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.