Mrs. Micawber

“ 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 now, sir?" I said.
"Very low," said Mr. Micawber, shaking his head; "re-action. Ah, this has been a dreadful day! We stand alone now—everything is gone from us!"
Mr. Micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and afterwards shed tears. I was greatly touched, and disappointed too, for I had expected that we should be quite gay on this happy and long-looked for occasion. But Mr. and Mrs. Micawber were so used to their old difficulties, I think, that they felt quite shipwrecked when they came to consider that they were released from them. ”

“ Micawber would be transported with grief and mortification, even to the length (as I was once made aware by a scream from his wife) of making motions at himself with a razor; but within half-an-hour afterwards, he would polish up his shoes with extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune with a greater air of gentility than ever. Mrs. Micawber was quite as elastic. I have known her to be thrown into fainting fits by the king’s taxes at three o’clock, and to eat lamb chops, breaded, and drink warm ale (paid for with two tea-spoons that had gone to the pawnbroker’s) at four. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We should not have been much discomposed, I dare say, by the appearance of Steerforth himself, but we became in a moment the meekest of the meek before his respectable serving-man. Mr. Micawber, humming a tune, to show that he was quite at ease, subsided into his chair, with the handle of a hastily concealed fork sticking out of the bosom of his coat, as if he had stabbed himself. Mrs. Micawber put on her brown gloves, and assumed a genteel languor. Traddles ran his greasy hands through his hair, and stood it bolt upright, and stared in confusion on the table-cloth. ”

“ 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 has accepted?’
‘My dear,’ observed Mr. Micawber—but glancing inquisitively at Traddles, too; ‘we have time enough before us, for the consideration of those questions.’
‘Micawber,’ she returned, ‘no! Your mistake in life is, that you do not look forward far enough. You are bound, in justice to your family, if not to yourself, to take in at a comprehensive glance the extremest point in the horizon to which your abilities may lead you.’
Mr. Micawber coughed, and drank his punch with an air of exceeding satisfaction—still glancing at Traddles, as if he desired to have his opinion. ”

“ Micawber’s answer expressed the disturbance of his mind. He said, shaking hands with me, “Copperfield, you are a true friend; but when the worst comes to the worst, no man is without a friend who is possessed of shaving materials.” At this dreadful hint Mrs. Micawber threw her arms round Mr. Micawber’s neck and entreated him to be calm. He wept; but so far recovered, almost immediately, as to ring the bell for the waiter, and bespeak a hot kidney pudding and a plate of shrimps for breakfast in the morning. ”

“ It was between ten and eleven o’clock when Mrs. Micawber rose to replace her cap in the whitey-brown paper parcel, and to put on her bonnet. Mr. Micawber took the opportunity of Traddles putting on his great coat, to slip a letter into my hand, with a whispered request that I would read it at my leisure. I also took the opportunity of my holding a candle over the bannisters to light them down, when Mr. Micawber was going first, leading Mrs. Micawber, and Traddles was following with the cap, to detain Traddles for a moment on the top of the stairs. ”

“ 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 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, quite forgetting himself, and smiling again, “the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do to-day. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!”
“My poor papa’s maxim,” Mrs. Micawber observed.
“My dear,” said Mr. Micawber, “your papa was very well in his way, and Heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in all, we ne’er shall—in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to read the same description of print, without spectacles. ”

“ Won’t umbleness go down? I shouldn’t have got round my gentleman fellow-partner without it, I think.—Micawber, you old bully, I’ll pay you!”
Mr. Micawber, supremely defiant of him and his extended finger, and making a great deal of his chest until he had slunk out at the door, then addressed himself to me, and proffered me the satisfaction of “witnessing the re-establishment of mutual confidence between himself and Mrs. Micawber.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to his room (top story but one) , and cried very much. He solemnly conjured me, I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable. After which he borrowed a shilling of me for porter, gave me a written order on Mrs. Micawber for the amount, and put away his pocket-handkerchief, and cheered up. ”

“ Micawber, waving his hand as of old, and settling his chin in his shirt-collar. ‘She is tolerably convalescent. The twins no longer derive their sustenance from Nature’s founts—in short,’ said Mr. Micawber, in one of his bursts of confidence, ‘they are weaned—and Mrs. Micawber is, at present, my travelling companion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 acknowledgments.
"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.
"If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your passage, Mrs. Micawber," said my aunt, "you must let us hear from you, you know." ”

“ Copperfield, that we can not live without something widely different from existing circumstances shortly turning up. Now I am convinced, myself, and this I have pointed out to Mr. Micawber several times of late, that things cannot be expected to turn up of themselves. We must, in a measure, assist to turn them up. I may be wrong, but I have formed that opinion."
Both Traddles and I applauded it highly.
"Very well," said Mrs. Micawber. "Then what do I recommend? Here is Mr. Micawber, with a variety of qualifications—with great talent—"
"Really, my love," said Mr. Micawber. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Bucket (B.H.) gained a wife by a similar display of vocal talent. After singing ‘Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,’ he informs his friend Mrs. Bagnet that this ballad was
his most powerful ally in moving the heart of Mrs. Bucket when a maiden, and inducing her to approach the altar. Mr. Bucket's own words are ‘to come up to the scratch.’
Mrs. Micawber's ‘Little Taffline’ was a song in Storace's ballad opera Three and the Deuce, words by Prince Hoare. It will be interesting to see what the song which helped to mould Micawber's fate was like. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Give me back my wife, give me back my family, substitute Micawber for the petty wretch who walks about in the boots at present on my feet, and call upon me to swallow a sword tomorrow, and I’ll do it. With an appetite!’
I never saw a man so hot in my life. I tried to calm him, that we might come to something rational; but he got hotter and hotter, and wouldn’t hear a word.
‘I’ll put my hand in no man’s hand,’ said Mr. Micawber, gasping, puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man fighting with cold water, ‘until I have—blown to fragments—the—a—detestable—serpent—HEEP! ”

“ 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. ”