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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 493
The whole soul and strength of Charlotte and Philip being bent
upon marriage, I take leave to put in a document which Philip
received at this time; and can imagine that it occasioned no
little sensation :—
" ASTOR HOUSE, NEW YORK.
" AND so you are returned to the great city—to the fumum,
the strepitum, and I sincerely hope the opes, of our Rome ! Your
own letters are but brief; but I have an occasional correspondent
(there are few, alas ! who remember the exile !) who keeps me
au courant of my Philip's history, and tells me that you are
industrious, that you are cheerful, that you prosper. Cheerfulness
is the companion of Industry, Prosperity their offspring. That that
prosperity may attain the fullest growth, is an absent father's
fondest prayer ! Perhaps ere long I shall be able to announce to
you that I too am prospering. I am engaged in pursuing a scientific
discovery here (it is medical, and connected with my own profession),
of which the results ought to lead to Fortune, unless the jade
has for ever deserted George Brand Firmin! So you have embarked
in the drudgery of the press, and have become a member of
the fourth estate. It has been despised, and press-man and poverty
were for a long time supposed to be synonymous. But the power,
the wealth of the press are daily developing, and they will increase
yet further. I confess I should have liked to hear that my Philip
was pursuing his profession of the bar, at which honour, splendid
competence, nay, aristocratic rank, are the prizes of the bold, the
industrious, and the deserving. Why should you not ?—should I
not still hope that you may gain legal eminence and position ? A
father who has had much to suffer, who is descending the vale of
years alone and in a distant land, would be soothed in his exile if
he thought his son would one day be able to repair the shattered
fortunes of his race. But it is not yet, I fondly think, too late.
You may yet qualify for the bar, and one of its prizes may fall to
you. I confess that it was not without a pang of grief I heard from
our kind little friend Mrs. B., you were studying shorthand in order
to become a newspaper reporter. And has Fortune, then, been so
relentless to me that my son is to be compelled to follow such a
calling ? I shall try and be resigned. I had hoped higher things for
you—for me.
"My dear boy, with regard to your romantic attachment for
Miss Baynes, which our good little Brandon narrates to me, in her
peculiar orthography, but with much touching simplicity—I make
it a rule not to say a word of comment, of warning, or remonstrance.
As sure as you are your father's son, you will take your own line in