"Tell me, now, if every one thought about business as you do, how would
the world get on, think you?"
"Badly, I fear," replied the youth, with a smile; "but everybody doesn't
think of it as I do; and, tell me, uncle, if everybody thought of
business as you would wish me to do, what would come of the soldiers and
sailors who defend our empire, and extend our foreign trade, and achieve
the grand geographical discoveries that have of late added so much
lustre to the British name?"
Ned flushed and became quite eloquent at this point. "Now, look at
California," he continued; "there's a magnificent region, full of gold;
not a mere myth, or an exaggeration, but a veritable fact, attested by
the arrival of letters and gold-dust every month. Surely that land was
made to be peopled; and the poor savages who dwell there need to be
converted to Christianity, and delivered from their degraded condition;
and the country must be worked, and its resources be developed; and
who's to do it, if enterprising clergymen, and schoolmasters, and miners
do not go to live there, and push their fortunes?"
"And which of the three callings do you propose adopting?" inquired Mr
Shirley, with a peculiar smile.
"Well uncle, I--a--the fact is, I have not thought much about that as
yet. Of course, I never thought of the first. I do not forget your own
remark, that the calling of a minister of the gospel of Christ is not,
like other professions, to be adopted merely as a means of livelihood.
Then, as to the second, I might perhaps manage that; but I don't think
it would suit me."
"Do you think, then, that you would make a good digger?"
"Well, perhaps I would," replied Ned, modestly.
Mr Shirley gravely regarded the powerful frame that reclined in the
easy-chair before him, and was compelled to admit that the supposition
was by no means outrageous.
"Besides," continued the youth, "I might turn my hand to many things in
a new country. You know I have studied surveying, and I can sketch a
little, and know something of architecture. I suppose that Latin and
Greek would not be of much use, but the little I have picked up of
medicine and surgery among the medical students would be useful. Then I
could take notes, and sketch the scenery, and bring back a mass of
material that might interest the public, and do good to the country."
"Oh," said the old gentleman, shortly; "come back and turn author, in
fact, and write a book that nobody would publish, or which, in the event
of its being published, nobody would read!"
"Come, now, my dear uncle, don't laugh at me. I assure you it seems
very reasonable to me to think that what others have done, and are doing
every day, I am able to do."
"Well, I won't laugh at you; but, to be serious, you are wise enough to
know that an old man's experience is worth more than a youth's fancies.
Much of what you have said is true, I admit, but I assure you that the
bright prospects you have cut out for yourself are very delusive. They
will never be realised, at least in the shape in which you have depicted
them on your imagination. They will dissolve, my boy, on a nearer
approach, and, as Shakespeare has it, `like the baseless fabric of a
vision, leave not a wrack behind,' or, at least, not much more than a
wrack."
Ned reverted to the golden dream, and felt uneasy under his uncle's kind
but earnest gaze.
"Most men," continued Mr Shirley, "enjoy themselves at first, when they
go to wild countries in search of adventure, but they generally regret
the loss of their best years afterwards. In my opinion men should never
emigrate unless they purpose making the foreign land they go to their
_home_. But I won't oppose you, if you are determined to go; I will do
all I can to help you, and give you my blessing; but before you make up
your mind, I would recommend you to call on Mr Moxton, and hear what
prospects he holds out to you. Then take a week to think seriously over
it; and if at the end of that time, you are as anxious to go as ever,
I'll not stand in your way."
"You are kind to me, uncle; more so than I deserve," said Ned earnestly.
"I'll do as you desire, and you may depend upon it that the generous
way in which you have left me to make my own choice will influence me
against going abroad more than anything else."
Ned sighed as he rose to quit the room, for he felt that his hopes at
that moment were sinking.
"And before you take a step in the matter, my boy," said old Mr
Shirley, "go to your room and ask counsel of Him who alone has the power
to direct your steps in this life."
Ned replied briefly, "I will, uncle," and hastily left the room. Mr
Shirley poked the fire, put on his spectacles, smoothed out the wrinkles
on his bald forehead with his hand, took up the _Times_, and settled
himself down in his easy-chair to read; but his nephew's prospects could
not be banished from his mind. He went over the whole argument again,
mentally, with copious additions, ere he became aware of the fact, that
for three-quarters of an hour he had been, (apparently), reading the
newspaper upside down.