He meant to devote himself to literature
and politics.
'Is not that rather vague?' inquired her ladyship.
'Everything is vague at first.'
'But literature now--as an amusement, no doubt, it is delightful--but as
a profession--does literature ever pay?'
'There have been such cases.'
'Yes, I suppose so. Walter Scott, Gibbon, Macaulay, Froude, those made
money no doubt. But there is a suspicion of hopelessness in the idea of
a young man starting in life intending to earn his bread by literature.
One remembers Chatterton. I should have thought that in your case the
law or the church would have been better. In the latter Maulevrier might
have been useful to you. He is patron of three or four livings.'
'You are too good even to think of such a thing,' said Hammond; 'but I
have set my heart upon a political career. I must swim or sink in that
sea.'
Lady Maulevrier looked at him with a compassionate smile Poor young man!
No doubt he thought himself a genius, and that doors which had remained
shut to everybody else would turn on their hinges directly he knocked at
them.
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