Martin Chuzzlewit

by Charles Dickens

Being now installed, by one consent, as the beauty of the party, she is cruel and capricious, and sends gentlemen on messages to other gentlemen, and forgets all about them before they can return with the answer, and invents a thousand tortures, rending their hearts to pieces.

‘Mr Pecksniff!’ cried Mrs Todgers, ‘what a ghastly smile! Are you ill, Sir?’ He pressed his hand upon her arm, and answered in a solemn manner, and a faint voice, ‘Chronic’ ‘Cholic?’ cried the frightened Mrs Todgers. ‘Chron-ic,’ he repeated with some difficulty. ‘Chronic. A chronic disorder. I have been its victim from childhood. It is carrying me to my grave.’

‘When you hear of an orphan with three or four hundred pound,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘let that dear orphan’s friends apply, by letter post-paid, to S. P., Post-office, Salisbury.

‘When you hear of an orphan with three or four hundred pound,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘let that dear orphan’s friends apply, by letter post-paid, to S. P., Post-office, Salisbury. I don’t know who he is, exactly. Don’t be alarmed, Mrs Todgers,’ said Mr Pecksniff, falling heavily against her: ‘chronic–chronic! Let’s have a little drop of something to drink.’

‘Do not weep for me. It is chronic’

‘Bless my life, Miss Pecksniffs!’ cried Mrs Todgers, aloud, ‘your dear pa’s took very poorly!’ Mr Pecksniff straightened himself by a surprising effort, as every one turned hastily towards him; and standing on his feet, regarded the assembly with a look of ineffable wisdom. Gradually it gave place to a smile; a feeble, helpless, melancholy smile; bland, almost to sickliness. ‘Do not repine, my friends,’ said Mr Pecksniff, tenderly. ‘Do not weep for me. It is chronic’ And with these words, after making a futile attempt to pull off his shoes, he fell into the fire-place. The youngest gentleman in company had him out in a second. Yes, before a hair upon his head was singed, he had him on the hearth-rug–Her father!

Mr Pecksniff called him opprobrious names for the suggestion.

They carried him up-stairs, and crushed the youngest gentleman at every step. His bedroom was at the top of the house, and it was a long way; but they got him there in course of time. He asked them frequently upon the road for a little drop of something to drink. It seemed an idiosyncrasy. The youngest gentleman in company proposed a draught of water. Mr Pecksniff called him opprobrious names for the suggestion.

they locked Mr Pecksniff in, and left the key on the outside; charging the young page to listen attentively for symptoms of an apoplectic nature, with which the patient might be troubled,

When he had completed his arrangements, they locked Mr Pecksniff in, and left the key on the outside; charging the young page to listen attentively for symptoms of an apoplectic nature, with which the patient might be troubled, and, in case of any such presenting themselves, to summon them without delay: to which Mr Bailey modestly replied that he hoped he knowed wot o’clock it was in gineral, and didn’t date his letters to his friends, from Todgers’s, for nothing.

But Mr Pecksniff came to town on business.

But Mr Pecksniff came to town on business. Had he forgotten that? Was he always taking his pleasure with Todgers’s jovial brood, unmindful of the serious demands, whatever they might be, upon his calm consideration? No.

‘Oh but I am uneasy,’ said Tom Pinch; ‘I can’t help it, when I hear you talking in that way. If Mr Tigg is what you describe him to be, you have no business to know him, John. You may laugh, but I don’t consider it by any means a laughing matter, I assure you.’

Mr Pinch looked from master to pupil, and from pupil to master, and was so perplexed and dismayed, that he wanted presence of mind to answer the question.

‘You–you will be very much pleased with the grammar-school, sir,’ said Tom. ‘It’s nearly finished.’ ‘If you will have the goodness, Mr Pinch,’ said Pecksniff, waving his hand and smiling, ‘we will not discuss anything connected with that question at present. What have you been doing, Thomas, humph?’ Mr Pinch looked from master to pupil, and from pupil to master, and was so perplexed and dismayed, that he wanted presence of mind to answer the question. In this awkward interval, Mr Pecksniff (who was perfectly conscious of Martin’s gaze, though he had never once glanced towards him) poked the fire very much, and when he couldn’t do that any more, drank tea, assiduously.

‘if you have sufficiently refreshed and recovered yourself, I shall be glad to hear what you mean by this treatment of me.’

