Part 1 (1/2)

The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby

by Charles dickens

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

This story was begun, within a few months after the publication of the coood many cheap Yorkshi+re schools in existence There are very fe

Of the ard of it by the State as a ood or bad citizens, andafforded a notable exah any man who had proved his unfitness for any other occupation in life, was free, without exah preparation for the functions he undertook, was required in the surgeon who assisted to bring a boy into the world, or ht one day assist, perhaps, to send him out of it; in the chemist, the attorney, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker; the whole round of crafts and trades, the schoolh schoolht naturally be expected to spring fros, and to flourish in it; these Yorkshi+re schoolmasters were the lowest and most rotten round in the whole ladder Traders in the avarice, indifference, or inorant, sordid, brutal men, to whom few considerate persons would have entrusted the board and lodging of a horse or a dog; they formed the worthy cornerstone of a structure, which, for absurdity and a lect, has rarely been exceeded in the world

We hear soainst the unqualified medical practitioner, who has defor to heal it But, what of the hundreds of thousands of minds that have been deforers who have pretended to form them!

I make mention of the race, as of the Yorkshi+re schoolh it has not yet finally disappeared, it is dwindling daily A long day's work remains to be done about us in the way of education, Heaven knows; but great iood one, have been furnished, of late years

I cannot call to mind, no I came to hear about Yorkshi+re schools when I was a not very robust child, sitting in bye-places near Rochester Castle, with a head full of PARTRIDGE, STRAP, TOM PIPES, and SANCHO PANZA; but I know that my first impressions of them were picked up at that time, and that they were somehow or other connected with a suppurated abscess that some boy had couide, philosopher, and friend, having ripped it open with an inky pen-knife The impression made upon me, however made, never left me I was always curious about Yorkshi+re schools-fell, long afterwards and at sundry ti an audience, resolved to write about them

With that intent I went down into Yorkshi+re before I began this book, in very severe winter time which is pretty faithfully described herein As I wanted to see a schoolht, in theira visit from the author of the ”Pickwick Papers,” I consulted with a professional friend who had a Yorkshi+re connexion, and hoave me some letters of introduction, in the na companion; they bore reference to a supposititious little boy who had been left with a ed mother who didn't knohat to do with hi the tardy co him to a Yorkshi+re school; I was the poor lady's friend, travelling that way; and if the recipient of the letter could inforhbourhood, the writer would be very ed

I went to several places in that part of the country where I understood the schools to be most plentifully sprinkled, and had no occasion to deliver a letter until I came to a certain tohich shall be nameless The person to whoht, through the snow, to the inn where I was staying It was after dinner; and he needed little persuasion to sit down by the fire in a warm corner, and take his share of the wine that was on the table

I am afraid he is dead now I recollect he was a jovial, ruddy, broad-faced ot acquainted directly; and that we talked on all kinds of subjects, except the school, which he showed a great anxiety to avoid ”Was there any large school near?” I asked him, in reference to the letter ”Oh yes,” he said; ”there was a pratty big 'un” ”Was it a good one?” I asked ”Ey!” he said, ”it was as good as anoother; that was a' around the roo to so, he recovered iain, I never approached the question of the school, even if he were in thethat his countenance fell, and that he became uncomfortable At last, e had passed a couple of hours or so, very agreeably, he suddenly took up his hat, and leaning over the table and looking me full in the face, said, in a low voice: ”Weel, Misther, we've been vara pleasant toogather, and ar'll spak' my moind tiv'ee Dinnot let the weedur send her lattle boy to yan o' our school-measthers, while there's a harse to hoold in a' Lunnun, or a gootther to lie asleep in Ar wouldn'tmy neeburs, and ar speak tiv'ee quiet loike But I' to bed and not tellee, for weedur's sak', to keep the lattle boy from a' sike scoondrels while there's a harse to hoold in a' Lunnun, or a gootther to lie asleep in!” Repeating these words with great heartiness, and with a solee as before, he shook hands and went away I never saw hiine that I descry a faint reflection of hientry, I inal preface to this book

