Mr. Pickwick's early history is obscure enough, and we know no details save that he had been "in business." But had he ever an affair of the heart? Just as in real life, when a stray allusion will occasionally escape from a person betraying something of his past history, so once or twice a casual remark of Mr. Pickwick's furnishes a hint. Thus Mr. Magnus, pressing him for his advice in this delicate matter of proposing, asked him had he ever done this sort of thing in his time. "You mean proposing?" said the great man. "Yes." "Never," said Mr. Pickwick, _with great energy_, and then repeated the word "Never." His friend then assumed that he did not know how it was best to begin. "Why," said the other, cautiously, "I may have formed some ideas on the subject," but then added that he had "never submitted them to the test of experience." This is distinct enough, but it does all the same hint at some _affaire de coeur_, else why would he "have formed some ideas upon the subject." Of course, it may be that he was thinking of Mrs. Bardell and her cruel charges. Still, it was strange that a man should have reached to fifty, have grown round and stout, without ever offering his hand. The first picture in the book, however, helps us to speculate a little. Over his head in the room at Dulwich hangs the portrait of an old lady in spectacles, the image of the great Samuel; his mother certainly. He evidently regarded her with deep affection, he had brought the picture to Dulwich and placed it where it should always be before his eyes. Could it not be, and is it not natural that in addition to his other amiabilities he was the best of sons--that she "ruled the roast"--that in the old Mrs. Wardle, to whom he so filially attended, he saw his mother's image, that she was with him to the day of her death, and that while she lived, he resolved that no one else should be mistress there! After her death he found himself a confirmed old bachelor. There's a speculation for you on the German lines. We might go on. This self denial must have been the more meritorious as he was by nature of an affectionate, even amorous, cast. He seized every opportunity of kissing the young ladies. He would certainly have liked to have had some fair being at home whom he could thus distinguish. How good this description of the rogue-- "Mr. Pickwick kissed the young ladies--we were going to say as if they were his own daughters, only, as he might possibly have infused _a little more warmth into the salutation_, the comparison would not be quite appropriate."