She trained me by these precepts to the utmost
ductility of obedience, and the closest attention to
profit. At an age when other boys are sporting in
the fields or murmuring in the school, I was
contriving some new method of paying my court;
inquiring the age of my future benefactors; or
considering how I should employ their legacies.
If our eagerness of money could have been
satisfied with the possessions of any one of my relations,
they might perhaps have been obtained; but as it
was impossible to be always present with all three,
our competitors were busy to efface any trace of
affection which we might have left behind; and
since there was not, on any part, such superiority
of merit as could enforce a constant and unshaken
preference, whoever was the last that flattered or
obliged, had, for a time, the ascendant.
My relations maintained a regular exchange of
courtesy, took care to miss no occasion of condolence
or congratulation, and sent presents at stated
times, but had in their hearts not much esteem for
one another. The seaman looked with contempt
upon the squire as a milksop and a landman, who
had lived without knowing the points of the compass,
or seeing any part of the world beyond the
county-town; and whenever they met, would talk
of longitude and latitude, and circles and tropicks,
would scarcely tell him the hour without some
mention of the horizon and meridian, nor shew him
the news without detecting his ignorance of the
situation of other countries.
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