I don't correspond with him; I don't sympathise with him; I never
quite did. He has grown religious, and that's well; but there are things in
which even religion should not bring a man to acquiesce; and from what
I can learn, he, the person primarily affected--the cause, though the
innocent cause--of this great calamity--bears it with an easy apathy which
is mistaken, and liable easily to be mistaken, and such as no Ruthyn, under
the circumstances, ought to exhibit. I told him what he ought to do, and
offered to open my purse for the purpose; but he would not, or _did_ not;
indeed, he _never_ took my advice; he followed his own, and a foul and
dismal shoal he has drifted on. It is not for his sake--why should I?-that
I have longed and laboured to remove the disgraceful slur under which
his ill-fortune has thrown us. He troubles himself little about it, I
believe--he's meek, meeker than I. He cares less about his children than I
about you, Maud; he is selfishly sunk in futurity--a feeble visionary. I am
not so. I believe it to be a duty to take care of others beside myself. The
character and influence of an ancient family is a peculiar heritage--sacred
but destructible; and woe to him who either destroys or suffers it to
perish!'
This was the longest speech I ever heard my father speak before or after.
Pages:
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196