debt, two years afterwards:
and what after that is the use of a name?
No, no; the age of chivalry is past. Take the twenty-four first men who
come into the club, and ask who they are, and how they made their money?
There's Woolsey-Sackville: his father was Lord Chancellor, and sat
on the woolsack, whence he took his title; his grandfather dealt in
coal-sacks, and not in woolsacks,--small coal-sacks, dribbling out
little supplies of black diamonds to the poor. Yonder comes Frank
Leveson, in a huge broad-brimmed hat, his shirt-cuffs turned up to his
elbows. Leveson is as gentlemanly a fellow as the world contains, and if
he has a fault, is perhaps too finikin. Well, you fancy him related to
the Sutherland family: nor, indeed, does honest Frank deny it; but entre
nous, my good sir, his father was an attorney, and his grandfather
a bailiff in Chancery Lane, bearing a name still older than that of
Leveson, namely, Levy. So it is that this confounded equality grows and
grows, and has laid the good old nobility by the heels. Look at that
venerable Sir Charles Kitely, of Kitely Park: he is interested about the
Ashantees, and is just come from Exeter Hall. Kitely discounted bills
in the City in the year 1787, and gained his baronetcy by a loan to the
French princes. All these points of history are perfectly well known;
and do you fancy the world cares? Psha! Profession is no disgrace to
a man: be what you like, provided you succeed. If Mr. Fauntleroy could
come to life with a million of money, you and I would dine with him: you
know we would; for why should we be better than our neighbors?
Put, then, out of your head the idea that this or that profession is
unworthy of you: take any that may bring you profit, and thank him that
puts you in the way of being rich.
The profession I would urge (upon a person duly qualified to undertake
it) has, I confess, at the first glance, something ridiculous about
it; and will not appear to young ladies so romantic as the calling of a
gallant soldier, blazing with glory, gold lace, and vermilion coats;
or a dear delightful clergyman, with a sweet blue eye, and a
pocket-handkerchief scented charmingly with lavender-water. The
profession I allude to WILL, I own, be to young women disagreeable, to
sober men trivial, to great stupid moralists unworthy.
But mark my words for it, that in the religious world (I have once or
twice, by mistake no doubt, had the honor of dining in "serious" house
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