Micawber family

“ Micawber did that afternoon. It was wonderful to see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud of these delicate fumes, as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and looked as if he were making, instead of punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest posterity. As to Mrs. Micawber, I don't know whether it was the effect of the cap, or the lavender-water, or the pins, or the fire, or the wax candles, but she came out of my room, comparatively speaking, lovely. And the lark was never gayer than that excellent woman. ”

“ Micawber and your family are well, sir,” said my aunt.
Mr. Micawber inclined his head. “They are as well, ma’am,” he desperately observed after a pause, “as Aliens and Outcasts can ever hope to be.”
“Lord bless you, sir!” exclaimed my aunt, in her abrupt way. “What are you talking about?”
“The subsistence of my family, ma’am,” returned Mr. Micawber, “trembles in the balance. My employer——”
Here Mr. Micawber provokingly left off; and began to peel the lemons that had been under my directions set before him, together with all the other appliances he used in making punch. ”

“ Micawber, with an intense satisfaction in their renouncement, "we abandon. The denizens of the forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in the refinements of the land of the Free."
Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted down-stairs.
"I have a presentiment," said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin pot, "that it is a member of my family!" ”

“ Micawber’s abilities. They would rather NOT have a man of Mr. Micawber’s abilities. He would only show the deficiency of the others. Apart from which,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘I will not disguise from you, my dear Master Copperfield, that when that branch of my family which is settled in Plymouth, became aware that Mr. Micawber was accompanied by myself, and by little Wilkins and his sister, and by the twins, they did not receive him with that ardour which he might have expected, being so newly released from captivity. ”

“ Now, welcome poverty!’ cried Mr. Micawber, shedding tears. ‘Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome hunger, rags, tempest, and beggary! Mutual confidence will sustain us to the end!’
With these expressions, Mr. Micawber placed Mrs. Micawber in a chair, and embraced the family all round; welcoming a variety of bleak prospects, which appeared, to the best of my judgement, to be anything but welcome to them; and calling upon them to come out into Canterbury and sing a chorus, as nothing else was left for their support. ”

“ Micawber, who always said those two words with an air, though I never could discover who came under the denomination, ‘my family are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should quit London, and exert his talents in the country. Mr. Micawber is a man of great talent, Master Copperfield.’
I said I was sure of that.
‘Of great talent,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber. ‘My family are of opinion, that, with a little interest, something might be done for a man of his ability in the Custom House. The influence of my family being local, it is their wish that Mr. Micawber should go down to Plymouth. ”

“ Micawber. "Since then, I have consulted other branches of my family on the course which it is most expedient for Mr. Micawber to take—for I maintain that he must take some course, Master Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, argumentatively. "It is clear that a family of six, not including a domestic, cannot live upon air." ”

“ Mr. Micawber's difficulties were an addition to the distressed state of my mind. In my forlorn state I became quite attached to the family, and used to walk about, busy with Mrs. Micawber's calculations of ways and means, and heavy with the weight of Mr. Micawber's debts. On a Saturday night, which was my grand treat,—partly because it was a great thing to walk home with six or seven shillings in my pocket, looking into the shops and thinking what such a sum would buy, and partly because I went home early,—Mrs. Micawber would make the most heart-rending confidences to me ”

“ For this he had drawn a note-of-hand with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles on the spot, a discharge of his debt in full (as between man and man) , with many acknowledgements.
‘I have still a presentiment,’ said Mrs. Micawber, pensively shaking her head, ‘that my family will appear on board, before we finally depart.’
Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but he put it in his tin pot and swallowed it. ”

“ Micawber, who prided herself on taking a clear view of things, and keeping Mr. Micawber straight by her woman's wisdom, when he might otherwise go a little crooked, "then I ask myself this question. If corn is not to be relied upon, what is? Are coals to be relied upon? Not at all. We have turned our attention to that experiment, on the suggestion of my family, and we find it fallacious."
Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair with his hands in his pockets, eyed us aside, and nodded his head, as much as to say that the case was very clearly put. ”

“ Micawber coughed.
“They have never understood you, Micawber,” said his wife. “They may be incapable of it. If so, that is their misfortune. I can pity their misfortune.”
“I am extremely sorry, my dear Emma,” said Mr. Micawber, relenting, “to have been betrayed into any expressions that might, even remotely, have the appearance of being strong expressions. All I would say, is, that I can go abroad without your family coming forward to favor me,—in short, with a parting Shove of their cold shoulders ”

“ He zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any newspaper through which it might, without such precautions, reach him.
‘If it penetrates to him, sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, striking himself on the breast, ‘it shall first pass through this body!’
Mr. Micawber, I must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new state of society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not absolutely lawless, but defensive and prompt. One might have supposed him a child of the wilderness, long accustomed to live out of the confines of civilization, and about to return to his native wilds. ”

“ Micawber’s abilities would have a fair chance of rising in the social scale? I will not say, at present, might he aspire to be Governor, or anything of that sort; but would there be a reasonable opening for his talents to develop themselves—that would be amply sufficient—and find their own expansion?’
‘No better opening anywhere,’ said my aunt, ‘for a man who conducts himself well, and is industrious.’
‘For a man who conducts himself well,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber, with her clearest business manner, ‘and is industrious. ”

