First objection.--Literature has no prizes. Money? Yes. Fame? Yes. But no official prizes. If you go into the law, you may hope some day to sit on the woolsack, which is stately but uncomfortable. If you prefer the Church, you may attain the dignity of a bishop--even of an archbishop. In medicine you may become physician to the court, and physic royalty, which entails large fees and a chance of populating the royal vaults in Westminster Abbey. Even in painting, the presidentship of the Royal Academy is not beyond the reach of a conventional painter who does not startle his generation with too much genius. All these things are worth striving for, because they smack of officialism. But literature--oh, shade of Richard Savage, what prize is there in literature?
Suggestion by Toby.--The Poet Laureateship.
Which has no salary worth speaking of attached to it; and rhymes to order are seldom rhymes in order. No, the Laureateship is out of the question; therefore literature has no prizes.
Second objection.--Literature is a good stick, but a bad crutch,--a remark of Walter Scott, which was uttered in the primeval times of scribbling. Still, according to Mr. Clendon, who knew nothing past that period, it held good to-day. If Toby went in for literature, how did he expect to live till the fame period, seeing that he could earn but little, and the paternal purse-strings were to be closed tightly? Poetry. It doesn't pay.
Verse
Is a curse;
Doesn't fill the purse.
Rhyme and reason both, according to Clendon père. Novels! Pshaw, the field is overrun by three volume rubbish by talented lady scribblers. Essays! No one wants essays when Lamb and Addison can be bought cheaply. Altogether, literature has no money in it.
Third objection, and strongest.--You were intended for the Church; and you must carry out my plans, even if against your own judgment.
Having thus stated his objections, Clendon père ordered Toby to take holy orders at once, and think no more of the draggle-tailed muse and all her tribe.
Toby refused.
His father used clerical bad language.