Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 07.djvu/38

16 150l. per annum,—''which if you should think fit to increase, I should not stand upon it. Your own Estate is best known to you: but surely your personal Estate, being free for you to dispose, will, with some small matter of addition, beget a nearness of equality,—if I hear well from others. And of the difference were not very considerable, I should not insist upon it.''

''What you demand of me is very high in all points. I am willing to settle as you desire in everything; saving for maintenance 400l. per annum, 300l''. per annum. ''I would have somewhat free, to be thanked by them for. The 300l''. per annum ''of my old land for a jointure, after my Wife's decease, I shall settle; and in the mean time “a like sum” out of other lands at your election: and truly, Sir, if that be not good, neither will any lands, I doubt. I do not much distrust, your principles in other things have acted you towards confidence. You demand in case my Son have none issue male but only daughters, then the “Cromwell” Lands in Hantshire, Monmouth- and Gloucestershire to descend to these daughters, or else 3,000l. apiece. The first would be most unequal ; the latter “also” is too high. They will be well provided for by being inheritrixes of their Mother; and I am willing “that” 2,000l. apiece be charged upon those lands “for them.”''

''Sir, I cannot but with very many thanks acknowledge your good opinion of me and of my Son; as also your great civilities towards him; and your Daughter's good respects,—whose goodness, though known to me only at a distance and by the report of others, I much value. And indeed that causeth me so cheerfully to deny myself as I do in the point of moneys, and so willingly to comply in other things. But if I should not insist as above, I should in a greater measure than were meet''