d. Secondly, my friends generally wish
it. They are urgent and pressing. My father even offers me--I will
sometime tell you what--and Mr. Thompson offers my tuition gratis, and
to relinquish his stand to me.

"On the whole, I imagine I shall make one more trial in the ensuing
autumn. If I prosecute the profession, I pray God to fortify me against
its temptations. To the winds I dismiss those light hopes of eminence
which ambition inspired, and vanity fostered. To be 'honest, to be
capable, to be faithful' to my client and my conscience, I earnestly
hope will be my first endeavor. I believe you, my worthy boy, when you
tell me what are your intentions. I have long known and long loved the
honesty of your heart. But let us not rely too much on ourselves; let us
look to some less fallible guide to direct us among the temptations that
surround us."

WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD[12]

By HON. CHARLES E. FITCH

(1801-1872)

[Footnote 12: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

[Illustration: William Henry Seward. [TN]]

William Henry Seward, the American statesman, was born in Florida,
Orange County, N. Y., May 16, 1801, and died at Auburn, in the same
State, October 10, 1872. Precocious in his studies, he pursued his
preliminary education in his native village, and, at the age of fifteen,
entered, as a sophomore, Union College, then under the presidency of
Eliphalet Nott, between whom and his pupil a life-long friendship,
illustrated by mutual confidence and counsel, was early established.
Seward's college course, especially brilliant in rhetoric and the
classics, was interrupted in his senior year by a residence of six
months, as a teacher, in Georgia, where previous impressions against
African slavery were confirmed by observation of its workings. Returning
to college, he was graduated with high honors in 1820, the subject of
his Commencement oration being "The Integrity of the American Union."

He was admitted to the bar at Utica, in October, 1822, and in January,
1823, settled at Auburn as a partner of Judge Elijah Miller, whose
daughter he married in October, 1824. Although certain features of the
law--its technicalities and uncertainties--were repugnant to him, he was
soon in the full tide of professional success, and, in the opening of
the circuit courts to equity jurisprudence, found much that was in
harmony with his sense of justice. He was also, from the first,
interested in politics, for which he had