and with tears in his eyes, he added "alas! you are now going, by one false step, to blast my fondest hopes: by this match you are going, in one hour, to beat down and destroy all the bright prospects, all my plans for promoting your future well-being and consequence in life! Do you believe, can you for a moment be so silly as to imagine, that I have toiled from morning till night, that I have laboured with such incessant assiduity, scarcely giving myself time to enjoy even my meals; and do you think that I have been so anxious, merely to get money, merely to acquire riches? Believe me, my dear son, I have never been led away by any such grovelling notions; I have had higher and more noble objects in view. In fact, and in truth, my great, my sole aim has always been to make _you a man of consequence_ in the county; and although I know that riches alone will neither make a man happy nor respected, yet without wealth I know not how a man in this country can acquire any celebrity in it. With wealth, if a man have but a common share of understanding, he is at once pronounced a wise man, and he is looked up to as a prodigy; when his own native talent alone would not more than fit him for a menial office. Look for instance at our neighbours; there is. Mr. Astley of Everly, who is surrounded by every comfort; he has at his command not only horses, servants, and carriages, but he has a numerous body of tenantry, who submit to be his mere vassals, and will do any act, however dirty or mean, at his nod. He is your commander of the troop of Yeomanry; he keeps hounds; and has many manors well stocked with game; and he is a Magistrate of the county, and ignorant as he is, yet he dispenses the laws, or rather issues his arbitrary mandates to the whole surrounding neighbourhood. In fact, he possesses great power, and _all his power is derived from his wealth alone._ Let me ask you, who know him well, what would he be without his wealth? Strip him of his estates and his riches, what would he be fit for? I wait," said he firmly, "for your honest reply."--The question was put so home and so unexpected, and when I turned my thoughts towards our gallant captain, without wealth and power, he presented to my imagination such a _forlorn, helpless, wretched being_--that I actually burst out a laughing. "Really," said my father, "I am not in a laughing mood; but tell me, seriously, if you know of any situation in life in which, either on the score of his talent, his knowledge, or his ability of any kind, he would be capable of keeping his wife and family from starving? Tell me honestly whether, if he were left to provide for himself, you do not think he would be upon the parish books in a fortnight?"