few months, to recover the lost ground."
I was about to reply, but Owen looked at me with such a supplicatory and warning gesture, that I was involuntarily silent.
"We will then," continued my father, "resume the subject of mine of the 1st ultimo, to which you sent me an answer which was unadvised and unsatisfactory. So now, fill your glass, and push the bottle to Owen."
Want of courage—of audacity if you will—was never my failing. I answered firmly, "I was sorry that my letter was unsatisfactory, unadvised it was not; for I had given the proposal his goodness had made me, my instant and anxious attention, and it was with no small pain that I found myself obliged to decline it."
My father bent his keen eye for a moment on me, and instantly withdrew it. As he made no answer, I thought myself obliged to proceed, though with some hesitation, and he only interrupted me by monosyllables.—"It is impossible, sir, for me to have higher respect for any character than I have for the commercial, even were it not yours."
"Indeed!"
"It connects nation with nation, relieves the wants, and contributes to the wealth of all; and is to the general commonwealth of the civilised world what the daily intercourse of ordinary life is to private society, or rather, what air and food are to our bodies."
"Well, sir?"
"And yet, sir, I find myself compelled to persist in declining to adopt a character which I am so ill qualified to support."
"I will take care that you acquire the qualifications necessary. You are no longer the guest and pupil of Dubourg."
"But, my dear sir, it is no defect of teaching which I plead, but my own inability to profit by instruction."
"Nonsense.—Have you kept your journal in the terms I desired?"
"Yes, sir."
"Be pleased to bring it here."
The volume thus required was a sort of commonplace book, kept by my father's recommendation, in which I had been directed to enter notes of the miscellaneous information which I had acquired in the course of my studies. Foreseeing that he would demand inspection of this record, I had been attentive to transcribe such particulars of information as he would most likely be pleased with, but too often the pen had discharged the task without much correspondence with the head. And it had also happened, that, the book being the receptacle nearest to my