For instance, where
do you yourself go?"
"A cousin of my mother's commands a ship in the Company's service. I
intend to go with him as surgeon's mate. If I like the sea service, I
will continue in it; if not, I will enter some other line." This Hartley
said with a sigh.
"To India!" answered Richard; "Happy dog--to India! You may well bear
with equanimity all disappointments sustained on this side of the globe.
Oh, Delhi! oh, Golconda! have your names no power to conjure down idle
recollections?--India, where gold is won by steel; where a brave man
cannot pitch his desire for fame and wealth so high, but that he may
realize it, if he have fortune to his friend? Is it possible that the
bold adventurer can fix his thoughts on you, and still be dejected at
the thoughts that a bonny blue-eyed lass looked favourably on a less
lucky fellow than himself? Can this be?"
"Less lucky?" said Hartley. "Can you, the accepted lover of Menie Gray,
speak in that tone, even though it be in jest!"
"Nay, Adam," said Richard, "don't be angry with me, because, being thus
far successful, I rate my good fortune not quite so rapturously as
perhaps you do, who have missed the luck of it. Your philosophy should
tell you, that the object which we attain, or are sure of attaining,
loses, perhaps, even by that very certainty, a little of the extravagant
and ideal value, which attached to it while the object of feverish hopes
and aguish fears.
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