Bleak House - Charles Dickens (read this if txt) 📗

gaiety and

freshness, was always delightful. But though I liked him more and

more the better I knew him, I still felt more and more how much it

was to be regretted that he had been educated in no habits of

application and concentration. The system which had addressed him

in exactly the same manner as it had addressed hundreds of other

boys, all varying in character and capacity, had enabled him to

dash through his tasks, always with fair credit and often with

distinction, but in a fitful, dazzling way that had confirmed his

reliance on those very qualities in himself which it had been most

desirable to direct and train. They were good qualities, without

which no high place can be meritoriously won, but like fire and

water, though excellent servants, they were very bad masters. If

they had been under Richard’s direction, they would have been his

friends; but Richard being under their direction, they became his

enemies.

 

I write down these opinions not because I believe that this or any

other thing was so because I thought so, but only because I did

think so and I want to be quite candid about all I thought and did.

These were my thoughts about Richard. I thought I often observed

besides how right my guardian was in what he had said, and that the

uncertainties and delays of the Chancery suit had imparted to his

nature something of the careless spirit of a gamester who felt that

he was part of a great gaming system.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger coming one afternoon when my guardian

was not at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired

after Richard.

 

“Why, Mr. Carstone,” said Mrs. Badger, “is very well and is, I

assure you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser

used to say of me that I was always better than land a-head and a

breeze a-starn to the midshipmen’s mess when the purser’s junk had

become as tough as the fore-topsel weather earings. It was his

naval way of mentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any

society. I may render the same tribute, I am sure, to Mr.

Carstone. But I—you won’t think me premature if I mention it?”

 

I said no, as Mrs. Badger’s insinuating tone seemed to require such

an answer.

 

“Nor Miss Clare?” said Mrs. Bayham Badger sweetly.

 

Ada said no, too, and looked uneasy.

 

“Why, you see, my dears,” said Mrs. Badger, “—you’ll excuse me

calling you my dears?”

 

We entreated Mrs. Badger not to mention it.

 

“Because you really are, if I may take the liberty of saying so,”

pursued Mrs. Badger, “so perfectly charming. You see, my dears,

that although I am still young—or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the

compliment of saying so—”

 

“No,” Mr. Badger called out like some one contradicting at a public

meeting. “Not at all!”

 

“Very well,” smiled Mrs. Badger, “we will say still young.”

 

“Undoubtedly,” said Mr. Badger.

 

“My dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of

observing young men. There were many such on board the dear old

Crippler, I assure you. After that, when I was with Captain

Swosser in the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of

knowing and befriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser’s

command. YOU never heard them called the young gentlemen, my

dears, and probably would not understand allusions to their

pipe-claying their weekly accounts, but it is otherwise with me, for

blue water has been a second home to me, and I have been quite a

sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo.”

 

“A man of European reputation,” murmured Mr. Badger.

 

“When I lost my dear first and became the wife of my dear second,”

said Mrs. Badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were

parts of a charade, “I still enjoyed opportunities of observing

youth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo’s lectures was a

large one, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent

scientific man seeking herself in science the utmost consolation it

could impart, to throw our house open to the students as a kind of

Scientific Exchange. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and

a mixed biscuit for all who chose to partake of those refreshments.

And there was science to an unlimited extent.”

 

“Remarkable assemblies those, Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Badger

reverentially. “There must have been great intellectual friction

going on there under the auspices of such a man!”

 

“And now,” pursued Mrs. Badger, “now that I am the wife of my dear

third, Mr. Badger, I still pursue those habits of observation which

were formed during the lifetime of Captain Swosser and adapted to

new and unexpected purposes during the lifetime of Professor Dingo.

I therefore have not come to the consideration of Mr. Carstone as a

neophyte. And yet I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he

has not chosen his profession advisedly.”

 

Ada looked so very anxious now that I asked Mrs. Badger on what she

founded her supposition.

 

“My dear Miss Summerson,” she replied, “on Mr. Carstone’s character

and conduct. He is of such a very easy disposition that probably

he would never think it worth-while to mention how he really feels,

but he feels languid about the profession. He has not that

positive interest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any

decided impression in reference to it, I should say it was that it

is a tiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men like

Mr. Allan Woodcourt who take it from a strong interest in all that

it can do will find some reward in it through a great deal of work

for a very little money and through years of considerable endurance

and disappointment. But I am quite convinced that this would never

be the case with Mr. Carstone.”

 

“Does Mr. Badger think so too?” asked Ada timidly.

