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The Vicar of Wakefield

By OLIVER GOLDSMITH Condensation by CAROLYN WELLS I CHOSE my wife for such qualities as would wear well. She could read any English book without much spelling; but for pickling, preserving, and cookery, none could excel her. We were ever unstinting of our hospitality, and our gooseberry wine had great reputation, so that our cousins, even to the fortieth remove, remembered their affinity without any help from the heralds' office, and came very frequently to see us.

My children were well formed and healthy. Two daughters, who, to conceal nothing, were certainly very handsome: Olivia, of luxuriant beauty, and Sophia, soft, modest, and alluring. My eldest son, George, was bred at Oxford, while Moses, my second boy, received a sort of miscellaneous education at home.

But, alas! by a sudden stroke of ill-luck, my entire fortune was swept away, and out of fourteen thousand pounds I had but four hundred remaining. This caused my neighbor, Mr. Wilmot, to break off the engagement existing between my son George and his daughter Arabella. Mr. Wilmot had one virtue in perfection, which was prudence, too often the only one that is left us at seventy-two.

We were now poor, and wisdom bade me conform to our humble situation. I gave George five pounds and sent him to London to do the best he might for himself and for us. I found a small cure of fifteen pounds a year in a distant neighborhood, and thither we at once repaired.