Page:Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp Volume 1.djvu/35

Rh of all this? Are you going to live for them, or they for you?"

"I shall set them the example of living for them, and trust to awaken the good that is in them, in return. The strong ought to live for the weak—the cultivated for the ignorant."

"Well, Clayton, the Lord help you! I'm in earnest now—fact! Though I know you won't do it, yet I wish you could. It's a pity, Clayton, you were born in this world. It isn't you, but our planet and planetary ways, that are in fault. Your mind is a splendid store-house—gold and gems of Ophir—but they are all up in the fifth story, and no staircase to get 'em down into common life. Now, I 've just enough appreciation of the sort of thing that's in you, not to laugh at you. Nine out of ten would. To tell you the truth, if I were already set up in life, and had as definite a position as you have,—family, friends, influence, and means,—why, perhaps I might afford to cultivate this style of thing. But, I tell you what it is, Clayton, such a conscience as yours is cursedly expensive to keep. It's like a carriage—a fellow mustn't set it up unless he can afford it. It 's one of the luxuries."

"It's a necessary of life, with me," said Clayton, dryly.

"Well, that's your nature. I can't afford it. I've got my way to make, I must succeed, and with your ultra notions I couldn't succeed. So there it is. After all, I can be as religious as dozens of your most respectable men, who have taken their seats in the night-train for Paradise, and keep the daylight for their own business."

"I dare say you can."

"Yes, and I shall get all I aim at; and you, Clayton, will be always an unhappy, dissatisfied aspirant after something too high for mortality. There's just the difference between us."

The conversation was here interrupted by the return of the family party.