‘Now, Mr Pecksniff,’ said Martin at last, in a very quiet voice, ‘if you have sufficiently refreshed and recovered yourself, I shall be glad to hear what you mean by this treatment of me.’ ‘And what,’ said Mr Pecksniff, turning his eyes on Tom Pinch, even more placidly and gently than before, ‘what have you been doing Thomas, humph?’

He passed more Golden Balls than all the jugglers in Europe have juggled with, in the course of their united performances, before he could determine in favour of any particular shop where those symbols were displayed.

It is an illustration of a very common tendency in the mind of man, that all this time he never once doubted, one may almost say the certainty of doing great things in the New World, if he could only get there.

He bought some cold beef, and ham, and French bread, and butter, and came back with his pockets pretty heavily laden.

Didn’t I watch him into Codgers’s22 commercial boarding-house, and watch him out, and watch him home to his hotel, and go and tell him as his was the service for my money, and I had said so, afore I left the Dragon!

The letter being duly signed, sealed, and delivered, was handed to Mark Tapley, for immediate conveyance if possible.

Now, I am about to break a design1 to you, dearest, which will startle you at first, but which is undertaken for your sake.

‘Endeavouring to be anything that’s good, and being it, is, with you, all one.

‘Endeavouring to be anything that’s good, and being it, is, with you, all one. Don’t I know that of old?’ cried Martin, gaily. ‘So! That’s famous! Now I can tell you all my plans as cheerfully as if you were my little wife already, Mary.’ She hung more closely on his arm, and looking upward in his face, bade him speak on. ‘You see,’ said Martin, playing with the little hand upon his wrist, ‘that my attempts to advance myself at home have been baffled and rendered abortive. I will not say by whom, Mary, for that would give pain to us both. But so it is. Have you heard him speak of late of any relative of mine or his, called Pecksniff? Only tell me what I ask you, no more.’

At this crisis Mark Tapley interposed, with an apology for remarking that the clock at the Horse Guards2 was striking.

‘Martin! If you would but sometimes, in some quiet hour; beside the winter fire; in the summer air; when you hear gentle music, or think of Death, or Home, or Childhood; if you would at such a season resolve to think, but once a month, or even once a year, of him, or any one who ever wronged you, you would forgive him in your heart, I know!’

Perhaps he knew it from his reading, perhaps from his experience, perhaps from intuition.

Whither go the clouds and wind, so eagerly? If like guilty spirits they repair to some dread conference with powers like themselves, in what wild region do the elements hold council, or where unbend in terrible disport?

Whither go the clouds and wind, so eagerly? If like guilty spirits they repair to some dread conference with powers like themselves, in what wild region do the elements hold council, or where unbend in terrible disport? Here! Free from that cramped prison called the earth, and out upon the waste of waters. Here, roaring, raging, shrieking, howling, all night long. Hither come the sounding voices from the caverns on the coast of that small island, sleeping a thousand miles away so quietly in the midst of angry waves; and hither, to meet them, rush the blasts from unknown desert places of the world. Here in the fury of their unchecked liberty, they storm and buffet with each other, until the sea, lashed into passion like their own, leaps up in ravings mightier than theirs, and the whole scene is whirling madness.

On, on, on, over the countless miles of angry space roll the long heaving billows.

Onward she comes, in gallant combat with the elements, her tall masts trembling, and her timbers starting on the strain;

Onward she comes, in gallant combat with the elements, her tall masts trembling, and her timbers starting on the strain; onward she comes, now high upon the curling billows, now low down in the hollows of the sea as hiding for the moment from its fury; and every storm-voice in the air and water, cries more loudly yet, ‘A ship!’

‘And this,’ said Mr Tapley, looking far ahead, ‘is the Land of Liberty, is it? Very well. I’m agreeable. Any land will do for me, after so much water!’

Some trifling excitement prevailed upon the very brink and margin of the land of liberty;

Some trifling excitement prevailed upon the very brink and margin of the land of liberty; for an alderman had been elected the day before; and Party Feeling naturally running rather high on such an exciting occasion, the friends of the disappointed candidate had found it necessary to assert the great principles of Purity of Election and Freedom of Opinion by breaking a few legs and arms, and furthermore pursuing one obnoxious gentleman through the streets with the design of slitting his nose.