By the same post another letter went from Polpenno to Matching
which also gave rise to some mental memoranda. It was as follows;
'MY DEAR MABEL,
I am a Member of the British House of Commons! I have sometimes
regarded myself as being one of the most peculiarly unfortunate
men in the world, and yet now I have achieved that which all
commoners in England think to be the greatest honour within their
reach, and have done so at an age at which very few achieve it but
the sons of the wealthy and the powerful.
'I now come to my misfortunes. I know that as a poor man I ought
not to be a Member of Parliament. I ought to be earning my bread
as a lawyer or a doctor. I have no business to be what I am, and
when I am forty I shall find that I have eaten up all my good
things instead of having them to eat.
'I have once chance before me. You know very well what it is. Tell
her that my pride in being a Member of Parliament is much more on
her behalf than on my own. The man who dares to love her ought at
any rate to be something in the world.
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