 | CHAPTER II.
The happy condition in which Sheppard Lee is at last placed. Sheppard Lee |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
The happy condition in which Sheppard Lee is at last placed.
If there be among my readers any person so
discontented with his lot that he would be glad to
exchange conditions with another, I think, had
would have desired an exchange with him above
all other persons in the world; for Mr. Megrim
possessed all those requisites which are thought to
ensure happiness to a human being. He was young,
rich, and independent; of a good family (he boasted
the chivalrous blood of the Megrims); of a
sound body, and serene temper; and with no appetite
for those excesses which ruin the reputation,
while they debase the minds and destroy the peace
of youth. His years, as I have mentioned already,
were twenty-five or six; his revenues were far
above his wants, and enabled him to support his
town-house, which was the most elegant one in the
village, where he lived remote from the care and
trouble of his plantations; and as for independence,
that was manifestly complete, he being a bachelor,
and the sole surviver of his family, excepting only
his sister, Miss Ann Megrim, who managed his
household, and thus took from his mind the only
care that could otherwise have disturbed it.
What then in the whole world had Mr. Megrim
to trouble him? Nothing on earth—and for that
reason, to speak paradoxically, he was more
troubled than any one else on earth. Labour, pain,
and care—the evils which men are so apt to censure
Providence for entailing upon the race—I have
had experience enough to know, are essential to
the true enjoyment of life, serving, like salt, pepper,
mustard, and other condiments and spices, which
are, by themselves, ungrateful to the palate, to give
without them. Who enjoys health—who is so
sensible of the rapture of being well, as he who
has just been relieved from sickness? Who can
appreciate the delightful luxury of repose so well
as the labourer released from his daily toil? Who,
in fine, tastes of the bliss of happiness like him
who is introduced to it after a probation of suffering?
The surest way to cure a boy of a love of
cakes and comfils, is to put him apprentice to a
confectioner. The truth is, that the sweets of life,
enjoyed by themselves, are just as disgusting as
the bitters, and can only be properly relished when
alternated or mingled with the latter.
But as this is philosophy, and the reader will
skip it, I will pursue the subject no further, but
jump at once from the principle to the practical illustration,
as seen in my history while a resident in
the body of Mr. Arthur Megrim.
I was, on the sudden, a rich young man, with
nothing on earth to trouble me. I had lands and
houses, rich plantations, a nation or two of negroes,
herds of sheep and cattle, with mills, fisheries, and
some half dozen or more gold-mines, which last—
and it may be considered, out of Virginia, a wondrous
evidence of my wealth—were decidedly the
least valuable of all my possessions. With all
these things I was made acquainted by my sister
Ann, or otherwise, it is highly probable, I should
have known nothing about them; for during the
whole period of my seventh existence, I confined
the least curiosity to visit my plantations, which, as
everybody told me, were in good hands.
In the village itself I had every thing about me
to secure happiness—a fine house, abundance of
servants, the whole under the management of the
best of housekeepers, my sister Ann, with horses
and carriages—for which, however, I cared but little,
thinking it laborious to ride, and as tedious to be
driven—and, above all, friends without number,
who treated me with a respect amounting to veneration
(for, it must be remembered, I was the richest
man in the county), and with a degree of affection
little short of idolatry; but whom, however, I
thought very troublesome, tiresome people, seeing
that they visited me too often, and wearied me to
death with long conversations about every thing.
Among them all, there was but one for whom I
felt any friendship; and he was a young doctor
named Tibbikens, for whom my sister Ann had a
great respect, and who had been retained by her to
assist in taking care of my digestive apparatus—
that same digestive apparatus of mine being a hobby
on which my sister lavished more thought and
anxiety than I believe she did upon her own soul
—not meaning to reflect upon her religion, however,
for she was a member of the Presbyterian
church, and quite devout about the time of communion.
The cause of her solicitude, as she gave
me frequent opportunity to know by her allusion to
the fact, was her having been once afflicted in her
which it had been the good fortune of Doctor
Tibbikens to cure by a regimen of bran bread and
hickory ashes water; and hence her affection for
the doctor and the remedy. I liked the doctor myself
because he had the same solicitude about my
health, without troubling me with advice except
when I asked it, or finding much fault when I did
not follow it; because his conversation was agreeable,
except when he was in a scientific humour,
and did not require any efforts on my part to keep
it up; because he liked terapins and white-backs
as well as myself, and was of opinion they were
wholesome, provided one ate them in moderation;
and, in fine, because he took pains to help me to
amusement, and was of great assistance in dissipating
somewhat of that tedium which was the first
evil with which I was afflicted in the body of Mr.
Arthur Megrim. I believe the doctor had a strong
fancy for my sister; but she used to declare she
could never think of marrying, and thus being
drawn from what she felt to be the chief duty of
her existence, namely—the care of my digestive
apparatus.
| CHAPTER II.
The happy condition in which Sheppard Lee is at last placed. Sheppard Lee | |