”It has afforded the Author great aress of this work, to learn, from country friends and fro himself in provincial newspapers, thatthe original of Mr Squeers One worthy, he has reason to believe, has actually consulted authorities learned in the law, as to his having good grounds on which to rest an action for libel; another, has meditated a journey to London, for the express purpose of co an assault and battery on his traducer; a third, perfectly reentlemen, one of whom held him in conversation while the other took his likeness; and, although Mr Squeers has but one eye, and he has two, and the published sketch does not resemble him (whoever he may be) in any other respect, still he and all his friends and neighbours know at once for whom it is meant, because-the character is SO like him

”While the Author cannot but feel the full force of the coest that these contentions may arise from the fact, that Mr Squeers is the representative of a class, and not of an individual Where inorance, and brutal cupidity, are the stock in trade of a small body of men, and one is described by these characteristics, all his felloill recognise soiving that the portrait is his own

”The Author's object in calling public attention to the system would be very imperfectly fulfilled, if he did not state now, in his own person, emphatically and earnestly, that Mr Squeers and his school are faint and feeble pictures of an existing reality, purposely subdued and kept down lest they should be deemed impossible That there are, upon record, trials at lahich daonies and disfigurements inflicted upon children by the treat such offensive and foul details of neglect, cruelty, and disease, as no writer of fiction would have the boldness to ied upon these Adventures, he has received, from private quarters far beyond the reach of suspicion or distrust, accounts of atrocities, in the perpetration of which upon neglected or repudiated children, these schools have been theany that appear in these pages”

This comprises all I need say on the subject; except that if I had seen occasion, I had resolved to reprint a few of these details of legal proceedings, from certain old newspapers

One other quotation from the same Preface may serve to introduce a fact that my readers may think curious

”To turn to a ht to say, that there ARE two characters in this book which are drawn from life It is remarkable that e call the world, which is so very credulous in what professes to be true, is inary; and that, while, every day in real life, it will allow in one man no blemishes, and in another no virtues, it will seldoood or bad, in a fictitious narrative, to be within the limits of probability But those who take an interest in this tale, will be glad to learn that the BROTHERS CHEERYBLE live; that their liberal charity, their singleness of heart, their noble nature, and their unbounded benevolence, are no creations of the Author's brain; but are pro every day (and oftenest by stealth) soenerous deed in that town of which they are the pride and honour”

If I were to attempt to sum up the thousands of letters, from all sorts of people in all sorts of latitudes and cliht down upon et into an arithmetical difficulty from which I could not easily extricate myself Suffice it to say, that I believe the applications for loans, gifts, and offices of profit that I have been requested to forward to the originals of the BROTHERS CHEERYBLE (hoed any communication in e of all the Lord Chancellors since the accession of the House of Brunswick, and would have broken the Rest of the Bank of England

The Brothers are now dead

There is only one other point, on which I would desire to offer a rereeable, he is not always intended to appear so He is a young man of an impetuous temper and of little or no experience; and I saw no reason why such a hero should be lifted out of nature

CHAPTER 1

Introduces all the Rest

There once lived, in a sequestered part of the county of Devonshi+re, one Mr Godfrey Nickleby: a worthy gentle it into his head rather late in life that he h to aspire to the hand of a lady of fortune, had wedded an old flame out of mere attachment, who in her turn had taken him for the same reason Thus two people who cannot afford to play cards for ame for love

Some ill-conditioned persons who sneer at the life-ood couple would be better likened to two principals in a sparring match, hen fortune is low and backers scarce, will chivalrously set to, for the ; and in one respect indeed this coood; for, as the adventurous pair of the Fives' Court will afterwards send round a hat, and trust to the bounty of the lookers-on for thethemselves, so Mr Godfrey Nickleby and HIS partner, the honey in no inconsiderable degree upon chance for the improvement of their e, fluctuated between sixty and eighty pounds PER ANNUM

There are people enough in the world, Heaven knows! and even in London (where Mr Nickleby dwelt in those days) but few co scanty It is extraordinary how long athe face of a friend, but it is no less true Mr Nickleby looked, and looked, till his eyes becarowing tired of the search, he turned his eyes homeward, he saw very little there to relieve his weary vision A painter who has gazed too long upon so upon a darker and aze wore so black and gloomy a hue, that he would have been beyond description refreshed by the very reverse of the contrast

