Chapter 1
Introductory, Concerning The Pedigree Of The
Chuzzlewit Family
s no lady or gentleman, with any claims to polite breeding,
can possibly sympathise with the Chuzzlewit Family
without being first assured of the extreme antiquity of the
race, it is a great satisfaction to know that it undoubtedly
descended in a direct line from Adam and Eve; and was, in the
very earliest times, closely connected with the agricultural
interest. If it should ever be urged by grudging and malicious
persons, that a Chuzzlewit, in any period of the family history,
displayed an overweening amount of family pride, surely the
weakness will be considered not only pardonable but laudable,
when the immense superiority of the house to the rest of mankind,
in respect of this its ancient origin, is taken into account.
It is remarkable that as there was, in the oldest family of which
we have any record, a murderer and a vagabond, so we never fail
to meet, in the records of all old families, with innumerable
repetitions of the same phase of character. Indeed, it may be laid
down as a general principle, that the more extended the ancestry,
the greater the amount of violence and vagabondism; for in
ancient days those two amusements, combining a wholesome
excitement with a promising means of repairing shattered
fortunes, were at once the ennobling pursuit and the healthful
recreation of the Quality of this land.