Chapter One

Martin Chuzzlewit

by Charles Dickens

INTRODUCTORY, CONCERNING THE PEDIGREE OF THE CHUZZLEWIT FAMILY

As no lady or gentleman, with any claims to polite breeding, can
possibly sympathize with the Chuzzlewit Family without being first
assured of the extreme antiquity of the race, it is a great
satisfaction to know that it undoubtedly descended in a direct line
from Adam and Eve; and was, in the very earliest times, closely
connected with the agricultural interest. If it should ever be urged
by grudging and malicious persons, that a Chuzzlewit, in any period
of the family history, displayed an overweening amount of family
pride, surely the weakness will be considered not only pardonable but
laudable, when the immense superiority of the house to the rest of
mankind, in respect of this its ancient origin, is taken into
account.

It is remarkable that as there was, in the oldest family of
which we have any record, a murderer and a vagabond, so we never fail
to meet, in the records of all old families, with innumerable
repetitions of the same phase of character. Indeed, it may be laid
down as a general principle, that the more extended the ancestry, the
greater the amount of violence and vagabondism; for in ancient days
those two amusements, combining a wholesome excitement with a
promising means of repairing shattered fortunes, were at once the
ennobling pursuit and the healthful recreation of the Quality of this
land.

Consequently, it is a source of inexpressible comfort and
happiness to find, that in various periods of our history, the
Chuzzlewits were actively connected with divers slaughterous
conspiracies and bloody frays. It is further recorded of them, that
being clad from head to heel in steel of proof, they did on many
occasions lead their leather-jerkined soldiers to the death with
invincible courage, and afterwards return home gracefully to their
relations and friends.

There can be no doubt that at least one Chuzzlewit came over
with William the Conqueror. It does not appear that this illustrious
ancestor 'came over' that monarch, to employ the vulgar phrase, at
any subsequent period; inasmuch as the Family do not seem to have
been ever greatly distinguished by the possession of landed estate.
And it is well known that for the bestowal of that kind of property
upon his favourites, the liberality and gratitude of the Norman were
as remarkable as those virtues are usually found to be in great men
when they give away what belongs to other people.

Perhaps in this place the history may pause to congratulate
itself upon the enormous amount of bravery, wisdom, eloquence,
virtue, gentle birth, and true nobility, that appears to have come
into England with the Norman Invasion: an amount which the genealogy
of every ancient family lends its aid to swell, and which would
beyond all question have been found to be just as great, and to the
full as prolific in giving birth to long lines of chivalrous
descendants, boastful of their origin, even though William the
Conqueror had been William the Conquered; a change of circumstances
which, it is quite certain, would have made no manner of difference
in this respect.

There was unquestionably a Chuzzlewit in the Gunpowder Plot, if
indeed the arch-traitor, Fawkes himself, were not a scion of this
remarkable stock; as he might easily have been, supposing another
Chuzzlewit to have emigrated to Spain in the previous generation, and
there intermarried with a Spanish lady, by whom he had issue, one
olive-complexioned son. This probable conjecture is strengthened, if
not absolutely confirmed, by a fact which cannot fail to be
interesting to those who are curious in tracing the progress of
hereditary tastes through the lives of their unconscious inheritors.
It is a notable circumstance that in these later times, many
Chuzzlewits, being unsuccessful in other pursuits, have, without the
smallest rational hope of enriching themselves, or any conceivable
reason, set up as coal-merchants; and have, month after month,
continued gloomily to watch a small stock of coals, without in any
one instance negotiating with a purchaser. The remarkable similarity
between this course of proceeding and that adopted by their Great
Ancestor beneath the vaults of the Parliament House at Westminster,
is too obvious and too full of interest, to stand in need of
comment.

It is also clearly proved by the oral traditions of the Family,
that there existed, at some one period of its history which is not
distinctly stated, a matron of such destructive principles, and so
familiarized to the use and composition of inflammatory and
combustible engines, that she was called 'The Match Maker;' by which
nickname and byword she is recognized in the Family legends to this
day. Surely there can be no reasonable doubt that this was the
Spanish lady, the mother of Chuzzlewit Fawkes.

