Any such resemblances must be considered as
fortuitous; for the writer cannot charge himself with the discourtesy of
individual satire or allusion.]
I was confoundedly hard up. My patrimony, never of the largest, had been
for the last year on the decrease,--a herald would have emblazoned
it, "ARGENT, a money-bag improper, in detriment,"--and though the
attenuating process was not excessively rapid, it was, nevertheless,
proceeding at a steady ratio. As for the ordinary means and appliances
by which men contrive to recruit their exhausted exchequers, I knew
none of them. Work I abhorred with a detestation worthy of a scion of
nobility; and, I believe, you could just as soon have persuaded the
lineal representative of the Howards or Percys to exhibit himself in
the character of a mountebank, as have got me to trust my person on the
pinnacle of a three-legged stool. The rule of three is all very well
for base mechanical souls; but I flatter myself I have an intellect too
large to be limited to a ledger. "Augustus," said my poor mother to me,
while stroking my hyacinthine tresses, one fine morning, in the very
dawn and budding-time of my existence--"Augustus, my dear boy, whatever
you do, never forget that you are a gentleman.
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