"If I have not discovered a new star, brother, I discovered long ago that you would never be one."
"Well, I hope not; their temperature is too unequal for me—they are either freezing or boiling: at least, so said Fritz the other day, whilst we were—all, what were we doing, Willis?"
"We were supposed to be hunting."
"Ah, so we were."
"Now, Master Jack, it is your turn to enlighten us as to your future career."
"It is quite clear, Mr. Wolston, that, since my brothers are to be so illustrious, I cannot be an ordinary mortal; the honor of the family is concerned, and must be consulted. I am, therefore, resolved to become either a great composer, like Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; a renowned painter, like Titian, Carrache, or Veronese; or a great poet, like Homer, Virgil, Shakspeare, Dante, Milton, Goethe, and Racine."
"That is to say," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "that you are resolved to be a great something or other."
"Decidedly, madam; on reflection, however, as I value my eyesight, I must except Homer and Milton."
"But have you not determined to which of the muses you will throw the handkerchief?"
"I thought of music at first. It must be a grand thing, said I to myself, that can charm, delight, and draw tears from the eyes of the multitude—that can inspire faith, courage, patriotism, devotion and energy, and that, too, by means of little black dots with tails, interspersed with quavers, crotchets, sharps and flats."