work out our moral by subtle hints and brief comments; and we shall now content ourselves with reminding thee, that hitherto thou hast seen Paul honest in the teeth of circumstances. Despite the contagion of the Mug,—despite his associates in Fish Lane,—despite his intimacy with Long Ned, thou hast seen him brave temptation, and look forward to some other career than that of robbery or fraud. Nay, even in his destitution, when driven from the abode of his childhood, thou hast observed how, instead of resorting to some more pleasurable or libertine road of life, he betook himself at once to the dull roof and insipid employments of Mac Grawler, and preferred honestly earning his subsistence by the sweat of his brain, to recurring to any of the numerous ways of living on others with which his experience among the worse part of society must have teemed, and which, to say the least of them, are more alluring to the young and the adventurous, than the barren paths of literary labour. Indeed, to let thee into a secret, it had been Paul's daring ambition to raise himself into a worthy member of the community. His present circumstances, it may hereafter be
