Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-03-31

the caliber of his mind resemDleu ncr
own. He was profoundly religious, and
at one time had thought OF taking
orders. Then he had been visited by
sense of unworthiness--a doubt OF ms
capacity to play any save the moanest
part in that throng of Humanitarian
churchmen whose creeds he honored,
yet whose intellects he might never
equal. More than that, his health was
somewhat frail; he had inherited his
fathers delicate constitutions; the wear
and tear of such an ecclesiastic life as
the one he should struggle to live would
easily MAIN his powers. Two or three
years before she died his mother per.
ceived this, and her negative counsels
formed his final reasons for not enter
ing the church. On the other hand, she
had fed in him an inclination for legal
pursuits, and now that she was dead he
brooded upon her advice. He would by
no means be penniless; the law was an
eminently polite" profession; one could
! practice it thriftily without either
oratory or any other sort of aptitude.
To be n light in it was another matter,
but to be prosperous in it was another
still. Poor Sylvan did not perceive the
full sarcasm of his changing from
would-be clergyman to a would-be
barrister. But one day, not far from
the time at which he quilted Cambridge
with decent honors, an American fel.
low-collegian who was taking his de-
gree in the same year made him a very
cordial proposition. This young gentle
man was named John Wilks Rathbone
Sd, and not the least sign of character
| and personality which he possessed was
q marked fondness for Sylvan. He
liked to record himself as the grandson
of Judge John Wills Rathbone, now on
the verge of seventy and still shining
in New York as that unhappily too rare
parsonage, one of our judges whose re-
pute no fleck of soilure has touched.
Sylvan's friend was an amiable youths
with slender mental endowments and q
| love for his native land which English
association could not annul. I'm an
American and I'm proud of 1t, -
was phrase nearly as often
on his lips as the Morris
cigarettes which he bought largely in
St. James street. He had been sent to
Cambridge by his renowned New York
grandsire, and perhaps an important
factor of his fondness for Sylvan was
the semi-American parentage of Egbert
Maynard's son. Incessant association
with English people had never altered
his American accent, and at the time OF
his departure from Cambridge he
| spoke, as the phrase has it, no less
Through his nose" than when he had
Just planted his foot, several years past,
on British soil. He was the acute OPP
posite of the Yankee Anglomaniac, and
though he let Poole attire him with q
modish felicity that might have found
favor at Sandringham itself, there was
a keen cut of his thin face and q lax
abandonment in his lank figure that told
persistently of transatlantic birth.
Come along with me to New York."
he kept persuading Sylvan, land study
! for three years to be lawyer at the
Columbia College Law-SchooL You say
you haven't got any relations in Amer
lea except cousins ever so far removed?
All right if you haven't. Grandfa-
Their IL give you start, know. Grand
father IL do any thing I want him to,
now that I've humored his within that
should go through Cambridge. Besides,
your father was an American, and you
ought to go back there and live. Oh,
it's magnificent country, Sylvan, and
there a mans a man, can tell you. He
doesn't have to take off his hat and
truclzle and grovel to every lord he
meets"
Sylvan could not help rejecting that
there was a number of lords" just then
at Cambridge by whom he was certain.
" not expected to perform any such
servile acts on meeting them; but still
the idea of seeing America and pos
sibly profting by the splendor of a stray
smile or two from that mighty man,
Judge Rathbone, allured him not a lit
tie. His brother Gerald stood in the
way of such project; he was dearly
fond of Gerald, though sometimes think
ing him almost blasphemous in his in,
difference to religious things. And yet,
Sylvan began to muse, why should
year or so of separation be held of such
great account? There had once been
enough money for four of them; there
would surely be enough now for two.
Every thing had been left by their En-
glish mother (who had received all his
property intact from her American hus-
band) to the eldest-born. But Sylvan
was willing to share his last pound with
Gerald. Still, both boys wanted
more pounds If they could get
them, and both We're willing to
work for them as well. But
dollars were easier to get than pounds;
to this effect young Rathbone sapiently
assured the elder brother, who shared
the large faith which has lately grown
up in England that ''the States" and
quick money-malzing are very closely
allied. Gerald, on his side, fred at the
mere idea of an American residence.
He was going to be doctor, hel Med
ical questions were already of the deep
est import to him, and as Sylvan one
day laughingly told him, his Greek
roots threatened to turn into those Of
of rhubarb and quinine. ''If that should
prove the case" Gerald as gayly an
swered, 81 shall be all the more pleased
to transplant them into Western soil.
Whenever go up to London I've a
morbid impulse for strolling through
Harley street. 1 begin at Cavendish