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before Orion once, and the helpless and hopeless mess he made of it was
absolutely astonishing. Nothing aggravates me so much as to have Orion
mention law or literature to me.
Well, I cannot encourage him to try the ministry, because he would
change his religion so fast that he would have to keep a traveling agent
under wages to go ahead of him to engage pulpits and board for him.
I cannot conscientiously encourage him to do anything but potter around
his little farm and put in his odd hours contriving new and impossible
projects at the rate of 365 a year--which is his customary average.
He says he did well in Hannibal! Now there is a man who ought to be
entirely satisfied with the grandeurs, emoluments and activities of a
hen farm--
If you ask me to pity Orion, I can do that. I can do it every day
and all day long. But one can't "encourage" quick-silver, because the
instant you put your finger on it it isn't there. No, I am saying
too much--he does stick to his literary and legal aspirations; and
he naturally would select the very two things which he is wholly and
preposterously unfitted for. If I ever become able, I mean to put Orion
on a regular pension without revealing the fact that it is a pension.
That is best for him. Let him consider it a periodical loan, and pay
interest out of the principal. Within a year's time he would be looking
upon himself as a benefactor of mine, in the way of furnishing me a
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