Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself. Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Robert Montgomery Bird

I was roused about nine o'clock in the evening by Tickle, who came, according to promise, to squire me to Mrs. Pickup's and the Misses Oldstyle's; and dressing myself in Mr. Dawkin's best, I accompanied him forthwith to the mansion of the former.

It was yet summer, and the season of gayety was therefore afar off. All genteel people were, or were supposed to be, out of town, according to the rule which, at this season, drives the gentry of London to their country-seats. The few of Philadelphia who could imitate the lords and ladies in this particular, were now catching agues on the Schuylkill; while the mass, consisting of those whose revenues did not allow any rustication on their own lands, were killing sand-flies on the seashore, or gnawing tough beef and grumbling over bad butter at some fashionable watering-place in the interior. There were some, however, as there always are, who considered themselves genteel, and who stayed at home, either because they were tired of agues, sand-flies, tough beef, and bad butter, as they freely professed; because they really believed they were better off at home; or because they were, like me and my friend Tickle, not rich enough to squander their money on vanities, and so stayed at home from necessity.

Of such persons one can always, even in summer-time, assemble enough to make a party of some kind or other, where the contented guests can be uncommonly sociable, eat ices, and pity their friends, who may be at the moment roasting in a ball-room at Saratoga.

It was undoubtedly a great misfortune that I should make my first introduction to good society at a time when it was to be seen only in its minimum of splendour; whereby I lost the opportunity of being dazzled to the same degree in which I found myself capable of dazzling others. Nevertheless, I was vastly captivated by what I saw, and for the few brief weeks that my destiny permitted me to live among the refined and exclusive, I considered myself an uncommonly happy individual.

The reception I met at Mrs. Pickup's convinced me that, in entering Mr. Dawkins's body, I had done the wisest thing in the world; for, however much it endangered me with the tailors, it proved the best recommendation to the ladies. I found myself ushered into a suite of apartments magnificently furnished and lighted, and not so over crowded (for the season was taken into consideration) but that the moschetoes had room to exercise their talents. I thought I should be devoured by Mrs. Pickup, she was so amazingly glad to see me; but I perceived, by a sort of instinct I had acquired along with Dawkins's body, that there was something plebeian about her, although a very fine woman as far as appearances went; and, indeed, Tickle assured me she was a mere parvenue, or upstart, whom everybody despised, and whom no one would come nigh, were it not for her wealth, and the resolution she avowed to give six different balls of the most splendid character in the course of the season. She had a daughter, who was very handsome, and a decided speculation; but I did not think much of her, especially as I found she was already engaged to be married.

I found here that I knew everybody, or, what was the same thing, that everybody knew me; and, with Tickle's help, I soon found myself as much at home with Mr. I. D. Dawkins's fair acquaintances as if I had known them all my life. It was still, as it had been before, a virtue and peculiarity of my recollections, that they were always roused by a few words of conversation with any one known to my prototype; from which I infer, that the associations of the mind, as well as many of its other qualities, are more dependant upon causes in the body than metaphysicians are disposed to allow.

This dependance it has been my fate to know and feel more extensively, perhaps, than any other man that ever lived. The spirit of Sheppard Lee was widely different from those of John H. Higginson and I. D. Dawkins, as, I think, the reader must have already seen; and yet, no sooner had it entered the bodies of these two individuals, than the distinction was almost altogether lost. Certain it is, that in stepping into each, I found myself invested with new feelings, passions, and propensities— as it were, with a new mind—and retaining so little of my original character, that I was perhaps only a little better able to judge and reason on the actions performed in my new body, without being able to avoid them, even when sensible of their absurdity.

I do verily believe that much of the evil and good of man's nature arises from causes and influences purely physical; that valour and ambition are as often caused by a bad stomach as ill-humour by bad teeth; that Socrates, in Bonaparte's body, could scarce have been Socrates, although the combination might have produced a Timoleon or Washington; and, finally, that those sages who labour to improve the moral nature of their species, will effect their purpose only when they have physically improved the stock. Strong minds may be indeed operated upon without regard to bodily bias, and rendered independent of it; but ordinary spirits lie in their bodies like water in sponges, diffused through every part, affected by the part's affections, changed with its changes, and so intimately united with the fleshly matrix, that the mere cutting off of a leg, as I believe, will, in some cases, leave the spirit limping for life.

But, as I said before, I am not writing a dissertation on metaphysics, nor on morals either; and as my adventures will suggest such reflections to all who care to indulge them, I will omit them for the present, and hasten on with my story.

And here the reader may expect of me a description of those scenes and persons in fashionable life to which and whom I was now introduced; and if I valued the reader's approbation at a higher price than my own conscience and reputation, I should undoubtedly gratify him, by putting my imagination in requisition, and painting at once some dozen or two of such fanciful pictures as are found in novels of fashionable life, though never, I opine, in fashionable life itself. In such I should have occasion to represent gentlemen more elegant and witty, and ladies more charming and ethereal, than are to be found in any of the ordinary circles of society; but, as I am writing truth and not fiction, and represent things as I found, not as I imagined them, I declare that the ladies and gentlemen of the exclusive circles to which I was admitted, were very much like the ladies and gentlemen of other circles —that is, as elegant and witty as they could be, and as charming and celestial as it pleased Heaven:—and that, after due exercise of judgment and memory, I cannot, in the adventures of three whole weeks in such society, remember a single person or thing worth describing. For which reason I will pass on to more important matters.