

                                Tobias Smollett

                       The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle

                                   Chapter I

An Account of Mr. Gamaliel Pickle. The Disposition of his Sister described. He
yields to her Sollicitations, and retires to the Country
 
In a certain county of England, bounded on one side by the sea, and at the
distance of one hundred miles from the metropolis, lived Gamaliel Pickle Esq;
the father of that hero whose adventures we propose to record. He was the son of
a merchant in London, who (like Rome) from small beginnings, had raised himself
to the highest honours of the city, and acquired a plentiful fortune, tho', to
his infinite regret, he died before it amounted to a Plum, conjuring his son, as
he respected the last injunction of a parent, to imitate his industry and adhere
to his maxims, until he should have made up the deficiency, which was a sum
considerably less than fifteen thousand pounds.
    This pathetic remonstrance had the desired effect upon his representative,
who spared no pains to fulfil the request of the deceased; but exerted all the
capacity with which nature had endowed him, in a series of efforts, which,
however, did not succeed; for, by that time he had been fifteen years in trade,
he found himself five thousand pounds worse than he was when he first took
possession of his father's effects: a circumstance that affected him so nearly,
as to detach his inclinations from business, and induce him to retire from the
world, to some place where he might at leisure deplore his misfortunes, and, by
frugality, secure himself from want, and the apprehensions of a jail, with which
his imagination was incessantly haunted. He was often heard to express his fears
of coming upon the parish; and to bless God, that, on account of his having been
so long a housekeeper, he was intitled to that provision. In short, his talents
were not naturally active, and there was a sort of inconsistency in his
character; for, with all the desire of amassing which any citizen could possibly
entertain, he was encumbered by a certain indolence and sluggishness that
prevailed over every interested consideration, and even hindered him from
profiting by that singleness of apprehension, and moderation of appetites, which
have so frequently conduced to the acquisition of immense fortunes, and which he
possessed in a very remarkable degree. Nature, in all probability, had mixed
little or nothing inflammable in his composition; or, whatever seeds of excess
she might have sown within him, were effectually stifled and destroyed by the
austerity of his education.
    The sallies of his youth, far
