Mr. Midshipman Easy

Mr. Midshipman Easy

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Title: Mr. Midshipman Easy
Author: Frederick Marryat
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MR MIDSHIPMAN EASY By FREDERICK MARRYAT
(1792-1848)

CHAPTER I
Which the reader will find very easy to read.
MR NICODEMUS EASY was a gentleman who lived down in
Hampshire; he was a married man, and in very easy circumstances.
Most couples find it very easy to have a family, but not always quite so
easy to maintain them. Mr Easy was not at all uneasy on the latter score,
as he had no children; but he was anxious to have them, as most people
covet what they cannot obtain. After ten years, Mr Easy gave it up as a
bad job. Philosophy is said to console a man under disappointment,
although Shakespeare asserts that it is no remedy for toothache; so Mr
Easy turned philosopher, the very best profession a man can take up,
when he is fit for nothing else; he must be a very incapable person
indeed who cannot talk nonsense. For some time, Mr Easy could not
decide upon what description his nonsense should consist of; at last he
fixed upon the rights of man, equality, and all that; how every person
was born to inherit his share of the earth, a right at present only
admitted to a certain length; that is, about six feet, for we all inherit our
graves and are allowed to take possession without dispute. But no one
would listen to Mr Easy's philosophy. The women would not
acknowledge the rights of men, whom they declared always to be in the
wrong; and, as the gentlemen who visited Mr Easy were all men of
property, they could not perceive the advantages of sharing with those
who had none. However, they allowed him to discuss the question,
while they discussed his port wine. The wine was good, if the
arguments were not, and we must take things as we find them in this

world.
While Mr Easy talked philosophy, Mrs Easy played patience, and they
were a very happy couple, riding side by side on their hobbies, and
never interfering with each other. Mr Easy knew his wife could not
understand him, and therefore did not expect her to listen very
attentively; and Mrs Easy did not care how much her husband talked,
provided she was not put out in her game. Mutual forbearance will
always ensure domestic felicity.
There was another cause for their agreeing so well. Upon any disputed
question Mr Easy invariably gave it up to Mrs Easy, telling her that she
should have her own way and this pleased his wife; but, as Mr Easy
always took care, when it came to the point, to have his way, he was
pleased as well. It is true that Mrs Easy had long found out that she did
not have her own way long; but she was of an easy disposition, and as,
in nine cases out of ten, it was of very little consequence how things
were done, she was quite satisfied with his submission during the heat
of the argument. Mr Easy had admitted that she was right, and if like all
men he would do wrong, why, what could a poor woman do? With a
lady of such a. quiet disposition, it is easy to imagine that the domestic
felicity of Mr Easy was not easily disturbed. But, as people have
observed before, there is a mutability in human affairs. It was at the
finale of the eleventh year of their marriage that Mrs Easy at first
complained that she could not