Project Gutenberg's Mr. Midshipman Easy, by Captain Frederick Marryat

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Title: Mr. Midshipman Easy

Author: Captain Frederick Marryat

Release Date: May 21, 2007 [EBook #21553]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. MIDSHIPMAN EASY ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Mr Midshipman Easy, by Captain Marryat.

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[See also etext #6629, a different print edition of this book
produced by John Edward Heaton]

Captain Frederick Marryat was born July 10 1792, and died August 8 1848.
He retired from the British navy in 1828 in order to devote himself to
writing. In the following 20 years he wrote 26 books, many of which are
among the very best of English literature, and some of which are still
in print.

Marryat had an extraordinary gift for the invention of episodes in his
stories. He says somewhere that when he sat down for the day's work, he
never knew what he was going to write. He certainly was a literary
genius.

"Mr Midshipman Easy" was published in 1846, the ninth book to flow from
Marryat's pen.

This e-text was transcribed in 1998 by Nick Hodson, and was reformatted
in 2003, and again in 2005.

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MR. MIDSHIPMAN EASY, BY CAPTAIN FREDERICK MARRYAT.

CHAPTER ONE.

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 som