My rich cousin (who is intellectually fit to be at the tail
of the family, and who is, therefore, as a matter of course, at the head
of it) has been good enough to remember my existence; and has offered
his influence to serve my eldest boy. Read his letter, and then observe
the sequence of events. My rich cousin is a booby who thrives on
landed property; he has done something for another booby who thrives on
Politics, who knows a third booby who thrives on Commerce, who can do
something for a fourth booby, thriving at present on nothing, whose name
is Frank. So the mill goes. So the cream of all human rewards is sipped
in endless succession by the Fools. I shall pack Frank off to-morrow. In
course of time he'll come back again on our hands, like a bad shilling;
more chances will fall in his way, as a necessary consequence of his
meritorious imbecility. Years will go on--I may not live to see it,
no more may you--it doesn't matter; Frank's future is equally certain
either way--put him into the army, the Church, politics, what you
please, and let him drift: he'll end in being a general, a bishop, or
a minister of State, by dint of the great modern qualification of doing
nothing whatever to deserve his place.
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