I, too, thought the
old man slow, _passe_, stupid. I took him for a muff. He must have known
I was twice that. What does one of the boys at nineteen care for advice?
_I_ didn't--_you_ don't. It went in at the right ear and out over the
left shoulder. Old gent said he'd been there; I said I was going. I
did go. So did his money. My talent--if that's what you call it--was
centrifugal, not centripetal. I was a radical out-and-outer, as to
funds. I made lots of friends--you should have seen them. They swarmed--
when there was any thing in my pocket. They left me alone in solitude at
other times. At twenty-nine I got pretty well along in life. But I find
I did not know so much as at nineteen. I had seen something of the
world, and also something of myself. The more I saw and studied the
latter individual, the less I thought of him. I began sincerely to
believe he was a humbug. At thirty-nine, I knew he was; or rather had
been. By that time he had begun to mend--had he? He had married, and
there was call for mending, equally as to ways, means, and garments.
From that hour I cultivated in different fields.
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