CHAPTER FIRST. TALENTS. "Who shall regulate With truth the scale of intellectual rank?" "The most important thing in life is the choice of a profession."'*-Pascal. LET no boy think of becoming a lawyer, unless some one, better qualified than himself, discover his talents,— talents peculiarly adapted to that learned profession. "A use for everything, and everything to its use.” Do not spoil a good merchant or mechanic, by moiling through life a poor lawyer. Neither should the mistakes of partial friends mislead. "That boy is a famous disputer," says a proud father; 'he can always make the wrong appear the better reason; he will make a capital lawyer." 66 66 Because he is like a snarling puppy, biting at everybody's heels! No, sir; he is not the boy for a lawyer. My son is as cunning as a fox," says the fond mother, whose watchful eye he evades; "he will do right well for a lawyer." *“La chose la plus importante a la vie, c'est le choix d'un métier." Low cunning is the mark of a small mind. Wisdom can find no room there. "That fellow has a glib tongue of his own; he will make a great noise at the bar," says the schoolmaster, who has been deceived by the ready recitations, which have been merely an effort of memory. The mill may make as much noise when there is no grist in the hopper, as when it is full. The schoolmaster should remember,-vox et preterea nihil. "But here is an incipient lawyer surely, for he is always setting the other boys by the ears!” A pitiful mistake! It is the business of the lawyer to get people out of difficulties, not the mean, detestable effort to plunge them into quarrels which this boy's conduct exhibits. As well might you say, that the steamengine was made on purpose to blow people up-sky-high. Study well your own capabilities. Does your heart thrill at the burning words of eloquence? The noble deeds of great men, do they fill you with enthusiasm? Do they excite in you a fervent determination to act a glorious part in the life-drama? Are you filled with an intense desire to defend the cause of the oppressed, to restore the injured to their rights, to sustain the laws of your country? Ambition may be a noble, generous passion, or it may be the meanest, and most selfish of all passions,— "That sin by which the rebel angels fell." The ambition of an unprincipled man of genius, is vastly different from that of the man who is "great through sound sense and strong judgment." These are far better qualifications for a lawyer, than that indefinite attributegenius. We acknowledge that there is an aptness or fitness for a particular calling or profession, which is usually manifested in boyhood;(1.) and this should, if possible, be fol (1.) The examples to illustrate "Success in Life" are purposely drawn from the biography of our own countrymen, yet reference to distinguished men of other countries will occasionally be made in the marginal notes. William Pitt, son of the first Earl of Chatham, was little more than fourteen years of age when he went to reside at the University of Cambridge. At that time, says his biographer, Dr. Tomline, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, who was also his tutor, “his proficiency in the learned languages was probably greater than was ever acquired by any other person in such early youth. In Latin authors he seldom met with difficulty, and it was no uncommon thing for him to read into English six or seven pages of Thucydides which he had not previously seen; sometimes without a mistake. He had such an exactness in discriminating the sense of words, and so peculiar a penetration in seizing at once the meaning of writers, that he never seemed to learn, but only to recollect. Nor was it in learning only, that Mr. Pitt was so superior to persons of his age. Though a boy in years and appearance, his manners were formed and his behavior manly. He mixed in conversation with unaffected vivacity, and delivered his sentiments with perfect ease, equally free from shyness and flippancy, and always with strict attention to propriety and decorum. While Mr. Pitt was an under-graduate, he never omitted attending chapel, morning and evening, or dining in the public hall, except when prevented by indisposition. Nor did he pass a single evening out of the college walls. His sweetness of temper and vivacity of lowed out. "To attempt putting another upon the boy, will usually be but labor in vain; and what is so plastered on will at best but set untowardly, and have always hanging to it the ungracefulness of constraint and affectation."(2.) disposition endeared him to me in a degree which I should in vain attempt to express. "At the age of seventeen he began to mix with other young men of his age and station, then resident at Cambridge, and no one was ever more admired by his acquaintance and friends. He was always the most lively person in company, abounding in playful wit and repartee, but never known to excite pain or give just ground of offence: "Though his society was universally sought, and from the age of seventeen or eighteen he constantly passed his evenings in company, he steadily avoided every species of irregularity, and he continued to pursue his studies with ardent zeal and unremitted diligence during his whole residence in the university. In the course of this time I never knew him to spend an idle day, nor did he ever fail to attend me at the appointed hour. At this early period there was the same firmness of principle and rectitude of conduct, which marked his character in the more advanced stages of life." (2.) It is said of Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England,-" While he was yet a child, the signs of genius, for which he was in after life distinguished, could not have escaped the notice of his intelligent parents. They must have been conscious of his extraordinary powers, and of their responsibility, that, upon the right direction of his mind, his future eminence, whether as a statesman or as a philosopher, almost wholly depended. In his twelfth year he was meditating upon the laws of the imagination. At thirteen, he was sent, fully prepared, to the University of Cambridge. In one of his essays, Bacon says, "Custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years; this is what we call education, which is, in effect, but an early custom." And yet this same wise man says:-"The mould of a man's fortunes is in his own hands." |