The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 475 pages of information about The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899.

The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 475 pages of information about The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899.
lad of true genius; but being at the upper end of a great school, and having all the lads below him, his arrogance is insupportable.  If I begin to show a little of my Latin, he immediately interrupts:  “Uncle, under favour, that which you say is not understood in that manner.”  “Brother,” says my boy Jack, “you do not show your manners much in contradicting my Uncle Isaac.”  “You queer cur,” says Mr. William, “do you think my uncle takes any notice of such a dull rogue as you are?” Mr. William goes on; “He is the most stupid of all my mother’s children:  he knows nothing of his book:  when he should mind that, he is hiding or hoarding his taws and marbles, or laying up farthings.  His way of thinking is, four and twenty farthings make sixpence, and two sixpences a shilling, two shillings and sixpence half a crown, and two half-crowns five shillings.  So within these two months, the close hunks has scraped up twenty shillings, and we’ll make him spend it all before he comes home.”  Jack immediately claps his hands into both pockets, and turns as pale as ashes.  There is nothing touches a parent (and such I am to Jack) so nearly, as a provident temper.  This lad has in him the true temper for a good husband, a kind father, and an honest executor.  All the great people you see make considerable figures on the ’Change, in Court, and sometimes in Senates, are such as in reality have no greater faculty than what may be called human instinct, which is a natural tendency to their own preservation, and that of their friends, without being capable of striking out of the road for adventures.  There is Sir William Scrip was of this sort of capacity from his childhood:  he has bought the country round him, and makes a bargain better than Sir Harry Wildfire with all his wit and humour.  Sir Harry never wants money but he comes to Scrip, laughs at him half an hour, and then gives bond for the other thousand.  The close men are incapable of placing merit anywhere but in their pence, and therefore gain it; while others, who have larger capacities, are diverted from the pursuit by enjoyments, which can be supported only by that cash which they despise; and therefore are in the end, slaves to their inferiors both in fortune and understanding.  I once heard a man of excellent sense observe, that more affairs in the world failed by being in the hands of men of too large capacities for their business, than by being in the conduct of such as wanted abilities to execute them.  Jack therefore being of a plodding make, shall be a citizen; and I design him to be the refuge of the family in their distress, as well as their jest in prosperity.  His brother Will, shall go to Oxford with all speed, where, if he does not arrive at being a man of sense, he will soon be informed wherein he is a coxcomb.  There is in that place such a true spirit of raillery and humour, that if they can’t make you a wise man, they will certainly let you know you are a fool, which is all my cousin
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The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.