Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself. Vol. I (of 2)

Let the reader judge of the effect of such an announcement upon my tormentors and myself. I had an uncle, then, and he had arrived – nay, he had paid me a visit, and was in the house; I could hear him stumping up the stairs! My debtors were struck dumb, and so was I; and at that moment of confusion he stepped into the room. I looked at the gentleman, and, upon my soul, I was somewhat disappointed. His appearance was scarce genteel enough for my uncle; he looked like a country squire of low degree, who might pass for a man of quality better in an unsophisticated village of the backwoods than anywhere else; and he had an atrocious white fur hat, with a big brim all puckered and twisted like the outer casing of a cabbage. There was a vulgar vivacity and good-nature about his visage, an air of presumption and familiarity in his motions, and his nose turned up. On the whole, I did not like his appearance, and my first impulse was to give him a look of contempt; but I recollected he was my uncle, and had come in a carriage; and seeing him stand staring about in great astonishment, as not knowing what to make of such a rout of ragamuffins as I had about me, nor how to distinguish his nephew among them, I stepped up to him, and taking him by the hand, said, —

"My dear saw, ah! looking for me? What! my uncle Wiggins?"

"Wiggins!" said he; "ods bobs, don't you know the name of your own uncle Wilkins?"

"Wiggins?" said I; "ged, 'twas a mere slip of the tongue."

"Ods bobs!" said he, "and is this you, Ikey, my boy? The very picture of your aunt, poor Mrs. Wilkins! but, ods bless her, she's dead. Ha'n't seen you since you was a baby; do declare, you're as big as Sammy. Come to live in your town, Ikey, my dear; tired of living among the clodhoppers; have plenty of money, and mean to be a gentleman now. Glad to see you, Ikey; but I say, Ikey, who is all these here people? Always heard you was a great gentleman; but don't much like your acquaintance, Ikey."

This was pronounced in an under voice, much to my satisfaction; for the liberty the old gentleman took with my name was not grateful to my feelings. Ikey, indeed! None but a vulgarian would have made so free with me.

But he was my uncle, he said he was rich, and I perceived he might be made serviceable.

I shook him by the hand a dozen times over, swore "I was so glad to see him he could not conceive;" assured him – in his ear – the fellows he saw were ambitious cobblers and stitchers, who had come to beg my favour and recommendation to the fashionable circles, for my countenance was a fortune, and the rascals would persecute me; declared my friend Tickle, who stood enjoying the scene from a corner, was a young blood and intimate, who had just lent me a thousand dollars to pay a poor fellow who was in distress; and concluded by assuring him, that as I did not like being obliged to a man not a near kinsman, I would hand the sum back again, and borrow it of him if he had brought so much to town with him.

The warm welcome with which I began my speech greatly delighted my uncle's heart, as I saw; my apology for the appearance of the duns, it was evident, caused him to look upon me as a young fellow of great importance and distinction; the reference to the young blood who had just lent me a thousand dollars, confirmed his opinion of my lofty stand among the rich and fashionable; and to all these members of my discourse he hearkened with respect and satisfaction; but when I arrived at my climax, and professed a readiness to borrow that sum of himself, I thought his eyes would drop out of his head, they stared out so far. In a word, I perceived that, let him be as rich as he might, he was not the man to lend me money; for which reason I despised the relationship more than ever, and resolved to disown it as soon as my convenience would permit. But it was proper to make it useful at the present moment.

I turned round upon my duns, who were yet in confusion. "Gentlemen," said I, giving them a bow of dismission, "I will remember your claims; you may depend upon me; but at present, as you see, I must attend to those of my excellent uncle. You understand me, ehem."

"Ehem," said they all; and I thought they would have all turned somersets, so profound were their congees, as, one by one, they sneaked out of the room. The only ones who hesitated were my landlord, Nora Magee, and Snip the tailor. The first was probably overcome by a sense of having dunned me too hard, and despair of forgiveness; on which supposition I gave him a frown, and waved my hand, and he retired. As for Nora, she perhaps loitered to feast her eyes with the spectacle of the rich man, from whose pockets were to be drawn her ten dollars; but I gave her a wink (a very vulgar way of conveying a hint, I confess – but one can't be genteel with one's creditors), and she rolled smiling away. What kept the tailor I could not say; till, having given him divers significant looks and gestures, he began to drawl out, "Can't controvert no gentleman, but – " when I stepped up to him, took him by the arm, and led him from the apartment.

