Page:Passions 2.pdf/466

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454
THE SECOND MARRIAGE:

though I am net a man of the world, I have one or two things to say to my friend that I wish him to attend to.

Sea. (smiling rather contemptuously.) Well, what are they Beaumont? you are, indeed, not a man of the world.

Bea. Every man who risks his fortune in any scheme, believes he has good grounds to rest upon: they are such as appear feasible to him.

Sea. Feasible! ours is certain.

Bea. (shaking his head.) A man who is anxious to get rich is apt to let his judgment be imposed upon, and forgets how many have fail'd in the same track before him.

Sea. I wish those who are apt to give advice, would take the same thing into their consideration.

Bea. Nay, my friend, there is a social influence which we all have, even the meanest of us, over one another, and there is more advice taken in the world than you are aware of. But had every adviser from the beginning of time fail'd before me, I will never believe that he who pleads to a father in behalf of his own children will speak without effect. Hear me then; let him who stands alone, run every risk to aggrandize himself, but let a father—O let the father of a family consider!

Plau. You forget, my good Sir, that the father of a family has a higher motive than any other man to aggrandize himself.