the share and society of our goods, and not to make them partakers in the
intelligence of our domestic affairs when they are capable, and not to
lessen and contract our own expenses to make the more room for theirs,
seeing we beget them to that effect. 'Tis unjust that an old fellow,
broken and half dead, should alone, in a corner of the chimney, enjoy the
money that would suffice for the maintenance and advancement of many
children, and suffer them, in the meantime, to lose their' best years for
want of means to advance themselves in the public service and the
knowledge of men. A man by this course drives them to despair, and to
seek out by any means, how unjust or dishonourable soever, to provide for
their own support: as I have, in my time, seen several young men of good
extraction so addicted to stealing, that no correction could cure them of
it. I know one of a very good family, to whom, at the request of a
brother of his, a very honest and brave gentleman, I once spoke on this
account, who made answer, and confessed to me roundly, that he had been
put upon this paltry practice by the severity and avarice of his father;
but that he was now so accustomed to it he could not leave it off. And,
at that very time, he was trapped stealing a lady's rings, having come
into her chamber, as she was dressing with several others. He put me in
mind of a story I had heard of another gentleman, so perfect and
accomplished in this fine trade in his youth, that, after he came to his
estate and resolved to give it over, he could not hold his hands,
nevertheless, if he passed by a shop where he saw anything he liked, from
catching it up, though it put him to the shame of sending afterwards to
pay for it. And I have myself seen several so habituated to this quality
that even amongst their comrades they could not forbear filching, though
with intent to restore what they had taken. I am a Gascon, and yet there
is no vice I so little understand as that; I hate it something more by
disposition than I condemn it by reason; I do not so much as desire
anything of another man's. This province of ours is, in plain truth, a