"What, you dog," said I, in a familiar, affectionate sort of way, as soon as I had him out of my uncle's hearing, "do you want to raise a hubbub, and put the old fellow in a passion? Come, you rogue, your fortune's made: – seven grown sons – seven broadcloth suits a year (extravagant dogs they!) – shall have them all, you shall, upon my honour: can twist the young apes round my finger, and you shall have'em. Seven times seven is forty-nine, seven fifties is three thousand and odd; 'ged and demmee, you'll make a fortune out of them!"

With that I pushed the giggling cormorant down stairs, and ran back to my uncle.

CHAPTER X.

SOME ACCOUNT OF SHEPPARD LEE'S COUNTRY KINSMEN

"Adieu!" said Tickle, giving me a nod, as much as to say, "Make the most of the old gentleman;" he then imitated the duns, and left me; a circumstance for which I was not sorry, for I was somewhat ashamed of my uncle.

"Fine-looking young fellow that," said Mr. Wilkins; "must be a rich dog to lend you a thousand dollars. But I say, Ikey – "

"Uncle Wiggins – that is, Wilkins," said I, "I beg you won't call me by any such vulgar nickname as Ikey. I can't abide nicknames; they are horrid plebeian."

"Ods bobs," said my uncle, "I call my son Sammy, Sammy and Sam too – "

"What," said I, "have you a son?"

"Ods bobs!" said he; "why, didn't you know? I say, nevvy, your dad and me was never good friends; proud as a turkey-cock – thought me a democrat and no great shakes, but I snapped up his sister though; and so there was never no love lost between us: never knew much about one another, especially him. But I say, nevvy, ods bobs, don't be a fool, and despise like your dad; could buy him six times over if he was alive, and don't suppose you're much richer; and don't value you a new pin. Don't pretend you didn't know I had a son; might as well say you didn't know I had a daughter."

The old gentleman looked somewhat incensed: I hastened to pacify him, by assuring him I had had a violent fit of sickness and lost my memory. I then drew from him without difficulty as much of his history and affairs as I cared to know.

Although of a vulgar stock, his face had, somehow or other, captivated the fancy of my father's sister, who very ungenteelly ran off with him, and accompanied him to some interior village of the state, where the happy swain sold tapes and sugar, that being his profession. Here, although discountenanced and despised by his wife's family, he gradually amassed wealth, and in course of time mightily increased it, by laying his hands on those four great staples of the Susquehanna, iron, lumber, coal, and whiskey. In fine, having scraped together enough for his purpose, he yielded to a design which his wife had first put into his plebeian head, and which his children, as they grew up, took care to stimulate into action: this was, to exchange his village for the metropolis, his musty warehouses for elegant saloons, and live, during the remainder of his life, a nabob and gentleman; and in this design, as I discovered, he expected to derive no little aid from my humble self, who, being, as he said, a gentleman cut and dried, and knowing to all such matters, could give him a hint or two about high life, and help his children, the hopeful Sammy and the interesting Pattie (for such were their horrid names), into good society. The first step of his design he had already taken, having wound up his business and got him to Philadelphia, with his brats, both of whom were now safely lodged in a hotel, burning to make the acquaintance of their fashionable cousin, my distinguished self; and to these worthy kinsfolk he proposed to carry me forthwith.

I debated the matter in my mind: Should I acknowledge the claims of a brace of rustics with two such names? Sammy Wilkins! Pattie Wilkins! I felt that an old coat or a patched shoe could not more endanger my reputation, than two cousins named Sammy and Pattie. But the old man was rich, and some good might arise from my condescension. I agreed to go with him, and asked him at what hotel he had put up.

"Oh," said he, "at a mighty fine place – the What-d'-ye-call-it, in Market-street."

"In Market-street!" said I, and I thought his nose looked more democratic than ever. "Horrible! vulgar beyond expression! How came you to stop in such a low place? Can't expect any decent man to go nigh you. Must carry you to Head's without a moment's delay, or you'll be ruined for ever."

"Ods bobs," said my uncle, "it's a very good tavern, with eating and drinking for a king; but if it's not fashionable, sha'n't stay there no longer; shall go with us, nevvy, and show us the way to What-d'-ye-call-it's. The hack will just hold four."

