Open new terminal with environment specified by source command

I want to run a command that opens a terminal and sources into it a set of variables. How can I do this? I'm using xfce4-terminal. It has a command-line arg "--command", to execute commands upon opening the terminal. But that arg doesn't appear to allow execution of the source command. # For example: ## use terminal's --command flag to open it with sourced environment vars xfce4-terminal \ --command 'source somefile' \ --hold & But it just gives an error: failed to execute child process 'source': no such file or directory. *That is what you would try naturally after reading the xfce4-terminal's sparse manpage.* # How about specifically invoking bash within the new terminal to source the file? xfce4-terminal \ --command 'bash -c "source somefile \ --hold & That executes the source command, but as soon as it is finished the terminal exits. *You might try that after searching the forums and finding it written that one must call bash to run the bash command source. (What is that? Start a terminal with a bash instance to call another bash to run the command)* # call bash within bash, within bash, within terminal, to run the command xfce4-terminal \ --command 'bash -c "source somefile; bash"' \ --hold & That opens a terminal and keeps it open, but without the sourced environment. *Seems silly, but that's something else you might try after searching the forums.* # use bash to call bash with sourced environment xfce4-terminal \ --command 'bash -c "bash -c \"source somefile; some_command\""' \ --hold & That sources the new env in a new terminal, but it just closes again as soon as the source cmd has finished executing. *(Just some guesswork)* # create a script called source_somefile which invokes bash and runs 'source somefile' xfce4-terminal \ --command 'source_somefile' \ --hold & No. The terminal closes again as soon as the source cmd has finished executing. Though you can't be blamed for thinking that would surely work: putting the source cmd in a script and running that using the terminal with the --command flag, so that the --hold flag might also be used to stop the terminal exiting when the source command has finished executing? How about, running the script as: bash -c 'source somefile'? No: terminal closes again as soon as the source cmd has finished executing. So how *can* this be done, short of printing off the xfce4-terminal manpage and ritually burning it over a blood sacrifice under a harvest moon? And then howling... howling...