frequently been exactly seven-and-sixpence short of independence.
He has had such openings at Liverpool – posts of great trust and
confidence in merchants’ houses, which nothing but seven-and-
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sixpence was wanting to him to secure – that I wonder he is not
Mayor of that flourishing town at the present moment.
The natural phenomena of which he has been the victim, are of a
most astounding nature. He has had two children who have never
grown up; who have never had anything to cover them at night; who
have been continually driving him mad, by asking in vain for food;
who have never come out of fevers and measles (which, I suppose,
has accounted for his fuming his letters with tobacco smoke, as a
disinfectant); who have never changed in the least degree through
fourteen long revolving years. As to his wife, what that suffering
woman has undergone, nobody knows. She has always been in an
interesting situation through the same long period, and has never
been confined yet. His devotion to her has been unceasing. He has
never cared for himself; HE could have perished – he would rather,
in short – but was it not his Christian duty as a man, a husband,
and a father, – to write begging letters when he looked at her?
(He has usually remarked that he would call in the evening for an
answer to this question.)
He has been the sport of the strangest misfortunes. What his
brother has done to him would have broken anybody else’s heart.
His brother went into business with him, and ran away with the
money; his brother got him to be security for an immense sum and
left him to pay it; his brother would have given him employment to
the tune of hundreds a-year, if he would have consented to write
letters on a Sunday; his brother enunciated principles incompatible
with his religious views, and he could not (in consequence) permit
his brother to provide for him. His landlord has never shown a
spark of human feeling. When he put in that execution I don’t
know, but he has never taken it out. The broker’s man has grown
grey in possession. They will have to bury him some day.
He has been attached to every conceivable pursuit. He has been in
the army, in the navy, in the church, in the law; connected with
the press, the fine arts, public institutions, every description
and grade of business. He has been brought up as a gentleman; he
has been at every college in Oxford and Cambridge; he can quote
Latin in his letters (but generally misspells some minor English
word); he can tell you what Shakespeare says about begging, better
than you know it. It is to be observed, that in the midst of his
afflictions he always reads the newspapers; and rounds off his
appeal with some allusion, that may be supposed to be in my way, to
the popular subject of the hour.
His life presents a series of inconsistencies. Sometimes he has
never written such a letter before. He blushes with shame. That
is the first time; that shall be the last. Don’t answer it, and
let it be understood that, then, he will kill himself quietly.
Sometimes (and more frequently) he HAS written a few such letters.
Then he encloses the answers, with an intimation that they are of
inestimable value to him, and a request that they may be carefully
returned. He is fond of enclosing something – verses, letters,
pawnbrokers’ duplicates, anything to necessitate an answer. He is
very severe upon ‘the pampered minion of fortune,’ who refused him
the half-sovereign referred to in the enclosure number two – but he
knows me better.
He writes in a variety of styles; sometimes in low spirits;
sometimes quite jocosely. When he is in low spirits he writes
down-hill and repeats words – these little indications being
expressive of the perturbation of his mind. When he is more
vivacious, he is frank with me; he is quite the agreeable rattle.
I know what human nature is, – who better? Well! He had a little
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