Chapter 1

by Charles Dickens

　　Introduces all the RestThere once lived, in a sequestered part of the county of Devonshire,one Mr Godfrey Nickleby: a worthy gentleman, who, taking it into hishead rather late in life that he must get married, and not beingyoung enough or rich enough to aspire to the hand of a lady offortune, had wedded an old flame out of mere attachment, who in herturn had taken him for the same reason. Thus two people who cannotafford to play cards for money, sometimes sit down to a quiet gamefor love.Some ill-conditioned persons who sneer at the life-matrimonial, mayperhaps suggest, in this place, that the good couple would be betterlikened to two principals in a sparring match, who, when fortune islow and backers scarce, will chivalrously set to, for the merepleasure of the buffeting; and in one respect indeed this comparisonwould hold good; for, as the adventurous pair of the Fives' Courtwill afterwards send round a hat, and trust to the bounty of thelookers-on for the means of regaling themselves, so Mr GodfreyNickleby and his partner, the honeymoon being over, looked outwistfully into the world, relying in no inconsiderable degree uponchance for the improvement of their means. Mr Nickleby's income, atthe period of his marriage, fluctuated between sixty and eightypounds per annum.There are people enough in the world, Heaven knows! and even inLondon (where Mr Nickleby dwelt in those days) but few complaintsprevail, of the population being scanty. It is extraordinary howlong a man may look among the crowd without discovering the face ofa friend, but it is no less true. Mr Nickleby looked, and looked,till his eyes became sore as his heart, but no friend appeared; andwhen, growing tired of the search, he turned his eyes homeward, hesaw very little there to relieve his weary vision. A painter whohas gazed too long upon some glaring colour, refreshes his dazzledsight by looking upon a darker and more sombre tint; but everythingthat met Mr Nickleby's gaze wore so black and gloomy a hue, that hewould have been beyond description refreshed by the very reverse ofthe contrast.At length, after five years, when Mrs Nickleby had presented herhusband with a couple of sons, and that embarassed gentleman,impressed with the necessity of making some provision for hisfamily, was seriously revolving in his mind a little commercialspeculation of insuring his life next quarter-day, and then fallingfrom the top of the Monument by accident, there came, one morning,by the general post, a black-bordered letter to inform him how hisuncle, Mr Ralph Nickleby, was dead, and had left him the bulk of hislittle property, amounting in all to five thousand pounds sterling.As the deceased had taken no further notice of his nephew in hislifetime, than sending to his eldest boy (who had been christenedafter him, on desperate speculation) a silver spoon in a moroccocase, which, as he had not too much to eat with it, seemed a kind ofsatire upon his having been born without that useful article ofplate in his mouth, Mr Godfrey Nickleby could, at first, scarcelybelieve the tidings thus conveyed to him. On examination, however,they turned out to be strictly correct. The amiable old gentleman,it seemed, had intended to leave the whole to the Royal HumaneSociety, and had indeed executed a will to that effect; but theInstitution, having been unfortunate enough, a few months before, tosave the life of a poor relation to whom he paid a weekly allowanceof three shillings and sixpence, he had, in a fit of very naturalexasperation, revoked the bequest in a codicil, and left it all toMr Godfrey Nickleby; with a special mention of his indignation, notonly against the society for saving the poor relation's life, butagainst the poor relation also, for allowing himself to be saved.With a portion of this property Mr Godfrey Nickleby purchased asmall farm, near Dawlish in Devonshire, whither he retired with hiswife and two children, to live upon the best interest he could getfor the rest of his money, and the little produce he could raisefrom his land. The two prospered so well together that, when hedied, some fifteen years after this period, and some five after hiswife, he was enabled to leave, to his eldest son, Ralph, threethousand pounds in cash, and to his youngest son, Nicholas, onethousand and the farm, which was as small a landed estate as onewould desire to see.These two brothers had been brought up together in a school atExeter; and, being accustomed to go home once a week, had oftenheard, from their mother's lips, long accounts of their father'ssufferings in his days of poverty, and of their deceased uncle'simportance in his days of affluence: which recitals produced a verydifferent impression on the two: for, while the younger, who was ofa timid and retiring disposition, gleaned from thence nothing butforewarnings to shun the great world and attach himself to the quietroutine of a country life, Ralph, the elder, deduced from the often-repeated tale the two great morals that riches are the only truesource of happiness and power, and that it is lawful and just tocompass their acquisition by all means short of felony. 