he would not work at his oars in the only approved
method of making progress for his boat. He also had been at Oxford;
but he had done little there except talk at a debating society, and
make himself notorious by certain ideas on religious subjects which
were not popular at the University. He had left without taking a
degree, in consequence, as it was believed, of some such notions,
and had now been called to the bar with a fixed resolve to open the
oyster with such weapons, offensive and defensive, as nature had
given to him. But here, as at Oxford, he would not labour on the
same terms with other men, or make himself subject to the same
conventional rules; and therefore it seemed only too probable that he
might win no prize. He had ideas of his own that men should pursue
their labours without special conventional regulations, but should be
guided in their work by the general great rules of the world,--such
for instance as those given in the commandments:--Thou shalt not bear
false witness; Thou shalt not steal; and others. His notions no doubt
were great, and perhaps were good; but hitherto they had not led him
to much pecuniary success in his profession. A sort of a name he
had obtained, but it was not a name sweet in the ears of practising
attorneys.

And yet it behoved Felix Graham to make money, for none was coming
to him ready made from any father. Father or mother he had none, nor
uncles and aunts likely to be of service to him. He had begun the
world with some small sum, which had grown smaller and smaller, till
now there was left to him hardly enough to create an infinitesimal
dividend. But he was not a man to become downhearted on that
account. A living of some kind he could pick up, and did now procure
for himself, from the press of the day. He wrote poetry for the
periodicals, and politics for the penny papers with considerable
success and sufficient pecuniary results. He would sooner do this, he
often boasted, than abandon his great ideas or descend into the arena
with other weapons than those which he regarded as fitting for an
honest man's hand.

Augustus Staveley, who could be very prudent for his friend, declared
that marriage would set him right. If Felix would marry he would
quietly slip his neck into the collar and work along with the team,
as useful a horse as ever was put at the wheel of a coach. But Felix
did not seem inclined to marry. He had notions about that also, and
was believed by one