At length, after five years, when Mrs Nickleby had presented her husband with a couple of sons, and that e so in hishis life next quarter-day, and then falling fro, by the general post, a black-bordered letter to inform him how his uncle, Mr Ralph Nickleby, was dead, and had left hi in all to five thousand pounds sterling

As the deceased had taken no further notice of his nephew in his lifeti to his eldest boy (who had been christened after him, on desperate speculation) a silver spoon in a morocco case, which, as he had not toobeen born without that useful article of plate in his mouth, Mr Godfrey Nickleby could, at first, scarcely believe the tidings thus conveyed to him On examination, however, they turned out to be strictly correct The aentleman, it seemed, had intended to leave the whole to the Royal Humane Society, and had indeed executed a will to that effect; but the Institution, having been unfortunate enough, a few months before, to save the life of a poor relation to whos and sixpence, he had, in a fit of very natural exasperation, revoked the bequest in a codicil, and left it all to Mr Godfrey Nickleby; with a special ainst the society for saving the poor relation's life, but against the poor relation also, for allowing himself to be saved

With a portion of this property Mr Godfrey Nickleby purchased a small farm, near Dawlish in Devonshi+re, whither he retired with his wife and two children, to live upon the best interest he could get for the rest of his money, and the little produce he could raise froether that, when he died, some fifteen years after this period, and some five after his wife, he was enabled to leave, to his eldest son, Ralph, three thousand pounds in cash, and to his youngest son, Nicholas, one thousand and the farm, which was as small a landed estate as one would desire to see

These two brothers had been brought up together in a school at Exeter; and, being accustoo home once a week, had often heard, fro accounts of their father's sufferings in his days of poverty, and of their deceased uncle's importance in his days of affluence: which recitals produced a very different ier, as of a ti but forewarnings to shun the great world and attach himself to the quiet routine of a country life, Ralph, the elder, deduced froreat morals that riches are the only true source of happiness and power, and that it is lawful and just to compass their acquisition by all means short of felony 'And,' reasoned Ralph with hiood caood caot it now, and is saving it up forback to the old gentleood DID co of it all his life long, and of being envied and courted by all his family besides' And Ralph alound up theseat the conclusion, that there was nothing likehis faculties to rust, even at that early age, inlad coood interest a sradually extending his operations until they aspired to the copper coinage of this reale Nor did he trouble his borroith abstract calculations of figures, or references to ready-reckoners; his siolden sentence, 'two-pence for every half-penny,' which greatly simplified the accounts, and which, as a familiar precept, more easily acquired and retained in the ly recoe and small, and more especially of entlemen justice,it, with e Ralph Nickleby avoid all those minute and intricate calculations of odd days, which nobody who has worked sums in si, by establishi+ng the one general rule that all sums of principal and interest should be paid on pocket-money day, that is to say, on Saturday: and that whether a loan were contracted on the Monday, or on the Friday, the amount of interest should be, in both cases, the sareat show of reason, that it ought to be rather ht in the forreat extreainst hi the secret connection and syh Master Ralph Nickleby was not at that tientlemen before alluded to, proceed on just the same principle in all their transactions

Froentleman, and the natural admiration the reader will immediately conceive of his character, it may perhaps be inferred that he is to be the hero of the hich we shall presently begin To set this point at rest, for once and for ever, we hasten to undeceive them, and stride to its commencement

On the death of his father, Ralph Nickleby, who had been some time before placed in a mercantile house in London, applied hi, in which he speedily becaot his brother for many years; and if, at times, a recollection of his old playfellow broke upon hiold conjures up a mist about ato his feelings than the fuht, that if they were intimate he would want to borrow ed his shoulders, and said things were better as they were

As for Nicholas, he lived a singlealone, and then he took to wife the daughter of a neighbouring gentleood lady bore hihter, and when the son was about nineteen, and the daughter fourteen, as near as we can guess-i, before the passing of the new act, nowhere preserved in the registries of this country-Mr Nickleby looked about hi his capital, now sadly reduced by this increase in his family, and the expenses of their education

'Speculate with it,' said Mrs Nickleby

'Spec-u-late, h in doubt

'Why not?' asked Mrs Nickleby

'Because, my dear, if we SHOULD lose it,' rejoined Mr Nickleby, as a slow and tier be able to live, my dear'