"Reflection drives this fear from my heart, however; I remember how frequently you have assured me that you were satisfied with your condition, and that if you desired luxuries it was only for my sake.
"In fact, your inexhaustible humor and gentleness, your natural gaiety of spirits and tender affection for me sufficiently prove that you are contented. Moreover, do I not share your privations? Your own economies, added to my earnings as a public scribe, have permitted us to live without touching my revenues. The capital has thus been growing for twenty years in the hands of my prudent administrator.
"On the day on which I pen these lines, my fortune amounts to about two millions and a half.
"I know not how many years of life may still be allotted to me, but in ten years I shall have attained the average length of human life; you shall then be thirty-five years of age; and since a capital doubles itself in ten years, my wealth shall have attained the enormous sum of four or five millions.
"Unless I am stricken down suddenly, you shall therefore, in all probability, attain your complete maturity before entering into possession of these riches. Your sober, modest, industrious habits, contracted in childhood, shall be as a second nature to you; and your knowledge of business will be still more developed by practice. Add to these advantages your uprightness of mind, your strong physical constitution—unimpaired by early excesses—and you will find yourself in the best possible condition to inherit the wealth I have amassed, as well as to enjoy it according to your own tastes which, I am sure, can be nothing but generous and honorable.
"You may, perhaps, ask why I simply left my capital to multiply by itself, instead of attempting some great financial operation or enjoying the delights of luxury?
"I shall tell you why, my dear child.
"Although my avarice had its origin in a sentiment of paternal foresight, it has now assumed all the inherent characteristics of a violent passion.
"I could, and can still, deprive myself of everything to accumulate riches upon riches, happy in the thought that it is all for you, and that you will enjoy this gold some day; but to release my hold on any part of my belongings, for any object whatever, or risk anything in financial operations is impossible—no! not while I live! It would be tearing my heart out by the core; for the possession of his treasure is life itself to a miser. Without spending or risking one farthing, I can give myself up in imagination to the most hazardous or magnificent operations. And this is neither a vain desire nor an empty dream. No! no! with what I possess, those magnificences and splendors are realizable to-day, to-morrow, this very hour, if I choose.
"How then can you expect that a miser should have the courage or will to release his hold on such a talisman? What! for one project, one realized dream, would I sacrifice a thousand projects, a thousand realizable dreams? Besides, is not my son happy as he is? Would he not be the pride of the proudest of fathers? And is it not for him, for him only, that I hoard up these treasures?