Martin Chuzzlewit
thing’ (as a young gentleman had observed in verse, in the Poet’s Corner
of a provincial newspaper), was the youngest Miss Pecksniff!
Mr Pecksniff was a moral man--a grave man, a man of noble sentiments and
speech--and he had had her christened Mercy. Mercy! oh, what a charming
name for such a pure-souled Being as the youngest Miss Pecksniff! Her
sister’s name was Charity. There was a good thing! Mercy and Charity!
And Charity, with her fine strong sense and her mild, yet not
reproachful gravity, was so well named, and did so well set off and
illustrate her sister! What a pleasant sight was that the contrast
they presented; to see each loved and loving one sympathizing with, and
devoted to, and leaning on, and yet correcting and counter-checking,
and, as it were, antidoting, the other! To behold each damsel in her
very admiration of her sister, setting up in business for herself on
an entirely different principle, and announcing no connection with
over-the-way, and if the quality of goods at that establishment don’t
please you, you are respectfully invited to favour ME with a call! And
the crowning circumstance of the whole delightful catalogue was, that
both the fair creatures were so utterly unconscious of all this!
They had no idea of it. They no more thought or dreamed of it than Mr
Pecksniff did. Nature played them off against each other; THEY had no
hand in it, the two Miss Pecksniffs.
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 fore-finger 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