"I will tell you, boys, what are my reasons. When I was a young man, before your mother and I were married, indeed before I had ever seen her, I had strongly impressed on my mind the wish to gain influence in the world—riches if I could—but at all events, influence. I thought I could use it well, better than most men; those can best help the poor who understand the poor. And I can; since, you know, when Uncle Phineas found me, I was—"
"Father," said Guy, flushing scarlet, "we may as well pass over that fact. We are gentlefolks now."
"We always were, my son."
The rebuke, out of its very mildness, cut the youth to the heart. He dropped his eyes, colouring now with a different and a holier shame.
"I know that. Please will you go on, father."
"And now," the father continued, speaking as much out of his own thoughts as aloud to his children—"now, twenty-five years of labour have won for me the position I desired. That is, I might have it for the claiming. I might take my place among the men who have lately risen from the people, to guide and help the people—the Cannings, Huskissons, Peels."
"Would you enter parliament? Sir Herbert asked me to-day if you ever intended it. He said there was nothing you might not attain to if you would give yourself up entirely to politics."
"No, Guy, no. Wisdom, like charity, begins at home. Let me learn to rule in my own valley, among my own people, before I attempt to guide the state. And that brings me back again to the pros and cons about Beechwood Hall."
"Tell them, John; tell all out plainly to the children."
The reasons were—first, the advantage of the boys themselves; for John Halifax was not one of those philanthropists who would benefit all the world except their own household and their own kin. He wished—since the higher a man rises, the wider and nobler grows his sphere of usefulness—not only to lift himself, but his sons after him; lift them high enough to help on the ever-advancing tide of human improvement, among their own people first, and thence extending outward in the world whithersoever their talents or circumstances might call them.