from
the Steppes, comes to puzzle me in the Portico.

On the one hand, what is to become of him in the Old World? At his
age and with his energies it would be impossible to cage him with
us in the Cumberland ruins; weariness and discontent would undo all
we could do. He has no resource in books, and I fear never will
have! But to send him forth into one of the over-crowded
professions; to place him amidst all those "disparities of social
life," on the rough stones of which he is perpetually grinding his
heart; turn him adrift amongst all the temptations to which he is
most prone,--this is a trial which, I fear, will be too sharp for a
conversion so incomplete. In the New World, no doubt, his energies
would find a safer field, and even the adventurous and desultory
habits of his childhood might there be put to healthful account.
Those complaints of the disparities of the civilized world find, I
suspect, an easier, if a bluffer, reply from the political
economist than the Stoic philosopher. "You don't like them, you
find it hard to submit to them," says the political economist; "but
they are the laws of a civilized state, and you can't alter them.
Wiser men than you have tried to alter them, and never succeeded,
though they turned the earth topsy-turvy! Very well; but the world
is wide,--go into a state that is not so civilized. The
disparities of the Old World vanish amidst the New! Emigration is
the reply of Nature to the rebellious cry against Art." Thus would
say the political economist; and, alas, even in your case, my son,
I found no reply to the reasonings! I acknowledge, then, that
Australia might open the best safety-valve to your cousin's
discontent and desires; but I acknowledge also a counter-truth,
which is this: "It is not permitted to an honest man to corrupt
himself for the sake of others." That is almost the only maxim of
Jean Jacques to which I can cheerfully subscribe! Do you feel
quite strong enough to resist all the influences which a
companionship of this kind may subject you to; strong enough to
bear his burden as well as your own; strong enough, also,--ay, and
alert and vigilant enough,--to prevent those influences harming the
others whom you have undertaken to guide, and whose lots are
confided to you? Pause well and consider maturely, for this must
not depend upon a generous impulse. I