But there is one other piece of evidence, bearing immediate
reference to their close connection with this memorable event in
English History, which must carry conviction, even to a mind (if such
a mind there be) remaining unconvinced by these presumptive
proofs.

There was, within a few years, in the possession of a highly
respectable and in every way credible and unimpeachable member of the
Chuzzlewit Family (for his bitterest enemy never dared to hint at his
being otherwise than a wealthy man), a dark lantern of undoubted
antiquity; rendered still more interesting by being, in shape and
pattern, extremely like such as are in use at the present day. Now
this gentleman, since deceased, was at all times ready to make oath,
and did again and again set forth upon his solemn asseveration, that
he had frequently heard his grandmother say, when contemplating this
venerable relic, 'Aye, aye! This was carried by my fourth son on the
fifth of November, when he was a Guy Fawkes.' These remarkable words
wrought (as well they might) a strong impression on his mind, and he
was in the habit of repeating them very often. The just
interpretation which they bear, and the conclusion to which they
lead, are triumphant and irresistible. The old lady, naturally
strong-minded, was nevertheless frail and fading; she was notoriously
subject to that confusion of ideas, or, to say the least, of speech,
to which age and garrulity are liable. The slight, the very slight,
confusion apparent in these expressions is manifest, and is
ludicrously easy of correction. 'Aye, aye,' quoth she, and it will
be observed that no emendation whatever is necessary to be made in
these two initiative remarks, 'Aye, aye! This lantern was carried by
my forefather'--not fourth son, which is preposterous--'on the fifth
of November. And he was Guy Fawkes.' Here we have a remark at once
consistent, clear, natural, and in strict accordance with the
character of the speaker. Indeed the anecdote is so plainly
susceptible of this meaning and no other, that it would be hardly
worth recording in its original state, were it not a proof of what
may be (and very often is) affected not only in historical prose but
in imaginative poetry, by the exercise of a little ingenious labour
on the part of a commentator.

It has been said that there is no instance, in modern times, of
a Chuzzlewit having been found on terms of intimacy with the Great.
But here again the sneering detractors who weave such miserable
figments from their malicious brains, are stricken dumb by evidence.
For letters are yet in the possession of various branches of the
family, from which it distinctly appears, being stated in so many
words, that one Diggory Chuzzlewit was in the habit of perpetually
dining with Duke Humphrey. So constantly was he a guest at that
nobleman's table, indeed; and so unceasingly were His Grace's
hospitality and companionship forced, as it were, upon him; that we
find him uneasy, and full of constraint and reluctance; writing his
friends to the effect that if they fail to do so and so by bearer, he
will have no choice but to dine again with Duke Humphrey; and
expressing himself in a very marked and extraordinary manner as one
surfeited of High Life and Gracious Company.

It has been rumoured, and it is needless to say the rumour
originated in the same base quarters, that a certain male Chuzzlewit,
whose birth must be admitted to be involved in some obscurity, was of
very mean and low descent. How stands the proof? When the son of
that individual, to whom the secret of his father's birth was
supposed to have been communicated by his father in his lifetime, lay
upon his deathbed, this question was put to him in a distinct,
solemn, and formal way: 'Toby Chuzzlewit, who was your grandfather?'
To which he, with his last breath, no less distinctly, solemnly, and
formally replied: and his words were taken down at the time, and
signed by six witnesses, each with his name and address in full: 'The
Lord No Zoo.' It may be said--it has been said, for human wickedness
has no limits--that there is no Lord of that name, and that among the
titles which have become extinct, none at all resembling this, in
sound even, is to be discovered. But what is the irresistible
inference? Rejecting a theory broached by some well-meaning but
mistaken persons, that this Mr Toby Chuzzlewit's grandfather, to
judge from his name, must surely have been a Mandarin (which is
wholly insupportable, for there is no pretence of his grandmother
ever having been out of this country, or of any Mandarin having been
in it within some years of his father's birth; except those in the
tea-shops, which cannot for a moment be regarded as having any
bearing on the question, one way or other), rejecting this
hypothesis, is it not manifest that Mr Toby Chuzzlewit had either
received the name imperfectly from his father, or that he had
forgotten it, or that he had mispronounced it? and that even at the
recent period in question, the Chuzzlewits were connected by a bend
sinister, or kind of heraldic over-the-left, with some unknown noble
and illustrious House?

