'(2) That everything was auspicious in the career you had chosen.
'Of unfavourable news:-'(1) That the small income at your command, even when eked out by the
sum to which you would be entitled on your grandmother's death and the
freehold of the homestead, would be inadequate to support you
becomingly as a scientific man, whose lines of work were of a nature
not calculated to produce emoluments for many years, if ever.
'(2) That there was something in your path worse than narrow means,
and that that something was a _woman_.
'To save you, if possible, from ruin on these heads, I take the
preventive measures detailed below.
'The chief step is, as my solicitor will have informed you, that, at
the age of twenty-five, the sum of 600 pounds a year be settled on you
for life, provided you have not married before reaching that age;--a
yearly gift of an equal sum to be also provisionally made to you in
the interim--and, vice versa, that if you do marry before reaching the
age of twenty-five you will receive nothing from the date of the
marriage.
'One object of my bequest is that you may have resources sufficient to
enable you to travel and study the Southern constellations. When at
the Cape, after hearing of your pursuits, I was much struck with the
importance of those constellations to an astronomer just pushing into
notice. There is more to be made of the Southern hemisphere than ever
has been made of it yet; the mine is not so thoroughly worked as the
Northern, and thither your studies should tend.
'The only other preventive step in my power is that of exhortation, at
which I am not an adept. Nevertheless, I say to you, Swithin St.
Cleeve, don't make a fool of yourself, as your father did. If your
studies are to be worth anything, believe me, they must be carried on
without the help of a woman. Avoid her, and every one of the sex, if
you mean to achieve any worthy thing. Eschew all of that sort for
many a year yet. Moreover, I say, the lady of your acquaintance avoid
in particular. I have heard nothing against her moral character
hitherto; I have no doubt it has been excellent. She may have many
good qualities, both of heart and of mind. But she has, in addition
to her original disqualification as a companion for you (that is, that
of sex), these two serious drawbacks: she is much older than
yourself--' '_Much_ older!' said Swithin resentfully.
'--and she is so impoverished that the title she derives from her late
husband is a positive objection. Beyond this, frankly, I don't think
well of her. I don't think well of any woman who dotes upon a man
younger than herself. To care to be the first fancy of a young fellow
like you shows no great common sense in her. If she were worth her
salt she would have too much pride to be intimate with a youth in your
unassured position, to say no worse. She is old enough to know that a
_liaison_ with her may, and almost certainly would, be your ruin; and,
on the other hand, that a marriage would be preposterous,--unless she
is a complete goose, and in that case there is even more reason for
avoiding her than if she were in her few senses.