sters are the most learned, and the doctors are
the most sensible.

The lawyers are a picked lot, "first scholars" and the like, but their
business is as unsympathetic as Jack Ketch's. There is nothing
humanizing in their relations with their fellow-creatures. They go for
the side that retains them. They defend the man they know to be a rogue,
and not very rarely throw suspicion on the man they know to be innocent.
Mind you, I am not finding fault with them; every side of a case has a
right to the best statement it admits of; but I say it does not tend to
make them sympathetic. Suppose in a case of Fever vs. Patient, the
doctor should side with either party according to whether the old miser
or his expectant heir was his employer. Suppose the minister should side
with the Lord or the Devil, according to the salary offered and other
incidental advantages, where the soul of a sinner was in question. You
can see what a piece of work it would make of their sympathies. But the
lawyers are quicker witted than either of the other professions, and
abler men generally. They are good-natured, or, if they quarrel, their
quarrels are above-board. I don't think they are as accomplished as the
ministers, but they have a way of cramming with special knowledge for a
case which leaves a certain shallow sediment of intelligence in their
memories about a good many things. They are apt to talk law in mixed
company, and they have a way of looking round when they make a point, as
if they were addressing a jury, that is mighty aggravating, as I once had
occasion to see when one of 'em, and a pretty famous one, put me on the
witness-stand at a dinner-party once.

The ministers come next in point of talent. They are far more curious
and widely interested outside of their own calling than either of the
other professions. I like to talk with 'em. They are interesting men,
full of good feelings, hard workers, always foremost in good deeds, and
on the whole the most efficient civilizing class, working downwards from
knowledge to ignorance, that is,--not so much upwards, perhaps,--that we
have. The trouble is, that so many of 'em work in harness, and it is
pretty sure to chafe somewhere. They feed us on canned meats mostly.
They cripple our instincts and reason, and give us a crutch of doctrine.
I have talked with a great many of 'em of all sorts of belief, and I
don't think they are quite so easy in their minds, the greater number of