He paused for the moment, and his son carefully abstained from furnishing new matter for subtle arguments, well knowing that his father had no mercy upon hobby-horses.
At length the old gentleman laid his hand, smilingly, upon the tome, saying, "I do not suppose that you intend to refute this work, Ralph: first, because I imagine that you do not know what it is, and, next, because I have remarked any thing but a vaulting ambition in you, my dear boy; indeed, perhaps too little. Now,
'Ambire semper stulta confidentia est,
Ambire nunquam deses arrogantia est,'
as has been said, in not the sweetest Latin that ever flowed--"
"Your pardon, dear father," replied Ralph, "I am very ambitious; not, indeed, of refuting the book of any author, living or dead; that I leave to you, in every way fitted for the task, if falsehood be the opponent. But anxious am I--most anxious, 'ambire palmam,' on the great stage of human life. To speak straightforwardly, I have been thinking for some time of asking your permission to go forth and try my fortune on a wider stage. I think I have not done ill at Cambridge" (the father nodded his head approvingly); "but yet none of the paths which a collegiate life opens to a man have temptations for me, and I would fain see whether I can not carve out one for myself."
"What, at the court?" asked the father, shaking his head; "Ralph, Ralph, you forget the means, and know not half the expenses which a court life requires even before the slightest advantage can be gained. With the rich and the courtly, only the rich and the courtly find favor. 'Sus sui, canis cani, bos bovi, et asinus asino, pulcherrimus videtur.'"
"Oh no!" cried Ralph, "no courtly life for me, sir. Some powerful friends I may need, but those I know you can procure me; for not only they who are connected with you by blood, but they also who have had the stronger bond of personal friendship with you in former years, will assuredly value your recommendation too highly to slight your son. As to means, the small sum I receive from my college, and a part of what you were kind enough to allow me there, will be ample."
His father shook his head with a somewhat doubtful air, and asked, "But if you should fail, Ralph?"
"I can but return here," said the young man, "and matters will be just where they were before."
"You are fond of that phrase, Ralph," replied his father, "but you are mistaken--all are mistaken who use it; nothing that has passed through any change is ever the same as it was before. There is always something gained or something lost. It will be so with you; and who shall say, in all the various complexities of circumstance and character, of accident and conduct, which life in the great world implies, how the balance may incline when you visit this old dwelling again."