|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 19
This was so cruel a disappointment to Wild, and so sensibly
affects us, as no doubt it will the reader, that, as it must
disqualify us both from proceeding any farther at present, we will
now take a little breath, and therefore we shall here close this
book.
BOOK II
CHAPTER ONE
CHARACTERS OF SILLY PEOPLE, WITH THE PROPER USES FOR WHICH SUCH
ARE DESIGNED.
One reason why we chose to end our first book, as we did, with the
last chapter, was, that we are now obliged to produce two
characters of a stamp entirely different from what we have
hitherto dealt in. These persons are of that pitiful order of
mortals who are in contempt called good-natured; being indeed sent
into the world by nature with the same design with which men put
little fish into a pike-pond, in order to be devoured by that
voracious water-hero.
But to proceed with our history: Wild, having shared the booty in
much the same manner as before, i.e. taken three-fourths of it,
amounting to eighteen-pence, was now retiring to rest, in no very
happy mood, when by accident he met with a young fellow who had
formerly been his companion, and indeed intimate friend, at
school. It hath been thought that friendship is usually nursed by
similitude of manners, but the contrary had been the case between
these lads; for whereas Wild was rapacious and intrepid, the other
had always more regard far his skin than his money; Wild therefore
had very generously compassionated this defect in his school-
fellow, and had brought him off from many scrapes, into most of
which he had first drawn him, by taking the fault and whipping to
himself. He had always indeed been well paid on such occasions;
there are a sort of people who, together with the best of the
bargain, will be sure to have the obligation too on their side; so
it had happened here: for this poor lad had considered himself in
the highest degree obliged to Mr. Wild, and had contracted a very
great esteem and friendship for him; the traces of which an
absence of many years had not in the least effaced in his mind. He
no sooner knew Wild, therefore, than he accosted him in the most
friendly manner, and invited him home with him to breakfast (it
being now near nine in the morning), which invitation our hero
with no great difficulty consented to. This young man, who was
about Wild's age, had some time before set up in the trade of a
jeweller, in the materials or stock for which he had laid out the
greatest part of a little fortune, and had married a very
agreeable woman for love, by whom he then had two children. As our
reader is to be more acquainted with this person, it may not be
improper to open somewhat of his character, especially as it will
serve as a kind of foil to the noble and great disposition of our
hero, and as the one seems sent into this world as a proper object
on which the talents of the other were to be displayed with a
proper and just success.
Mr. Thomas Heartfree then (for that was his name) was of an honest
and open disposition. He was of that sort of men whom experience
only, and not their own natures, must inform that there are such
things as deceit and hypocrisy in the world, and who,
consequently, are not at five-and-twenty so difficult to be
imposed upon as the oldest and most subtle. He was possessed of
several great weaknesses of mind, being good-natured, friendly,
and generous to a great excess. He had, indeed, too little regard
to common justice, for he had forgiven some debts to his
acquaintance only because they could not pay him, and had
entrusted a bankrupt, on his setting up a second time, from having
been convinced that he had dealt in his bankruptcy with a fair and
honest heart, and that he had broke through misfortune only, and
not from neglect or imposture. He was withal so silly a fellow
that he never took the least advantage of the ignorance of his
customers, and contented himself with very moderate gains on his
goods; which he was the better enabled to do, notwithstanding his
generosity, because his life was extremely temperate, his expenses
being solely confined to the chearful entertainment of his friends
at home, and now and then a moderate glass of wine, in which he
indulged himself in the company of his wife, who, with an
agreeable person, was a mean-spirited, poor, domestic, low-bred
animal, who confined herself mostly to the care of her family,
placed her happiness in her husband and her children, followed no
expensive fashions or diversions, and indeed rarely went abroad,
unless to return the visits of a few plain neighbours, and twice
a-year afforded herself, in company with her husband, the
diversion of a play, where she never sat in a higher place than
the pit.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|