to it, it was not an
ignoble one. He did it under no excitement from the American gains, of
which he knew nothing when he pledged himself to the enterprise. No man
could care essentially less for mere money than he did. But the
necessary provision for many sons was a constant anxiety; he was proud
of what the Readings had done to abridge this care; and the very strain
of them under which it seems certain that his health had first given
way, and which he always steadily refused to connect especially with
them, had also broken the old confidence of being at all times available
for his higher pursuit. What affected his health only he would not
regard as part of the question either way. That was to be borne as the
lot more or less of all men; and the more thorough he could make his
feeling of independence, and of ability to rest, by what was now in
hand, the better his final chances of a perfect recovery would be. That
was the spirit in which he entered on this last engagement. It was an
opportunity offered for making a particular work really complete before
he should abandon it for ever. Something of it will not be
indiscernible even in the summary of his past acquisitions, which with a
pardonable exultation he now sent me.

"We had great difficulty in getting our American accounts squared to the
point of ascertaining what Dolby's commission amounted to in English
money. After all, we were obliged to call in the aid of a money-changer,
to determine what he should pay as his share of the average loss of
conversion into gold. With this deduction made, I think his commission
(I have not the figures at hand) was L2,888; Ticknor and Fields had a
commission of L1,000, besides 5 per cent. on all Boston receipts. The
expenses in America to the day of our sailing were 38,948
dollars;--roughly 39,000 dollars, or L13,000. The preliminary expenses
were L614. The average price of gold was nearly 40 per cent., and yet my
profit was within a hundred or so of L20,000. Supposing me to have got
through the present engagement in good health, I shall have made by the
Readings, _in two years_, L33,000: that is to say, L13,000 received from
the Chappells, and L20,000 from America. What I had made by them before,
I could only ascertain by a long examination of Coutts's books. I should
say, certainly not less than L10,000: for I remember that I made half
that money in the first town and country campaign with poor Arthur
Smith. These figures are o