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530 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
darkness has been lightened. Ut vivo et valeo—si valeo, I know by
Whose permission this is,—and would you forbid me to be thankful ?
to be' thankful for my life ; to be thankful for my children ; to be
thankful for the daily bread which has been granted to me, and the
temptation from which I have been rescued ? As I think of the
past and its bitter trials, I bow my head in thanks and awe. I
wanted succour, and I found it. I fell on evil times, and good
friends pitied and helped me—good friends like yourself, your dear
wife, many another I could name. In what moments of depression,
old friend, have you not seen me and cheered me ? Do you know
in the moments of our grief the inexpressible value of your sympathy ?
Your good Samaritan takes out only twopence maybe for the wayfarer
whom he has rescued, but the little timely supply saves a
life. You remember dear old Ned St. George—dead in the West
Indies years ago ? Before he got his place Ned was hanging on in
London, so utterly poor and ruined, that he had not often a shilling
to buy a dinner. He used often to come to us, and my wife and
our children loved him ; and I used to leave a heap of shillings
on my study-table, so that he might take two or three as he
wanted them. Of course you remember him. You were at the
dinner which we gave him on his getting his place. I forget the
cost of that dinner ; but I remember my share amounted to the
exact number of shillings which poor Ned had taken off my table.
He gave me the money then and there at the tavern at Blackwall.
He said it seemed providential. But for those shillings, and the
constant welcome at our poor little table, he said he thought he
should have made away with his life. I am not bragging of the
twopence which I gave, but thanking God for sending me there to
give it. Benedico benedictus. I wonder sometimes am I the I of
twenty years ago? before our heads were bald, friend, and when
the little ones reached up to our knees ? Before dinner you saw
me in the library reading in that old European Review which your
friend Tregarvan established. I came upon an article of my own,
and a very dull one, on a subject which I knew nothing about.
' Persian politics, and the intrigues at the Court of Teheran.' It
was done to order. Tregarvan had some special interest about
Persia, or wanted to vex Sir Thomas Nobbles, who was Minister
there. I breakfasted with Tregarvan in the Albany, the facts (we
will call them facts) and papers were supplied to me, and I went
home to point out the delinquencies of Sir Thomas, and the atrocious
intrigues of the Russian Court. Well, sir, Nobbles, Tregarvan,
Teheran, all disappeared as I looked at the text in the old volume
of the Review, I saw a deal table in a little room, and a readinglamp,
and a young fellow writing at it, with a sad heart, and a