Isaac Bickerstaff | Page 7

being praiseworthy? To be only innocent is not
to be virtuous! He afterwards spoke so much against Mrs. Dipple's
forehead, Mrs. Prim's mouth, Mrs. Dentifrice's teeth, and Mrs. Fidget's
cheeks that she grew downright in love with him; for it is always to be
understood that a lady takes all you detract from the rest of her sex to
be a gift to her. In a word, things went so far that I was dismissed. The
next, as I said, I went to was a common swearer. Never was a creature
so puzzled as myself when I came first to view his brain; half of it was
worn out, and filled up with mere expletives that had nothing to do with
any other parts of the texture; therefore, when he called for his clothes
in a morning, he would cry, 'John!' John does not answer. 'What a
plague! nobody there? What the devil, and rot me, John, for a lazy dog
as you are!' I knew no way to cure him but by writing down all he said
one morning as he was dressing, and laying it before him on the toilet
when he came to pick his teeth. The last recital I gave him of what he
said for half an hour before was, 'What, the devil! where is the washball?
call the chairmen! d--n them, I warrant they are at the alehouse already!
zounds! and confound them!' When he came to the glass he takes up
my note--'Ha! this fellow is worse than me: what, does he swear with
pen and ink?' But, reading on, he found them to be his own words. The
stratagem had so good an effect upon him that he grew immediately a

new man, and is learning to speak without an oath; which makes him
extremely short in his phrases; for, as I observed before, a common
swearer has a brain without any idea on the swearing side; therefore my
ward has yet mighty little to say, and is forced to substitute some other
vehicle of nonsense to supply the defect of his usual expletives. When I
left him, he made use of 'Odsbodikins! Oh me! and Never stir alive!'
and so forth; which gave me hopes of his recovery. So I went to the
next I told you of, the gamester. When we first take our place about a
man, the receptacles of the pericranium are immediately searched. In
his I found no one ordinary trace of thinking; but strong passion,
violent desires, and a continued series of different changes had torn it to
pieces. There appeared no middle condition; the triumph of a prince, or
the misery of a beggar, were his alternate states. I was with him no
longer than one day, which was yesterday. In the morning at twelve we
were worth four thousand pounds; at three, we were arrived at six
thousand; half an hour after, we were reduced to one thousand; at four
of the clock, we were down to two hundred; at five, to fifty; at six, to
five; at seven, to one guinea; the next bet to nothing. This morning he
borrowed half a crown of the maid who cleans his shoes, and is now
gaming in Lincoln's Inn Fields among the boys for farthings and
oranges, till he has made up three pieces, and then he returns to White's
into the best company in town."
Thus ended our first discourse; and it is hoped that you will forgive me
that I have picked so little out of my companion at our first interview.
In the next it is possible he may tell me more pleasing incidents; for
though he is a familiar, he is not an evil, spirit.

III.--PACOLET'S STORY.
From my own Apartment, May 12.
I have taken a resolution hereafter, on any want of intelligence, to carry
my Familiar abroad with me, who has promised to give me very proper
and just notices of persons and things, to make up the history of the
passing day. He is wonderfully skilful in the knowledge of men and

manners, which has made me more than ordinarily curious to know
how he came to that perfection, and I communicated to him that doubt.
"Mr. Pacolet," said I, "I am mightily surprised to see you so good a
judge of our nature and circumstances, since you are a mere spirit, and
have no knowledge of the bodily part of us." He answered, smiling,
"You are mistaken; I have been one of you, and lived a month amongst
you, which gives me an exact sense of your condition. You are to know
that all who enter into human life have a certain date or stamen given to
their being which they only who die of age may be