Well, without a blush I embraced the monstrosity.

I did not throw myself into the struggle for life: I threw my mother into it.

I was not a staff to my father's old age: I hung on to his coat tails.

His reward was to live just long enough to read a review of one of these silly novels written in an obscure journal by a personal friend of my own (now eminent in literature as Mr.John Mackinnon Robertson) prefiguring me to some extent as a considerable author.

I think, myself, that this was a handsome reward, far better worth having than a nice pension from a dutiful son struggling slavishly for his parent's bread in some sordid trade.