You are not aware, Peter, how selfish people are, and how
little they will exert themselves for their relations. Your grandfather
has never invited me since the announcement of my brother's increase to
his family. Indeed, I have never been near him, for I know that it is of
no use."
"I must think otherwise of Lord Privilege, my dear father, until your
opinion is confirmed by his own conduct. That I am not so much an object
of interest, I grant; but still he was very kind, and appeared to be
partial to me."
"Well, well, you can try all you can, but you'll soon see of what stuff
this world is made; I am sure I hope it will be so, for what is to
become of you children if I die, I do not know;--I have saved little or
nothing. And now all my prospects are blasted by this--" and my father
dashed his fist upon the table in a manner by no means clerical, and
with a look very unworthy of an apostle.
I am sorry that I must thus speak of my father, but I must not disguise
the truth. Still, I must say, there was much in extenuation of his
conduct. He had always a dislike to the profession of the church: his
ambition, as a young man, had been to enter the army, for which service
he was much better qualified; but, as it has been the custom for
centuries to entail all the property of the aristocracy upon the eldest
son, and leave the other brothers to be supported by the state, or
rather by the people, who are taxed for their provision, my father was
not permitted to follow the bent of his own inclination.
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