d a provoking coolness on the subject. He said
it was very civil in the judges to offer such a compliment to a
brother on the bench, and, of course, a respectful letter of
acknowledgment must be sent. The glowing countenance of the young man
fell at these most unexpected and unwelcome words. They were, to use
his own language, "a shower-bath of ice-water." The old lawyer,
observing his crestfallen condition, reasoned seriously with him, and
persuaded him, against his will, to continue his preparation, for the
bar. At every turning-point of his life, whenever he came to a parting
of the ways, one of which must be chosen and the other forsaken, he
required an impulse from without to push him into the path he was to
go. Except once! Once in his long public life, he seemed to venture
out alone on an unfamiliar road, and lost himself. Usually, when great
powers are conferred on a man, there is also given him a strong
propensity to exercise them, sufficient to carry him through all
difficulties to the suitable sphere. Here, on the contrary, there was
a Great Eastern with only a Cunarder's engine, and it required a tug
to get the great ship round to her course.

Admitted to the bar in his twenty-third year, he dutifully went home
to his father, and opened an office in a New Hampshire village near
by, resolved never again to leave the generous old man while he lived.
Before leaving Boston, he wrote to his friend Bingham, "If I am not
earning my bread and cheese in exactly nine days after my admission, I
shall certainly be a bankrupt";--and so, indeed, it proved. With great
difficulty, he "hired" eighty-five dollars as a capital to begin
business with, and this great sum was immediately lost in its transit
by stage. To any other young man in his situation, such a calamity
would have been, for the moment, crushing; but this young man,
indifferent to _meum_ as to _tuum_, informs his brother that he can in
no conceivable way replace the money, cannot therefore pay for the
books he had bought, believes he is earning his daily bread, and as to
the loss, he has "_no uneasy sensations on that account_." He
concludes his letter with an old song, beginning,

"Fol de dol, dol de dol, di dol,
I'll never make money my idol."

In the New Hampshire of 1805 there was no such thing possible as
leaping at once into a lucrative practice, nor even of slowly
acquiring it. A country lawyer who gained a thousand dollars a year
was among