I go to a tavern in Market-street? The idea was offensive; and ride thither, and afterward, my three country kinsfolk with me, to Head's, in a hackney-coach! The Market-street tavern and the hackney-coach finished my uncle Wilkins. I suddenly recollected a highly important engagement, which would deprive me of the pleasure of going round with my excellent uncle that moment, to make the acquaintance of my worthy cousins; nay, I feared it would occupy me all that evening, being an engagement of a very peculiar nature. I would see them the next day, when they were safely lodged at Head's, whither I recommended Mr. Wilkins to proceed, bag and baggage, instanter. My uncle accepted my excuses, and agreed to follow my advice, with a ready docility that might have pleased me, seeing that it showed the respect in which he held me; but I perceived in it nothing more than a willingness to be put into leading-strings, arising from his consciousness of inferiority.

I got rid of him, and resolved I would consider the pros and cons before compromising my reputation by any public acknowledgment of relationship.

Then, being vastly tired by the varied business of the day, I threw myself on my bed, where I slept during the remainder of the day very soundly and agreeably.

CHAPTER XI.

CONTAINING A MORSEL OF METAPHYSICS, WITH A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR'S EXPERIENCE IN GOOD SOCIETY

I was roused about nine o'clock in the evening by Tickle, who came, according to promise, to squire me to Mrs. Pickup's and the Misses Oldstyle's; and dressing myself in Mr. Dawkin's best, I accompanied him forthwith to the mansion of the former.

It was yet summer, and the season of gayety was therefore afar off. All genteel people were, or were supposed to be, out of town, according to the rule which, at this season, drives the gentry of London to their country-seats. The few of Philadelphia who could imitate the lords and ladies in this particular, were now catching agues on the Schuylkill; while the mass, consisting of those whose revenues did not allow any rustication on their own lands, were killing sand-flies on the seashore, or gnawing tough beef and grumbling over bad butter at some fashionable watering-place in the interior. There were some, however, as there always are, who considered themselves genteel, and who stayed at home, either because they were tired of agues, sand-flies, tough beef, and bad butter, as they freely professed; because they really believed they were better off at home; or because they were, like me and my friend Tickle, not rich enough to squander their money on vanities, and so stayed at home from necessity.

Of such persons one can always, even in summer-time, assemble enough to make a party of some kind or other, where the contented guests can be uncommonly sociable, eat ices, and pity their friends, who may be at the moment roasting in a ball-room at Saratoga.

It was undoubtedly a great misfortune that I should make my first introduction to good society at a time when it was to be seen only in its minimum of splendour; whereby I lost the opportunity of being dazzled to the same degree in which I found myself capable of dazzling others. Nevertheless, I was vastly captivated by what I saw, and for the few brief weeks that my destiny permitted me to live among the refined and exclusive, I considered myself an uncommonly happy individual.

The reception I met at Mrs. Pickup's convinced me that, in entering Mr. Dawkins's body, I had done the wisest thing in the world; for, however much it endangered me with the tailors, it proved the best recommendation to the ladies. I found myself ushered into a suite of apartments magnificently furnished and lighted, and not so over crowded (for the season was taken into consideration) but that the moschetoes had room to exercise their talents. I thought I should be devoured by Mrs. Pickup, she was so amazingly glad to see me; but I perceived, by a sort of instinct I had acquired along with Dawkins's body, that there was something plebeian about her, although a very fine woman as far as appearances went; and, indeed, Tickle assured me she was a mere parvenue, or upstart, whom everybody despised, and whom no one would come nigh, were it not for her wealth, and the resolution she avowed to give six different balls of the most splendid character in the course of the season. She had a daughter, who was very handsome, and a decided speculation; but I did not think much of her, especially as I found she was already engaged to be married.

I found here that I knew everybody, or, what was the same thing, that everybody knew me; and, with Tickle's help, I soon found myself as much at home with Mr. I. D. Dawkins's fair acquaintances as if I had known them all my life. It was still, as it had been before, a virtue and peculiarity of my recollections, that they were always roused by a few words of conversation with any one known to my prototype; from which I infer, that the associations of the mind, as well as many of its other qualities, are more dependant upon causes in the body than metaphysicians are disposed to allow.

This dependance it has been my fate to know and feel more extensively, perhaps, than any other man that ever lived. The spirit of Sheppard Lee was widely different from those of John H. Higginson and I. D. Dawkins, as, I think, the reader must have already seen; and yet, no sooner had it entered the bodies of these two individuals, than the distinction was almost altogether lost. Certain it is, that in stepping into each, I found myself invested with new feelings, passions, and propensities – as it were, with a new mind – and retaining so little of my original character, that I was perhaps only a little better able to judge and reason on the actions performed in my new body, without being able to avoid them, even when sensible of their absurdity.