 

“Why,” said Mr. Badger, “to tell the truth, Miss Clare, this view

of the matter had not occurred to me until Mrs. Badger mentioned

it. But when Mrs. Badger put it in that light, I naturally gave

great consideration to it, knowing that Mrs. Badger’s mind, in

addition to its natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of

being formed by two such very distinguished (I will even say

illustrious) public men as Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy and

Professor Dingo. The conclusion at which I have arrived is—in

short, is Mrs. Badger’s conclusion.”

 

“It was a maxim of Captain Swosser’s,” said Mrs. Badger, “speaking

in his figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you

cannot make it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank,

you should swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to

me that this maxim is applicable to the medical as well as to the

nautical profession.

 

“To all professions,” observed Mr. Badger. “It was admirably said

by Captain Swosser. Beautifully said.”

 

“People objected to Professor Dingo when we were staying in the

north of Devon after our marriage,” said Mrs. Badger, “that he

disfigured some of the houses and other buildings by chipping off

fragments of those edifices with his little geological hammer. But

the professor replied that he knew of no building save the Temple

of Science. The principle is the same, I think?”

 

“Precisely the same,” said Mr. Badger. “Finely expressed! The

professor made the same remark, Miss Summerson, in his last

illness, when (his mind wandering) he insisted on keeping his

little hammer under the pillow and chipping at the countenances of

the attendants. The ruling passion!”

 

Although we could have dispensed with the length at which Mr. and

Mrs. Badger pursued the conversation, we both felt that it was

disinterested in them to express the opinion they had communicated

to us and that there was a great probability of its being sound.

We agreed to say nothing to Mr. Jarndyce until we had spoken to

Richard; and as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a

very serious talk with him.

 

So after he had been a little while with Ada, I went in and found

my darling (as I knew she would be) prepared to consider him

thoroughly right in whatever he said.

 

“And how do you get on, Richard?” said I. I always sat down on the

other side of him. He made quite a sister of me.

 

“Oh! Well enough!” said Richard.

 

“He can’t say better than that, Esther, can he?” cried my pet

triumphantly.

 

I tried to look at my pet in the wisest manner, but of course I

couldn’t.

 

“Well enough?” I repeated.

 

“Yes,” said Richard, “well enough. It’s rather jog-trotty and

humdrum. But it’ll do as well as anything else!”

 

“Oh! My dear Richard!” I remonstrated.

 

“What’s the matter?” said Richard.

 

“Do as well as anything else!”

 

“I don’t think there’s any harm in that, Dame Durden,” said Ada,

looking so confidingly at me across him; “because if it will do as

well as anything else, it will do very well, I hope.”

 

“Oh, yes, I hope so,” returned Richard, carelessly tossing his hair

from his forehead. “After all, it may be only a kind of probation

till our suit is—I forgot though. I am not to mention the suit.

Forbidden ground! Oh, yes, it’s all right enough. Let us talk

about something else.”

 

Ada would have done so willingly, and with a full persuasion that

we had brought the question to a most satisfactory state. But I

thought it would be useless to stop there, so I began again.

 

“No, but Richard,” said I, “and my dear Ada! Consider how

important it is to you both, and what a point of honour it is

towards your cousin, that you, Richard, should be quite in earnest

without any reservation. I think we had better talk about this,

really, Ada. It will be too late very soon.”

 

“Oh, yes! We must talk about it!” said Ada. “But I think Richard

is right.”

 

What was the use of my trying to look wise when she was so pretty,

and so engaging, and so fond of him!

 

“Mr. and Mrs. Badger were here yesterday, Richard,” said I, “and

they seemed disposed to think that you had no great liking for the

profession.”

 

“Did they though?” said Richard. “Oh! Well, that rather alters the

case, because I had no idea that they thought so, and I should not

have liked to disappoint or inconvenience them. The fact is, I

don’t care much about it. But, oh, it don’t matter! It’ll do as

well as anything else!”

 

“You hear him, Ada!” said I.

 

“The fact is,” Richard proceeded, half thoughtfully and half

jocosely, “it is not quite in my way. I don’t take to it. And I

get too much of Mrs. Bayham Badger’s first and second.”

 

“I am sure THAT’S very natural!” cried Ada, quite delighted. “The

very thing we both said yesterday, Esther!”

 

“Then,” pursued Richard, “it’s monotonous, and to-day is too like

yesterday, and to-morrow is too like to-day.”

 

“But I am afraid,” said I, “this is an objection to all kinds of

application—to life itself, except under some very uncommon

circumstances.”

 

“Do you think so?” returned Richard, still considering. “Perhaps!

Ha! Why, then, you know,” he added, suddenly becoming gay again,

“we travel outside a circle to what I said just now. It’ll do as

well as anything else. Oh, it’s all right enough! Let us talk

about something else.”

 

But even Ada, with her loving face—and if it had seemed innocent

and trusting when I first saw it in that memorable