e quite concealed.

Fitzjames's comparative failure at Cambridge suggests to him a
significant remark. After speaking of his 'unteachableness,' he observes
that his mind was over-full of thoughts about religion, about politics,
about morals, about metaphysics, about all sorts of subjects, except
art, literature, or physical science. For art of any kind I have never
cared, and do not care in the very least. For literature, as such, I
care hardly at all. I like to be amused and instructed on the particular
things I want to know; but works of genius, as such, give me very little
pleasure, and as to the physical sciences, they interest me only so far
as they illustrate the true method of inquiry. They, or rather some of
them, have the advantage of being particularly true, and so a guide in
the pursuit of moral and distinctively human truth. For their own sake,
I care very little about them.'

V. READING FOR THE BAR

My brother had definitely to make the choice of a profession upon which
he had been reflecting during his college career. He set about the task
in an eminently characteristic way. When he had failed in the last
scholarship examination, he sat down deliberately and wrote out a
careful discussion of the whole question. The result is before me in a
little manuscript book, which Fitzjames himself re-read and annotated in
1865, 1872, and 1880. He read it once more in 1893. Both text and
commentary are significant. He is anxious above all things to give
plain, tangible reasons for his conduct. He would have considered it
disgraceful to choose from mere impulse or from any such considerations
as would fall under the damnatory epithet 'sentimental.' He therefore
begins in the most prosaic fashion by an attempt to estimate the
pecuniary and social advantages of the different courses open to him.
These are in reality the Church and the Bar; although, by way of
exhibiting the openness of his mind, he adds a more perfunctory
discussion of the merits of the medical profession. Upon this his
uncle, Henry Venn, had made a sufficient comment. 'There is a
providential obstacle,' he said, 'to your becoming a doctor--you have
not humbug enough.' The argument from these practical considerations
leads to no conclusion. The main substance of the discussion is
therefore a consideration of the qualities requisite for the efficient
discharge of clerical or legal duties. A statement of these qualities,
he says, will form the major o