'And,'reasoned Ralph with himself, 'if no good came of my uncle's moneywhen he was alive, a great deal of good came of it after he wasdead, inasmuch as my father has got it now, and is saving it up forme, which is a highly virtuous purpose; and, going back to the oldgentleman, good did come of it to him too, for he had the pleasureof thinking of it all his life long, and of being envied and courtedby all his family besides.' And Ralph always wound up these mentalsoliloquies by arriving at the conclusion, that there was nothinglike money.Not confining himself to theory, or permitting his faculties torust, even at that early age, in mere abstract speculations, thispromising lad commenced usurer on a limited scale at school; puttingout at good interest a small capital of slate-pencil and marbles,and gradually extending his operations until they aspired to thecopper coinage of this realm, in which he speculated to considerableadvantage. Nor did he trouble his borrowers with abstractcalculations of figures, or references to ready-reckoners; hissimple rule of interest being all comprised in the one goldensentence, 'two-pence for every half-penny,' which greatly simplifiedthe accounts, and which, as a familiar precept, more easily acquiredand retained in the memory than any known rule of arithmetic, cannotbe too strongly recommended to the notice of capitalists, both largeand small, and more especially of money-brokers and bill-discounters. Indeed, to do these gentlemen justice, many of themare to this day in the frequent habit of adopting it, with eminentsuccess.In like manner, did young Ralph Nickleby avoid all those minute andintricate calculations of odd days, which nobody who has worked sumsin simple-interest can fail to have found most embarrassing, byestablishing the one general rule that all sums of principal andinterest should be paid on pocket-money day, that is to say, onSaturday: and that whether a loan were contracted on the Monday, oron the Friday, the amount of interest should be, in both cases, thesame. Indeed he argued, and with great show of reason, that itought to be rather more for one day than for five, inasmuch as theborrower might in the former case be very fairly presumed to be ingreat extremity, otherwise he would not borrow at all with such oddsagainst him. This fact is interesting, as illustrating the secretconnection and sympathy which always exist between great minds.Though Master Ralph Nickleby was not at that time aware of it, theclass of gentlemen before alluded to, proceed on just the sameprinciple in all their transactions.From what we have said of this young gentleman, and the naturaladmiration the reader will immediately conceive of his character, itmay perhaps be inferred that he is to be the hero of the work whichwe shall presently begin. To set this point at rest, for once andfor ever, we hasten to undeceive them, and stride to its commencement.On the death of his father, Ralph Nickleby, who had been some timebefore placed in a mercantile house in London, applied himselfpassionately to his old pursuit of money-getting, in which hespeedily became so buried and absorbed, that he quite forgot hisbrother for many years; and if, at times, a recollection of his oldplayfellow broke upon him through the haze in which he lived--forgold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his oldsenses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal--itbrought along with it a companion thought, that if they wereintimate he would want to borrow money of him. So, Mr Ralph Nicklebyshrugged his shoulders, and said things were better as they were.As for Nicholas, he lived a single man on the patrimonial estateuntil he grew tired of living alone, and then he took to wife thedaughter of a neighbouring gentleman with a dower of one thousandpounds. This good lady bore him two children, a son and a daughter,and when the son was about nineteen, and the daughter fourteen, asnear as we can guess--impartial records of young ladies' agesbeing, before the passing of the new act, nowhere preserved in theregistries of this country--Mr Nickleby looked about him for themeans of repairing his capital, now sadly reduced by this increasein his family, and the expenses of their education.'Speculate with it,' said Mrs Nickleby.'Spec--u--late, my dear?' said Mr Nickleby, as though in doubt.'Why not?' asked Mrs Nickleby.'Because, my dear, if we should lose it,' rejoined Mr Nickleby, whowas a slow and time-taking speaker, 'if we should lose it, we shallno longer be able to live, my dear.''Fiddle,' said Mrs Nickleby.'I am not altogether sure of that, my dear,' said Mr Nickleby.'There's Nicholas,' pursued the lady, 'quite a young man--it's timehe was in the way of doing something for himself; and Kate too, poorgirl, without a penny in the world. Think of your brother! Wouldhe be what he is, if he hadn't speculated?''That's true,' replied Mr Nickleby. 'Very good, my dear. Yes. Iwill speculate, my dear.'Speculation is a round game; the players see little or nothing oftheir cards at first starting; gains may be great--and so maylosses. The run of luck went against Mr Nickleby. A maniaprevailed, a bubble burst, four stock-brokers took villa residencesat Florence, four hundred nobodies were ruined, and among them MrNickleby.'The very house I live in,' sighed the poor gentleman, 'may be takenfrom me tomorrow. Not an article of my old furniture, but will besold to strangers!'The last reflection hurt him so much, that he took at once to hisbed; apparently resolved to keep that, at all events.'Cheer up, sir!' said the apothecary.'You mustn't let yourself be cast down, sir,' said the nurse.'Such things happen every day,' remarked the lawyer.'And it is very sinful to rebel against them,' whispered theclergyman.'And what no man with a family ought to do,' added the neighbours.Mr Nickleby shook his head, and motioning them all out of the room,embraced his wife and children, and having pressed them by turns tohis languidly beating heart, sunk exhausted on his pillow. Theywere concerned to find that his reason went astray after this; forhe babbled, for a long time, about the generosity and goodness ofhis brother, and the merry old times when they were at schooltogether. This fit of wandering past, he solemnly commended them toOne who never deserted the widow or her fatherless children, and,smiling gently on them, turned upon his face, and observed, that hethought he could fall asleep.