will write you again, much less speak to
you."

Whatever this decided young woman was doing at the time she was sure was
the best for everybody to do, and especially for Master Phil.

Now that the days of preparation were over, and Philip found himself in
New York, face to face with the fact that he had nowhere to look for
money to meet the expense of rent, board, and clothes except to his own
daily labor, and that there was another economy besides that which he had
practiced as to luxuries, there were doubtless hours when his faith
wavered a little in the wisdom of the decision that had invested all his
patrimony in himself. He had been fortunate, to be sure, in securing a
clerk's desk in the great law-office of Hunt, Sharp & Tweedle, and he had
the kindly encouragement of the firm that, with close application to
business, he would make his way. But even in this he had his misgivings,
for a great part of his acquirements, and those he most valued, did not
seem to be of any use in his office-work. He had a lofty conception of
his chosen profession, as the right arm in the administration of justice
between man and man. In practice, however, it seemed to him that the
object was to win a case rather than to do justice in a case.
Unfortunately, also, he had cultivated his imagination to the extent that
he could see both sides of a case. To see both sides is indeed the
requisite of a great lawyer, but to see the opposite side only in order
to win, as in looking over an opponent's hand in a game of cards. It
seemed to Philip that this clear perception would paralyze his efforts
for one side if he knew it was the wrong side. The argument was that
every cause a man's claim or his defense--ought to be presented in its
fullness and urged with all the advocate's ingenuity, and that the
decision was in the bosom of an immaculate justice on the bench and the
unbiased intelligence in the jury-box. This might be so. But Philip
wondered what would be the effect on his own character and on his
intellect if he indulged much in the habit of making the worse appear the
better cause, and taking up indifferently any side that paid. For
himself, he was inclined always to advise clients to "settle," and he
fancied that if the occupation of the lawyer was to explain the case to
people ignorant of it, and to champion only the right side, as it
appeared to an unprejudiced, legally trained mind, and to compose instead
of encouraging differences,