Chapter 44

CHAPTER 44

Mr Ralph Nickleby cuts an old Acquaintance. It would also appear
from the Contents hereof, that a Joke, even between Husband and
Wife, may be sometimes carried too far

There are some men who, living with the one object of enriching
themselves, no matter by what means, and being perfectly conscious
of the baseness and rascality of the means which they will use every
day towards this end, affect nevertheless--even to themselves--a
high tone of moral rectitude, and shake their heads and sigh over
the depravity of the world. Some of the craftiest scoundrels that
ever walked this earth, or rather--for walking implies, at least,
an erect position and the bearing of a man--that ever crawled and
crept through life by its dirtiest and narrowest ways, will gravely
jot down in diaries the events of every day, and keep a regular
debtor and creditor account with Heaven, which shall always show a
floating balance in their own favour. Whether this is a gratuitous
(the only gratuitous) part of the falsehood and trickery of such
men's lives, or whether they really hope to cheat Heaven itself, and
lay up treasure in the next world by the same process which has
enabled them to lay up treasure in this--not to question how it is,
so it is. And, doubtless, such book-keeping (like certain
autobiographies which have enlightened the world) cannot fail to
prove serviceable, in the one respect of sparing the recording Angel
some time and labour.

Ralph Nickleby was not a man of this stamp. Stern, unyielding,
dogged, and impenetrable, Ralph cared for nothing in life, or beyond
it, save the gratification of two passions, avarice, the first and
predominant appetite of his nature, and hatred, the second.
Affecting to consider himself but a type of all humanity, he was at
little pains to conceal his true character from the world in
general, and in his own heart he exulted over and cherished every
bad design as it had birth. The only scriptural admonition that
Ralph Nickleby heeded, in the letter, was 'know thyself.' He knew
himself well, and choosing to imagine that all mankind were cast in
the same mould, hated them; for, though no man hates himself, the
coldest among us having too much self-love for that, yet most men
unconsciously judge the world from themselves, and it will be very
generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and
affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant
samples.

But the present business of these adventures is with Ralph himself,
who stood regarding Newman Noggs with a heavy frown, while that
worthy took off his fingerless gloves, and spreading them carefully
on the palm of his left hand, and flattening them with his right to