y imagination was fired by
an impression of the power to be achieved by successful men of his
profession, by the evidence of their indispensability to capital
itself.... At last when the gentlemen rose and were leaving the room, Mr.
Watling lingered, with his hand on my arm.

"Of course you're going through the Law School, Hugh," he said.

"Yes, sir," I replied.

"Good!" he exclaimed emphatically. "The law, to-day, is more of a career
than ever, especially for a young man with your antecedents and
advantages, and I know of no city in the United States where I would
rather start practice, if I were a young man, than ours. In the next
twenty years we shall see a tremendous growth. Of course you'll be going
into your father's office. You couldn't do better. But I'll keep an eye
on you, and perhaps I'll be able to help you a little, too."

I thanked him gratefully.

A famous artist, who started out in youth to embrace a military career
and who failed to pass an examination at West Point, is said to have
remarked that if silicon had been a gas he would have been a soldier. I
am afraid I may have given the impression that if I had not gone to
Weathersfield and encountered Mr. Watling I might not have been a lawyer.
This impression would be misleading. And while it is certain that I have
not exaggerated the intensity of the spiritual experience I went through
at Cambridge, a somewhat belated consideration for the truth compels me
to register my belief that the mood would in any case have been
ephemeral. The poison generated by the struggle of my nature with its
environment had sunk too deep, and the very education that was supposed
to make a practical man of me had turned me into a sentimentalist. I
became, as will be seen, anything but a practical man in the true sense,
though the world in which I had been brought up and continued to live
deemed me such. My father was greatly pleased when I wrote him that I was
now more than ever convinced of the wisdom of choosing the law as my
profession, and was satisfied that I had come to my senses at last. He
had still been prepared to see me "go off at a tangent," as he expressed
it. On the other hand, the powerful effect of the appeal made by
Weathersfield and Mr. Watling must not be underestimated. Here in one
object lesson was emphasized a host of suggestions each of which had made
its impression. And when I returned to Cambridge Alonzo Cheyne knew that
he had lost me....

I