Fred. Yet I think--
Clar. He is a Deputy,--let him thank God for it! I am a carpenter, thank heaven! You are my good dutiful daughter, that takes care of me, nurses me, and gives me great satisfaction; and for that, I return heaven threefold thanks from the bottom of my heart. (Fred. embraces him.) Yes, you are very good! I only find fault with two things; in every other respect you are a nice girl, quite the girl after my own heart. First, you read too much, and then--
Fred. Dear father, do not I tell you a number of entertaining and instructive things out of the books I read? Has my reading formed me otherwise than you would have me?
Clar. Not as yet, if the evil do not come limping at the end! Good God!--Books indeed impart information; that I must own. But since those deep learned works have carried thy brother so high, and, at the same time, so far from us; I think, when I behold the large heap of books in his study, I think I see a finger-post that directs from the heart.
Fred. Your pursuits and his are different, father.
Clar. In our respective lines, I grant it. If his heart were not a stranger to us from other motives, he would, when his work is done, come and say,--Father! you build houses, and I build laws, that the people may live secure in those houses. I have been successful to day in my work, if God should prosper it; and how have you succeeded? Then I would talk to him of my good old timber, and complain of the young green wood; he might then tell me, how pleased he is with the old colleagues that share his toils, or complain of the young green ones.--Thus we might exchange toil and pleasure, complaint and consolation; spend a comfortable hour together, and derive mutual advantage from each other. But he does not choose to do that; and, if his conscience now and then happen to twitch him a little, he sends me money. Money! what is money to me? when have I ever wished for more than to live? (With vivacity.) His money is the only thing I dislike about him.
Fred. Why so, father?
Clar. Because he has not that great quantity of it--hem! there--there, may be enough of it for this time. The second thing: I do not like in you is to see you converse with that Counsellor Selling. What is the meaning of it?
Fred. My brother entertains a high esteem for him.
Clar. Not I.