And albeit I would not that
my successors sat still altogether when called on
by their duty to Kirk and King; yet I would have
them wait till stronger and walthier men than
themselves were up, so that either they may have
the better chance of getting through the day; or,
failing of that, the conquering party having some
fatter quarry to live upon, may, like gorged hawks,
spare the smaller game.''
There was something in this conclusion which at
first reading piqued me extremely, and I was so
unnatural as to curse the whole concern, as poor,
bald, pitiful trash, in which a silly old man was saying
a great deal about nothing at all. Nay, my
first impression was to thrust it into the fire, the
rather that it reminded me, in no very flattering
manner, of the loss of the family property, to which
the compiler of the history was so much attached,
in the very manner which he most severely reprobated.
It even seemed to my aggrieved feelings,
that his unprescient gaze on futurity, in which he
could not anticipate the folly of one of his descendants,
who should throw away the whole inheritance
in a few years of idle expense and folly, was meant
as a personal incivility to myself, though written
fifty or sixty years before I was born.
Pages:
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109