The Caxtons Part XII by Edward Bulwer-lytton

Nothing has been heard of Uncle Jack. Before we left the brick house the Captain gave him an invitation to the Tower, -- more, I suspect, out of compliment to my mother than from the unbidden impulse of his own inclinations. But Mr. Tibbets politely declined it. During his stay at the brick house he had received and written a vast number of letters, -- some of those he received, indeed, were left at the village post-office, under the alphabetical addresses of A. B. or X. Y.; for no misfortune ever paralyzed the energies of Uncle Jack. In the winter of adversity he vanished, it is true; but even in vanishing, he vegetated still. He resembled those algae, termed the Prolococcus nivales, which give a rose-color to the Polar snows that conceal them, and flourish unsuspected amidst the general dissolution of Nature.

Uncle Jack, then, was as lively and sanguine as ever; though he began to let fall vague hints of intentions to abandon the general cause of his fellow- creatures, and to set up business henceforth purely on his own account, -- wherewith my father, to the great shock of my belief in his philanthropy, expressed himself much pleased. And I strongly suspect that when Uncle Jack wrapped himself up in his new double Saxony and went off at last, he carried with him something more than my father's good wishes in aid of his conversion to egotistical philosophy.