It shot across me then, amongst my own worrying thoughts, how
strange it is that one human being should have so little sympathy
with another, that where one can, without the least annoyance to
himself, confer all that another desires, there seems always some
inexplicable impulse to withhold it. And I--if I had power to give,
if I ever possessed money, it should be to give, give freely and
without conditions to those who needed it.
Perhaps my father guessed what I was thinking of. At any rate, he
recommenced the conversation by saying--
"You have had a great deal done for you, Victor, though you may
consider yourself very ill-used. You had a most expensive education.
Then you passed into the army--brilliantly, I admit, but you were
aided in every possible way. Then you had a fancy to go to India.
Well, I got your regiment changed, and you went. Six months after
you write that you have determined to become an author. I assent to
that, much against my judgment, and you send in your papers. Good.
What have you done since then? Nothing but write things no one will
print, and hang about your cousin!"
A dull anger lit up in all my veins, and sent the blood to my head
at his words. Still, they were practically the truth, and I knew I
had no right to resent them.
"Now," he continued, "I make you a reasonable and just proposal, and
you know that it is so.
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