This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1887 Excerpt: ... 159 CHAPTER VII. AT HABBURTON. He must be a bold man who shall say unhesitatingly that the courses of our lives are formed by circumstances, or that they are as we ourselves have chosen to make them. Carlyle somewhere pronounces strongly in favour of the latter theory. We might ask, if it had been in his power to shape his own life as he pleased, whether he would not have done well to have given more thought to improving his temper. Circumstances had taken away from me nearly 7000Z., and I think it may be said that I had no power to prevent the loss. But now when it was in my power to accept a present of a larger sum I refused to do so. I am only narrating what happened, and to a certain extent giving my reasons for my refusal of the money. This I conceive to be within the province of the biographer. Obstinacy, conceit, vanity, pride, may all have had their influence in making me refuse my uncle"s generous offer. These gifts are not held generally to be among the most charming qualities, but they have their use in the affairs of life. I did not want anything to be given to me--nothing at least in that way. "When Thomas Gumbell told me 1 need not ask him for money I could show him I was angry with him, and to myself I called him a mean hound; but to refuse my uncle graciously, who really meant to do me a kindness, was more difficult. Nevertheless, I was equally determined to make what way I could in the world for myself. If by my own exertions I could, after some years of hard work, give myself a house and home, 1 should have greater reason to he pleased than by living on the fruit I had idly taken off another man"s tree. I had accustomed myself to think that work in Paris was to be the object of my life, and I could not at a moment"s notice abandon all my s...