“I too, as you may suppose, speculate (and sometimes more largely than is wise) upon Cuthbert’s past, present, and future. The past is past, and could not, I believe, all things considered, have been changed for the better; for the good and evil of public education and of private, as compared with each other, are so nearly balanced, that it would be difficult to say on which side the advantages preponderate. But life is uncertain, and it was a great object with me, feeling that uncertainty, to make his boyhood happy. Moreover the expense of a public school would have cost me no little anxiety, and must have put me to my shifts. . . . .
“For the future, he knows my predilection, and knows
also that he is just as free to choose his own profession, as if I had none. I
indulge in no dreams respecting my life or his,—or into which their
prolongation enters. But if he lives, I think he would be happier in a country
parsonage than at the bar, or as a physician, or in a public office. He is free
to
| 332 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 63. |
“If you have never read Roger North’s Lives of the Lord Keeper Guildford, and his other two brothers, let me recommend them to you. Bating the law matters, you will be amused by every thing else. There is an edition in three octavos, published a few years ago. His Examen is also well worth reading by any one who wishes to understand our history from the Restoration to the Revolution.
“The influenza is leaving me slowly, and I wait for milder weather to get out of doors.”
