the Odyssey (who,
by the way, I suspect strongly of having been a clergyman) but he assuredly hit
the right nail on the head when he epitomised his typical wise man as knowing
the ways and farings of many men. What culture is comparable to this? What a
lie, what a sickly debilitating debauch, did not Ernest's school and university
career now seem to him, in comparison with his life in prison and as a tailor in
Blackfriars. I have heard him say he would have gone through all he had suffered
if it were only for the deeper insight it gave him into the spirit of the
Grecian and the Surrey pantomimes. What confidence again in his own power to
swim if thrown into deep water had not he won through his experiences during the
last three years.
    But as I have said, I thought my godson had now seen as much of the
undercurrents of life as was likely to be of use to him, and that it was time he
began to live in a style more suitable to his prospects. His aunt had wished him
to kiss the soil, and he had kissed it with a vengeance; but I did not like the
notion of his coming suddenly from the position of a small shopkeeper to that of
a man with an income of between three and four thousand a year. Too sudden a
jump from bad fortune to good is just as dangerous as one from good to bad.
Besides, poverty is very wearing; it is a quasi-embryonic condition, through
which a man had better pass if he is to hold his later developments securely,
but like measles or scarlet fever he had better have it mildly, and get it over
early.
    No man is safe from losing every penny he has in the world, unless he has
had his facer. How often do I not hear middle-aged women and quiet family men
say that they have no speculative tendency; they never had touched, and never
would touch, any but the very soundest best-reputed investments, and as for
unlimited liability, oh dear! dear! and they throw up their hands and eyes.
    Whenever a person is heard to talk thus he may be recognised as the easy
prey of the first adventurer who comes across him; he will commonly, indeed,
wind up his discourse by saying that in spite of all his natural caution, and
his well knowing how foolish speculation is, yet there are some investments
which are called speculative but in reality are not so, and he will pull out of
his pocket the prospectus of a Cornish gold mine. It is only on