88 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



scheme. In the spring of 1835 PhiUp Gosse received 

 replies. His brother ardently responded ; but the rest of 

 the family had no such enthusiasm, and not only refused 

 to join the farm colony, but sought strongly to dissuade 

 Philip from what they did not scruple to stigmatize as 

 madness. He was not dissuaded, however, and continued 

 to elaborate the plans by which, with his slender savings, 

 he meant to buy a hundred acres of virgin soil. He spent 

 pretty nearly all his evenings with the Jaqueses, eagerly 

 reading every scrap of information about Canada, forming 

 plans, and discussing prospects. One evening, on coming 

 home, as Mr. Elson had not quitted the parlour, Philip 

 Gosse went in and abruptly announced his intention of 

 leaving. It happened to be a severely cold night, the 

 effect of which was to benumb his organs of speech, and 

 he spoke abruptly, with a stumbling thickness of pronun- 

 ciation. Mr. Elson made no remark, received the notice 

 with coldness, offered no remonstrance, and expressed no 

 sorrow at parting, nor any allusion to his eight years' 

 service. It is possible that, from Mr. Elson's point of view, 

 Gosse, with all his foreign interests, had ceased to be a 

 valuable or even an endurable occupant of the counting- 

 house, conscientious as he intended to be. After the 

 friendly relations which had existed between them, it was 

 none the less unfortunate that master and man should part 

 on terms so far from cordial on either side. But Philip 

 Gosse had unconsciously grown too large a bird for the 

 little nest at Carbonear. 