“ Micawber, ‘they must take the consequences; and the sooner they bring it to an issue the better. Blood cannot be obtained from a stone, neither can anything on account be obtained at present (not to mention law expenses) from Mr. Micawber.’
I never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence confused Mrs. Micawber in reference to my age, or whether she was so full of the subject that she would have talked about it to the very twins if there had been nobody else to communicate with, but this was the strain in which she began, and she went on accordingly all the time I knew her. ”

“ Micawber, "down a turning, for, upon my soul, in my present state of mind I am not equal to this!"
We wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took out his pocket-handkerchief, and stood with his back to a wall. If I looked as gravely at him as Traddles did, he must have found our company by no means inspiriting.
"It is my fate," said Mr. Micawber, unfeignedly sobbing, but doing even that, with a shadow of the old expression of doing something genteel; "it is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our nature have become reproaches to me. ”

“ Micawber, when she came up, twin and all, to show me the apartment, and sat down to take breath, "before I was married, when I lived with papa and mama, that I should ever find it necessary to take a lodger. But Mr. Micawber being in difficulties, all considerations of private feeling must give way." ”

“ We might not," said Mr. Micawber, looking round the room as if it represented several hundred acres of highly-cultivated land, "on the first responsibility becoming due, have been successful in our harvest, or we might not have got our harvest in. Labor, I believe, is sometimes difficult to obtain in that portion of our colonial possessions where it will be our lot to combat with the teeming soil."
"Arrange it in any way you please, sir," said my aunt.
"Madam," he replied, "Mrs. Micawber and myself are deeply sensible of the very considerate kindness of our friends and patrons. ”

“ I had the pleasure, on this occasion, of renewing the acquaintance of Master Micawber, whom I found a promising boy of about twelve or thirteen, very subject to that restlessness of limb which is not an unfrequent phenomenon in youths of his age. I also became once more known to his sister, Miss Micawber, in whom, as Mr. Micawber told us, "her mother renewed her youth, like the Phœnix."
"My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "yourself and Mr. Traddles find us on the brink of migration, and will excuse any little discomforts incidental to that position." ”

“ Micawber has a self-confidence which nothing can destroy, and that so far from retiring with disgust from a world which offers him nothing but kicks, he has the most childlike faith in his ultimate acquirement of unlimited halfpence, strikes us as being such a curious and blessed reversal of the logical order of things that we are pleased with Mr. Micawber. Instead of despising him, we love him. ”

“ It was only after Micawber had found that Uriah Heep had forged Mr. Wickfield's name to various documents, and had fraudulently speculated with moneys entrusted by my aunt, amongst others, to his partner, that he turned upon him and denounced him, and accomplished what he called "the final pulverisation of Keep."
Mr. Micawber being once more "in pecuniary shackles," my aunt, so grateful, as we all were, for the services he had rendered, suggested emigration to Australia to him; he at once responded to the idea.
"The climate, I believe, is healthy," said Mrs. Micawber. ”

“ Micawber, rising with one of his thumbs in each of his waistcoat pockets, "the companion of my youth: if I may be allowed the expression—and my esteemed friend Traddles: if I may be permitted to call him so—will allow me, on the part of Mrs. Micawber, myself, and our offspring, to thank them in the warmest and most uncompromising terms for their good wishes. It may be expected that on the eve of a migration which will consign us to a perfectly new existence," Mr. ”

“ Micawber is morose. He is severe. He is estranged from our eldest son and daughter, he has no pride in his twins, he looks with an eye of coldness even on the unoffending stranger who last became a member of our circle. ”

“ My dear Mr. Copperfield, Mr. Micawber’s is not a common case. Mr. Micawber is going to a distant country, expressly in order that he may be fully understood and appreciated for the first time. I wish Mr. Micawber to take his stand upon that vessel’s prow, and firmly say ‘This country I am come to conquer! Have you honours? Have you riches? Have you posts of profitable pecuniary emolument? Let them be brought forward. ”

“ I was so shocked by the contents of this heart-rending letter, that I ran off directly towards the little hotel with the intention of taking it on my way to Doctor Strong's, and trying to soothe Mr. Micawber with a word of comfort. But, half-way there, I met the London coach with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber up behind; Mr. Micawber, the very picture of tranquil enjoyment, smiling at Mrs. Micawber's conversation, eating walnuts out of a paper bag, with a bottle sticking out of his breast pocket. ”

“ Micawber, whatever features may have been transferred to him, is the type of a whole race of men who will not vanish from the face of the earth so long as the hope which lives eternal in the human breast is only temporarily suspended by the laws of debtor and creditor, and is always capable of revival with the aid of a bowl of milk-punch. ”

“ Mr. Micawber walked so erect before his fellow man, on the strength of this virtuous action, that his chest looked half as broad again when he lighted us down stairs. We parted with great heartiness on both sides; and when I had seen Traddles to his own door, and was going home alone, I thought, among the other odd and contradictory things I mused upon, that, slippery as Mr. Micawber was, I was probably indebted to some compassionate recollection he retained of me as his boy-lodger, for never having been asked by him for money. I certainly should not have had the moral courage to refuse it ”

“ Micawber, ‘it is impossible for me not to be touched by your affection. I am always willing to defer to your good sense. What will be—will be. Heaven forbid that I should grudge my native country any portion of the wealth that may be accumulated by our descendants!’
‘That’s well,’ said my aunt, nodding towards Mr. Peggotty, ‘and I drink my love to you all, and every blessing and success attend you!’
Mr. Peggotty put down the two children he had been nursing, one on each knee, to join Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in drinking to all of us in return ”