Featherstone, Mr. Peter

A rich and miserly old widower, owner of Stone Court. "Old Featherstone had not been a Harpagon whose passions had all been devoured by the ever-lean and ever-hungry passion of saving, and who would drive a bargain with his undertaker beforehand. He loved money, but he also loved to spend it in gratifying his peculiar tastes, and perhaps he loved it best of all as a means of making others feel his power more or less uncomfort ably. If anyone will here contend that there must have been traits of goodness in old Featherstone, I will not presume to deny this; but I mart observe that goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and, when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who con struct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance." He is connected with the Garths through his first wife and with the Vincys through his second wife, and has a host of relatives of his own who are anxious that he shall not leave his money outside his family. He enjoys arousing speculation as to his intentions, and leads Fred Vincy to expect a bequest, but disappoints him, as well as all his own greedy and scheming relatives, by leaving his property to a hitherto unheard-of natural son, Joshua Rigg. He has made many wills and at the end, when dying and helpless, he wants this will destroyed so that an earlier one providing for Fred will be operative, but cannot carry out his wishes.

<em>Middlemarch</em>

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