From documentary evidence, yet preserved in the family, the fact
is clearly established that in the comparatively modern days of the
Diggory Chuzzlewit before mentioned, one of its members had attained
to very great wealth and influence. Throughout such fragments of his
correspondence as have escaped the ravages of the moths (who, in
right of their extensive absorption of the contents of deeds and
papers, may be called the general registers of the Insect World), we
find him making constant reference to an uncle, in respect of whom he
would seem to have entertained great expectations, as he was in the
habit of seeking to propitiate his favour by presents of plate,
jewels, books, watches, and other valuable articles. Thus, he writes
on one occasion to his brother in reference to a gravy-spoon, the
brother's property, which he (Diggory) would appear to have borrowed
or otherwise possessed himself of: 'Do not be angry, I have parted
with it--to my uncle.' On another occasion he expresses himself in a
similar manner with regard to a child's mug which had been entrusted
to him to get repaired. On another occasion he says, 'I have
bestowed upon that irresistible uncle of mine everything I ever
possessed.' And that he was in the habit of paying long and constant
visits to this gentleman at his mansion, if, indeed, he did not
wholly reside there, is manifest from the following sentence: 'With
the exception of the suit of clothes I carry about with me, the whole
of my wearing apparel is at present at my uncle's.' This gentleman's
patronage and influence must have been very extensive, for his nephew
writes, 'His interest is too high'--'It is too much' --'It is
tremendous'--and the like. Still it does not appear (which is
strange) to have procured for him any lucrative post at court or
elsewhere, or to have conferred upon him any other distinction than
that which was necessarily included in the countenance of so great a
man, and the being invited by him to certain entertainment's, so
splendid and costly in their nature, that he calls them 'Golden
Balls.'

It is needless to multiply instances of the high and lofty
station, and the vast importance of the Chuzzlewits, at different
periods. If it came within the scope of reasonable probability that
further proofs were required, they might be heaped upon each other
until they formed an Alps of testimony, beneath which the boldest
scepticism should be crushed and beaten flat. As a goodly tumulus is
already collected, and decently battened up above the Family grave,
the present chapter is content to leave it as it is: merely adding,
by way of a final spadeful, that many Chuzzlewits, both male and
female, are proved to demonstration, on the faith of letters written
by their own mothers, to have had chiselled noses, undeniable chins,
forms that might have served the sculptor for a model,
exquisitely-turned limbs and polished foreheads of so transparent a
texture that the blue veins might be seen branching off in various
directions, like so many roads on an ethereal map. This fact in
itself, though it had been a solitary one, would have utterly settled
and clenched the business in hand; for it is well known, on the
authority of all the books which treat of such matters, that every
one of these phenomena, but especially that of the chiselling, are
invariably peculiar to, and only make themselves apparent in, persons
of the very best condition.

This history having, to its own perfect satisfaction, (and,
consequently, to the full contentment of all its readers,) proved the
Chuzzlewits to have had an origin, and to have been at one time or
other of an importance which cannot fail to render them highly
improving and acceptable acquaintance to all right-minded
individuals, may now proceed in earnest with its task. And having
shown that they must have had, by reason of their ancient birth, a
pretty large share in the foundation and increase of the human
family, it will one day become its province to submit, that such of
its members as shall be introduced in these pages, have still many
counterparts and prototypes in the Great World about us. At present
it contents itself with remarking, in a general way, on this head:
Firstly, that it may be safely asserted, and yet without implying any
direct participation in the Manboddo doctrine touching the
probability of the human race having once been monkeys, that men do
play very strange and extraordinary tricks. Secondly, and yet
without trenching on the Blumenbach theory as to the descendants of
Adam having a vast number of qualities which belong more particularly
to swine than to any other class of animals in the creation, that
some men certainly are remarkable for taking uncommon good care of
themselves.