And that would be my case--is my
case--for, as you know, my pen provides two-thirds of my maintenance. I
cannot tax my father further. If I had not missed that fellowship! The
love of money may be a root of evil, but the want of it is an evil grown
up and bearing fruit that sets the teeth on edge."
"My dear Musgrave, that is the voice of despair, and for such a
universal _crux_!"
"I don't despair, but I am tried, partly by my hard lines and partly by
the anxieties at home that infect me. To think that with this frame,"
striking out his muscular right arm, "even Carnegie warns me as if I
were a sick girl! The sins of the fathers are the modern Nessus' shirt
to their children. I shall do my utmost to hold on until I get my call
to the bar and a platform to start from. If I cannot hold on so long,
I'll call it, as my mother does, defeat by visitation of God, and step
down to be a poor fellow amongst other poor fellows. But that is not the
life I planned for."
"We all know that, Musgrave, and there is no quarter where you won't
meet the truest sympathy. Many a man has to come down from the tall
pedestal where his hopes have set him, and, unless it be by his own
grievous fault, he is tolerably sure to find his level of content on the
common ground. That's where I mean to walk with my Janey; and some day
you'll hold up a finger, and just as sweet a companion will come and
walk hand in hand with you.
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