Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Roundabout Papersof respect and sympathy, and soothing the last throbs brother in need, to dress his wounds, and, if it were butof the tender honest heart.twopence, to give him succor. Is the money which theI like, I say, Hood’s life even better than his books, noble Macaulay gave to the poor lost to his family? Godand I wish, with all my heart, Monsieur et cher confrere, forbid. To the loving hearts of his kindred is it not ratherthe same could be said for both of us, when the inkstream the most precious part of their inheritance? It was investedin love and righteous doing, and it bears inter-of our life hath ceased to run. Yes: if I drop first, dearBaggs, I trust you may find reason to modify some of est in heaven. You will, if letters be your vocation, findthe unfavorable views of my character, which you are saving harder than giving and spending. To save be yourfreely imparting to our mutual friends. What ought to endeavor, too, against the night’s coming when no manbe the literary man’s point of honor now-a-days? Suppose,friendly reader, you are one of the craft, what labor; when the brain perhaps grows dark; when themay work; when the arm is weary with the long day’slegacy would you like to leave to your children? First of old, who can labor no more, want warmth and rest, andall (and by heaven’s gracious help) you would pray and the young ones call for supper.strive to give them such an endowment of love, as shouldlast certainly for all their lives, and perhaps be transmittedto their children. You would (by the same aid the initial letter of this paper, from a quaint old silverI copied the little galley-slave who is made to figure inand blessing) keep your honor pure, and transmit a name spoon which we purchased in a curiosity-shop at theunstained to those who have a right to bear it. You Hague.* It is one of the gift spoons so common in Holland,and which have multiplied so astonishingly of latewould,—though this faculty of giving is one of the easiestof the literary man’s qualities—you would, out of years at our dealers’ in old silverware. Along the stemyour earnings, small or great, be able to help a poor* Memorials of Thomas Hood. Moxon, 1860. 2 vols.86