An opportunity has offered itself.

It is in my power to make the last days of my father comfortable, to educate my brother, to provide for my sisters, to procure a competence for myself.
I may hope, by the time I am thirty-nine or forty, to return to England with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds.

To me that would be affluence.
I never wished for more.
As far as English politics are concerned, I lose, it is true, a few years.

But, if your kindness had not introduced me very early to Parliament,--if I had been left to climb up the regular path of my profession, and to rise by my own efforts,--I should have had very little chance of being in the House of Commons at forty.

If I have gained any distinction in the eyes of my countrymen,--if I have acquired any knowledge of Parliamentary and official business, and any habitude for the management of great affairs,--I ought to consider these things as clear gain.
Then, too, the years of my absence, though lost, as far as English politics are concerned, will not, I hope, be wholly lost, as respects either my own mind or the happiness of my fellow-creatures.