LETTERS FROM 1866 TO 1872. 85 



apparel falling to pieces ; work offered by the 

 Pall Mall Gazette and other papers if he would 

 go up to London. But how ? One must have 

 enough to pay for board and lodging for a week, 

 at least ; one must have enough for the railway- 

 fare ; one must present a respectable appearance. 

 And now only a single halfpenny left ! We 

 have seen with sorrow how the young man had 

 been already reduced to two shillings and three- 

 pence. But this seems affluence when we look 

 at that solitary halfpenny. Only a halfpenny ! 

 Why, the coin will buy absolutely nothing. 



Yet in this, the darkest hour, when he had 

 no money and could get no work when his 

 own people had ceased to believe in him he 

 still continued to believe in himself. That 

 kind of belief is a wonderful medicine in time 

 of trouble. It is sovereign against low spirits, 

 carelessness, and inactivity the chief evils 

 which follow on ill-success. 



" . . . I have still the firmest belief in my 

 ultimate good-fortune and success. I believe 

 in destiny. Not the fear of total indigence 

 for my father threatens to turn me out of doors 



