CHAPTER III. The Lecturer at Large

Whether mankind is really partial to happiness is an open question.

Not a month passes by but some cherished son runs off into the merchant

service, or some valued husband decamps to Texas with a lady help;

clergymen have fled from their parishioners; and even judges have been

known to retire. To an open mind, it will appear (upon the whole) less

strange that Joseph Finsbury should have been led to entertain ideas of

escape. His lot (I think we may say) was not a happy one. My friend, Mr

Morris, with whom I travel up twice or thrice a week from Snaresbrook

Park, is certainly a gentleman whom I esteem; but he was scarce a model

nephew. As for John, he is of course an excellent fellow; but if he was

the only link that bound one to a home, I think the most of us would

vote for foreign travel. In the case of Joseph, John (if he were a link

at all) was not the only one; endearing bonds had long enchained the old

gentleman to Bloomsbury; and by these expressions I do not in the least

refer to Julia Hazeltine (of whom, however, he was fond enough), but to

that collection of manuscript notebooks in which his life lay buried.

That he should ever have made up his mind to separate himself from these

collections, and go forth upon the world with no other resources than

his memory supplied, is a circumstance highly pathetic in itself, and

but little creditable to the wisdom of his nephews.

The design, or at least the temptation, was already some months old; and

when a bill for eight hundred pounds, payable to himself, was suddenly

placed in Joseph's hand, it brought matters to an issue. He retained

The Wrong Box