Life of Gen Ben Harrison Author:George Alfred Townsend, Lew Wallace Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE LAWYER. Love of one's alma mater is not an impulse of graduation. Upon the going forth the young man is all confidence ; the world is the ... more »reverse of awful to him; it is a field of which he has simply to take possession; or it is the sleeping beauty of Trier- main, and he the hero assigned to awake her; the lions, goblins, and thunders along the way are only accessories to make the achievement more remarkable. The popularity of the first picture in the series of Cole's " Voyage of Life," a radiant youth in a shallop flying against a rippled current toward the luminous temple in the sky, is due less to excellence of art than to the truth of the portrayal. Years after exit from the narrow walls of the college, when the slips and disappointments in the career so eagerly challenged have been endured, then it is that the man becomes conscious that his student days were days of exceeding pleasantness. Benjamin Harrison at the moment of issuance from the university may have felt himself a man in reality he was but a boy. Nevertheless he did not lose an hour in idle farewells to places of his college trials and triumphs. From labor he went to labor, with two incentives to make him manful —poverty and a trustful fiance. Exactly when he had determined to be a lawyer cannot be stated. He himself cannot fix the time. The probabilities are that it was when he was passing through the preparatory studies at Farmer's College. Inclination to a pursuit is referable to tastes. The votary feels the stir of capacity long before he enters upon the profession. The artist manifests it in a facility to draw ; the soldier discovers it in love of parades and the incidents of the camp; the mechanic and the poet are often born such. It may perhaps be said that multitudes of y...« less