“Owing to luck, of course,” said he, scornfully; “luck makes a man lazy, keeps him in bed when he ought to be up and at work; luck makes him idle, and gets him plucked for his examinations. I tell you this, sir: I 'd rather a man would give me a fillip on the nose than talk to me about luck. If there's a word in the language I detest and hate, it is luck.”
“I'm not in love with it myself, sir,” said I, trying to smile.
“Did you ever hear of luck mending a man's shoes or paying his washerwoman? Did luck ever buy a beefsteak, eh?”
“That might admit of discussion.”
“Then let me have no discussion. I like work, and I dislike wrangling. Listen to me, and mend now, sir. I want an honest, sober, fixed determination,—no caprice, no passing fancy. Do you believe you are capable of turning over a new leaf, and sitting down steadily to the business of life, like a patient, industrious, respectable man who desires to earn his own bread, and not live on the earnings of others?”
“I hope so.” “Don't tell me of hope, sir. Say you will, or you will not”
“I will,” said I, resolutely.
“You will work hard, rise early, live frugally, give up dreaming about this, that, or the other chance, and set to like a fellow that wants to do his own work with his own hands?”
“I promise it all.”
My uncle was neither an agreeable nor a very clear exponent of his views, and I shall save my reader and myself some time and unpleasantness if I reduce the statement he made to me to a few words. A company had been formed to start an hydropathic establishment on a small river, a tributary of the Rhine,—the Lahn. They had acquired, at a very cheap rate of purchase, an old feudal castle and its surrounding grounds, and had converted the building into a most complete and commodious residence, and the part which bordered the river into a beautiful pleasure-ground. The tinted drawings which represented various views of the castle and the terraced gardens, were something little short of fairyland in captivation. Nor was the pictorial effect lessened by the fact that figures on horseback and on foot, disporting in boats or driving in carriages, gave a life and movement to the scene, and imparted to it the animation and enjoyment of actual existence. The place of director was vacant, and I was to be appointed to it. My salary was to be three hundred a year, but my table, my horses, my servants,—in fact, all my household, were to be maintained for me on a liberal scale; and my duties were to be pretty much what I pleased to make them. My small smattering of two or three languages—exalted by my uncle into the reputation of a polyglot—had recommended me to the “Direction;” and as my chief function was to entertain a certain number of people twice or thrice a week at dinner, and suggest amusements to fill up their time, it was believed that my faculties were up to the level of such small requirements.