He was a successful merchant, and was proud of his successes, and proud also that his money was made by fair and honourable means. He said to me once, "I would rather see you compelled to gain a living by sweeping a road than that it should come to my knowledge that you have been guilty of a dishonourable action." I was his only child, and he had his views with respect to my future. He wished me to enter public life, and he gave me an education to fit me for it. While I was at Oxford he made me a handsome allowance, and once, when I found myself in debt there, he did not demur to settling them for me. Only once did this occur, and when my debts were discharged, he said, "I have increased your allowance, Frederick; it could not have been liberal enough, as you contracted debts you were unable to pay." He named the amount of my increased allowance, and asked me if it was sufficient. I replied that it was, and then he told me that he considered it a dishonourable act for a man to consciously contract an obligation he did not see his way to meet out of his own resources. "The scrape you got into with your creditors was an error," he said; "you did not sufficiently consider. You are wiser now, and what was an error in the past would be dishonourable in the future." I never had occasion to ask him to pay my debts again. I lived not only within my allowance, but I saved out of it--a fortunate circumstance, as I afterwards found. The result was obtained without my being penurious, or depriving myself of any of the pleasures of living indulged in by my friends and companions. I was not a purist; I was fond of pleasure, and I have no doubt I did many foolish things; but no sin lies at my door. I was never false to a friend, and I never betrayed a woman. Among my friends was a young man named Sydney Campbell. He is not living now, and nothing restrains me from speaking of him candidly and honestly. He was a man of brilliant parts, brilliant in scholarship, in debate, in social accomplishments. He affected to be a fop, and would assume an effeminacy which became him well--as everything became him which he assumed. He was as brave as a lion, and a master of fence; lavishly prodigal with his money, and ready, at any moment, for any extravagance, and especially for any extravagance which would serve to hide the real nobility of his nature. He would hob-a-nob with the lowest and vilest, saying, "Human nature is much of a muchness; why give ourselves airs? I am convinced I should have made an admirable pickpocket." But Sydney Campbell was never guilty of a meanness.