If you had stuck to your books well, you rascal, I should
have had a pleasanter prospect before me. But scholarship doesn't run in
your family blood."
"No indeed. It's well if I can remember a little inapplicable Latin to
adorn my maiden speech in Parliament six or seven years hence. 'Cras
ingens iterabimus aequor,' and a few shreds of that sort, will perhaps
stick to me, and I shall arrange my opinions so as to introduce them.
But I don't think a knowledge of the classics is a pressing want to
a country gentleman; as far as I can see, he'd much better have a
knowledge of manures. I've been reading your friend Arthur Young's books
lately, and there's nothing I should like better than to carry out some
of his ideas in putting the farmers on a better management of their
land; and, as he says, making what was a wild country, all of the same
dark hue, bright and variegated with corn and cattle. My grandfather
will never let me have any power while he lives, but there's nothing
I should like better than to undertake the Stonyshire side of the
estate--it's in a dismal condition--and set improvements on foot, and
gallop about from one place to another and overlook them. I should like
to know all the labourers, and see them touching their hats to me with a
look of goodwill.
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