The Way of All Flesh
one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
Theobald wrote Ernest a short and surly letter a propos of his aunt's intentions in this matter.
"I will not commit myself," he said, "to an opinion whether anything will come of it; this will depend entirely upon your own exertions; you have had singular advantages hitherto, and your kind aunt is showing every desire to befriend you, but you must give greater proof of stability and steadiness of character than you have given yet if this organ matter is not to prove in the end to be only one disappointment the more.
"I must insist on two things: firstly that this new iron in the fire does not distract your attention from your Latin and Greek"—("They aren't mine," thought Ernest, "and never have been")—"and secondly, that you bring no smell of glue or shavings into the house here, if you make any part of the organ during your holidays."
Ernest was still too young to know how unpleasant a letter he was receiving. He believed the innuendoes contained in it to be perfectly just. He knew he was sadly deficient in perseverance. He liked some things for a little while, and then found he did not like them any more—and this was as bad as anything well could be. His father's letter gave him one of his many fits of melancholy over his own worthlessness, but the thought of the organ consoled him, and he felt sure that here at any rate was something to which he could apply himself steadily without growing tired of it.
It was settled that the organ was not to be begun before the Christmas holidays were over, and that till then Ernest should do a little plain carpentering, so as to get to know how to use his tools. Miss Pontifex had a carpenter's bench set up in an outhouse upon her own premises, and made terms with the most respectable carpenter in Roughborough, by which one of his men was to come for a couple of hours twice a week and set Ernest on the right way; then she discovered she wanted this or that simple piece of work
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