubt he knew that (to his credit be it
written) quite as well as I did.