The expedition of Humphry Clinker / by T. Smollett, M.D. With a memoir of the author by Thomas Roscoe ... and illustrations by George Cruikshank.

  • Tobias Smollett
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The expedition of Humphry Clinker / by T. Smollett, M.D. With a memoir of the author by Thomas Roscoe ... and illustrations by George Cruikshank. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    voured in vain to effect a rupture betwixt the two friends; and now she thinks proper to be very civil to Lewis, who is become necessary to her in the way of his profession. These, however, are not the only efforts she has made towards a nearer conjunction with our sex. Her fortune was originally no more than a thousand pounds ; but she gained an accession of five huudred by the death of a sister, and the lieutenant left her three hundred in his will. These sums she has more than doubled, by living free of all expense in her brother’s house, and dealing in cheese and Welsh flannel, the produce of his flocks and dairy. At present her capital has increased to about four thousand pounds, and her avarice seems to grow every day more and more rapacious; but even this is not so intolerable as the perverseness of her nature, which keeps the whole family in disquiet and uproar. She is one of those geniuses who find some diabolical enjoy¬ ment in being dreaded and detested by their fellow- creatures. I once told my uncle, I was surprised that a man of his disposition could bear such a domestic plague, when it could be so easily removed. The remark made him sore, because it seemed to tax him with want of reso¬ lution. Wrinkling up his nose, and drawing down his eyebrows, ‘ A young fellow,’ said he, ‘ when he first thrusts his snout into the world, is apt to be surprised at many things, which a man of experience knows to be ordinary and unavoidable. This precious aunt of yours is become insensibly a part of my constitution. Damn her ! she’s a noli me tangere in my flesh, which I cannot bear to be touched or tampered with.’ I made no reply, but shifted the conversation. He really has an affection for this original, which maintains its ground in defiance of common sense, and in despite of that contempt which he must certainly feel for her character and understand¬ ing. Nay, 1 am convinced, that she has likewise a most violent attachment to his person; though her love nevei shows itself but in the shape of discontent; and s le persists in tormenting him out of sheer tenderness, lhe only object within doors on which she bestows anv
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