The Professor | Page 4

magnetism drew thee and me
together I know not; certainly I never experienced anything of the
Pylades and Orestes sentiment for you, and I have reason to believe that
you, on your part, were equally free from all romantic regard to me.
Still, out of school hours we walked and talked continually together;
when the theme of conversation was our companions or our masters we
understood each other, and when I recurred to some sentiment of

affection, some vague love of an excellent or beautiful object, whether
in animate or inanimate nature, your sardonic coldness did not move
me. I felt myself superior to that check THEN as I do NOW.
"It is a long time since I wrote to you, and a still longer time since I saw
you. Chancing to take up a newspaper of your county the other day, my
eye fell upon your name. I began to think of old times; to run over the
events which have transpired since we separated; and I sat down and
commenced this letter. What you have been doing I know not; but you
shall hear, if you choose to listen, how the world has wagged with me.
"First, after leaving Eton, I had an interview with my maternal uncles,
Lord Tynedale and the Hon. John Seacombe. They asked me if I would
enter the Church, and my uncle the nobleman offered me the living of
Seacombe, which is in his gift, if I would; then my other uncle, Mr.
Seacombe, hinted that when I became rector of Seacombe-cum-Scaife,
I might perhaps be allowed to take, as mistress of my house and head
of my parish, one of my six cousins, his daughters, all of whom I
greatly dislike.
"I declined both the Church and matrimony. A good clergyman is a
good thing, but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife--oh
how like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of
my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an
accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom.
To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of
Seacombe Rectory alone with one of them--for instance, the large and
well-modelled statue, Sarah--no; I should be a bad husband, under such
circumstances, as well as a bad clergyman.
"When I had declined my uncles' offers they asked me 'what I intended
to do?' I said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune,
and no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord
Tynedale demanded sternly, 'Whether I had thoughts of following my
father's steps and engaging in trade?' Now, I had had no thoughts of the
sort. I do not think that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good
tradesman; my taste, my ambition does not lie in that way; but such
was the scorn expressed in Lord Tynedale's countenance as he

pronounced the word TRADE--such the contemptuous sarcasm of his
tone--that I was instantly decided. My father was but a name to me, yet
that name I did not like to hear mentioned with a sneer to my very face.
I answered then, with haste and warmth, 'I cannot do better than follow
in my father's steps; yes, I will be a tradesman.' My uncles did not
remonstrate; they and I parted with mutual disgust. In reviewing this
transaction, I find that I was quite right to shake off the burden of
Tynedale's patronage, but a fool to offer my shoulders instantly for the
reception of another burden--one which might be more intolerable, and
which certainly was yet untried.
"I wrote instantly to Edward--you know Edward--my only brother, ten
years my senior, married to a rich mill-owner's daughter, and now
possessor of the mill and business which was my father's before he
failed. You are aware that my father-once reckoned a Croesus of
wealth--became bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that
my mother lived in destitution for some six months after him, unhelped
by her aristocratical brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her
union with Crimsworth, the ----shire manufacturer. At the end of the
six months she brought me into the world, and then herself left it
without, I should think, much regret, as it contained little hope or
comfort for her.
"My father's relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me, till I
was nine years old. At that period it chanced that the representation of
an important borough in our county fell vacant; Mr. Seacombe stood
for it. My uncle Crimsworth, an astute mercantile man, took the
opportunity of writing a fierce letter to the candidate, stating that if he
and Lord Tynedale did not consent to