I do verily believe that much of the evil and good of man's nature arises from causes and influences purely physical; that valour and ambition are as often caused by a bad stomach as ill-humour by bad teeth; that Socrates, in Bonaparte's body, could scarce have been Socrates, although the combination might have produced a Timoleon or Washington; and, finally, that those sages who labour to improve the moral nature of their species, will effect their purpose only when they have physically improved the stock. Strong minds may be indeed operated upon without regard to bodily bias, and rendered independent of it; but ordinary spirits lie in their bodies like water in sponges, diffused through every part, affected by the part's affections, changed with its changes, and so intimately united with the fleshly matrix, that the mere cutting off of a leg, as I believe, will, in some cases, leave the spirit limping for life.

But, as I said before, I am not writing a dissertation on metaphysics, nor on morals either; and as my adventures will suggest such reflections to all who care to indulge them, I will omit them for the present, and hasten on with my story.

And here the reader may expect of me a description of those scenes and persons in fashionable life to which and whom I was now introduced; and if I valued the reader's approbation at a higher price than my own conscience and reputation, I should undoubtedly gratify him, by putting my imagination in requisition, and painting at once some dozen or two of such fanciful pictures as are found in novels of fashionable life, though never, I opine, in fashionable life itself. In such I should have occasion to represent gentlemen more elegant and witty, and ladies more charming and ethereal, than are to be found in any of the ordinary circles of society; but, as I am writing truth and not fiction, and represent things as I found, not as I imagined them, I declare that the ladies and gentlemen of the exclusive circles to which I was admitted, were very much like the ladies and gentlemen of other circles – that is, as elegant and witty as they could be, and as charming and celestial as it pleased Heaven: – and that, after due exercise of judgment and memory, I cannot, in the adventures of three whole weeks in such society, remember a single person or thing worth describing. For which reason I will pass on to more important matters.

CHAPTER XII.

SHEPPARD LEE MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF HIS COUSIN, MISS PATTIE WILKINS

Although I now look upon those three weeks of my life as three weeks of existence out of which I cheated myself, I was nevertheless so greatly delighted at first by the way in which I spent them, that I had almost forgotten my uncle Wilkins; and when I did think of him, it was only with renewed contempt and indifference. Finding, however, that the old fellow had called upon me three or four times during my absence from my lodgings, on as many different days, and remembering what he had said of his riches, it occurred to me that I might as well pay him a visit, were it only to satisfy Mr. Sniggles and Nora Magee, both of whom manifested great uneasiness at my undutiful conduct. It occurred to me, moreover, that although my uncle Wilkins was not a lending man, my cousin Sammy might be; and as I had now existed four different days without a single sixpence in my pocket, and began to be heartily ashamed of such a state of things, I thought it would be as well to pay the rustics a visit; and putting on a new coat which Snip had just sent me, to seal our reconciliation and secure my seven extravagant cousins, I started off forthwith.

As my evil luck would have it, I found the old gentleman on the point of setting out to pay me a fifth visit, and I had the satisfaction, just as I placed my foot on the porch of the hotel, in full view of some half a dozen respectable-looking people who were congregated there, to receive an embrace from Mr. Samuel Wilkins, with the old white fur hat, accompanied by a vocal salutation of, "Oho! Ikey, my boy, and so you have come, have you? Ods bobs, but I began to think you was ashamed of your relations.!"

"Not I," said I; "I am never ashamed of my relations." And I looked around me with dignity, so that all present might perceive I was condescending. I supposed I should find some of the spectators giggling, but was agreeably surprised when I beheld among them nothing but grave looks of respect. Indeed, two or three old gentlemen that I knew by sight, and who were what you call "stanch citizens" – that is, rich old fellows, not very genteel, but highly respected – made me low bows; and I heard one of them, as I passed with my uncle into the hotel, whisper to another, "It is the rich old rascal's nephew; quite a promising young man."

I began to feel a greater esteem for my uncle, for I saw that others respected him. Everybody seemed to know him and make way for him; seeing which, I grew more condescending than ever, and instantly began to apologize for my seeming neglect, by pleading that I had been engaged night and day in preparing the way for the admission of him and my cousins, Sammy and Pattie, into good society.

"You want a house in a fashionable quarter," said I —

"Ods bobs," said he, "yes; and I've been looking all over town, from the glass-works down to the navy-yard, and seen a power of them."