m my father
a large slice of an income that will ill spare paring. According
to my calculation, my parents and my uncle want all they have got,
and the subtraction of the yearly sum on which Pisistratus is to
live till he can live by his own labors, would be so much taken
from the decent comforts of his kindred. If I return to Cambridge,
with all economy, I must thus narrow still more the res angusta
domi; and when Cambridge is over, and I am turned loose upon the
world,--failing, as is likely enough, of the support of a
fellowship,--how many years must I work, or rather, alas! not work,
at the Bar (which, after all, seems my best calling) before I can
in my turn provide for those who, till then, rob themselves for me;
till I have arrived at middle life, and they are old and worn out;
till the chink of the golden bowl sounds but hollow at the ebbing
well? I would wish that, if I can make money, those I love best
may enjoy it while enjoyment is yet left to them; that my father
shall see "The History of Human Error" complete, bound in russia on
his shelves; that my mother shall have the innocent pleasures that
content her, before age steals the light from her happy smile; that
before Roland's hair is snow-white (alas! the snows there thicken
fast), he shall lean on my arm while we settle together where the
ruin shall be repaired or where left to the owls, and where the
dreary bleak waste around shall laugh with the gleam of corn. For
you know the nature of this Cumberland soil,--you, who possess much
of it, and have won so many fair acres from the wild; you know that
my uncle's land, now (save a single farm) scarce worth a shilling
an acre, needs but capital to become an estate more lucrative than
ever his ancestors owned. You know that, for you have applied your
capital to the same kind of land, and in doing so, what blessings--
which you scarcely think of in your London library--you have
effected, what mouths you feed, what hands you employ! I have
calculated that my uncle's moors, which now scarce maintain two or
three shepherds, could, manured by money, maintain two hundred
families by their labor. All this is worth trying for; therefore
Pisistratus wants to make money. Not so much,--he does not require
millions; a few spare thousand pounds would go a long way, and with
a modest capital to begin with, Roland shou