- end_line
- 2078
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2013
- text
- cadaverously fierce with misery and misanthropy--amazement! the old
Persian roses bloomed in his cheeks. And yet poor as any rat; poor
in the last dregs of poverty; a pauper beyond almshouse pauperism; a
promenading pauper in a thin, threadbare, careful coat; a pauper with
wealth of polished words; a courteous, smiling, shivering gentleman.
Ah, poor, poor Jimmy--God guard us all--poor Jimmy Rose!
Though at the first onset of his calamity, when creditors, once fast
friends, pursued him as carrion for jails; though then, to avoid their
hunt, as well as the human eye, he had gone and denned in the old
abandoned house; and there, in his loneliness, had been driven half
mad, yet time and tide had soothed him down to sanity. Perhaps at
bottom Jimmy was too thoroughly good and kind to be made from any cause
a man-hater. And doubtless it at last seemed irreligious to Jimmy even
to shun mankind.
Sometimes sweet sense of duty will entice one to bitter doom. For what
could be more bitter now, in abject need, to be seen of those--nay,
crawl and visit them in an humble sort, and be tolerated as an old
eccentric, wandering in their parlors--who once had known him richest
of the rich, and gayest of the gay? Yet this Jimmy did. Without rudely
breaking him right down to it, fate slowly bent him more and more to
the lowest deep. From an unknown quarter he received an income of some
seventy dollars, more or less. The principal he would never touch, but,
by various modes of eking it out, managed to live on the interest. He
lived in an attic, where he supplied himself with food. He took but one
regular repast a day--meal and milk--and nothing more, unless procured
at others' tables. Often about the tea-hour he would drop in upon some
old acquaintance, clad in his neat, forlorn frock coat, with worn
velvet sewed upon the edges of the cuffs, and a similar device upon the
hems of his pantaloons, to hide that dire look of having been grated
off by rats. On Sunday he made a point of always dining at some fine
house or other.
It is evident that no man could with impunity be allowed to lead this
life unless regarded as one who, free from vice, was by fortune brought
so low that the plummet of pity alone could reach him. Not much merit
redounded to his entertainers because they did not thrust the starving
gentleman forth when he came for his alms of tea and toast. Some
merit had been theirs had they clubbed together and provided him, at
small cost enough, with a sufficient income to make him, in point of
necessaries, independent of the daily dole of charity; charity not sent
to him either, but charity for which he had to trudge round to their
doors.
But the most touching thing of all were those roses in his cheeks;
those ruddy roses in his nipping winter. How they bloomed; whether
meal or milk, and tea and toast could keep them flourishing; whether
now he painted them; by what strange magic they were made to blossom
so; no son of man might tell. But there they bloomed. And besides the
roses, Jimmy was rich in smiles. He smiled ever. The lordly door which
received him to his eleemosynary teas, know no such smiling guest as
Jimmy. In his prosperous days the smile of Jimmy was famous far and
wide. It should have been trebly famous now.
Wherever he went to tea, he had all of the news of the town to tell. By
frequenting the reading-rooms, as one privileged through harmlessness,
he kept himself informed of European affairs and the last literature,
foreign and domestic. And of this, when encouragement was given, he
would largely talk. But encouragement was not always given. At certain
houses, and not a few, Jimmy would drop in about ten minutes before the
tea-hour, and drop out again about ten minutes after it; well knowing
that his further presence was not indispensable to the contentment or
felicity of his host.
- title
- Chunk 19