The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft

Two thousand pounds! If, at N---'s age, I had achieved that income, what would have been the result upon me? Nothing but good, I know; but what form would the good have taken? Should I have become a social man, a giver of dinners, a member of clubs? Or should I merely have begun, ten years sooner, the life I am living now? That is more likely. In my twenties I used to say to myself: what a splendid thing it will be when I am the possessor of a thousand pounds! Well, I have never possessed that sum--never anything like it--and now never shall. Yet it was not an extravagant ambition, methinks, however primitive.