Devoid of anxiety, therefore, as to ultimate no less than immediate penury, I could afford to regard the future with an adequate deliberation, and I need scarcely say, perhaps, that the Church of England was the subject of my first and most prolonged consideration. Financially inadequate as were even its highest rewards, I was yet so adapted to its every need that both my father and myself would have been willing to overlook this very serious disadvantage. But to become ordained presupposed an examination, and I had been seriously handicapped in this particular respect by a proven disability, probably hereditary in origin, to demonstrate my culture in so confined a form. For a similar reason, even had I been attracted to it, the profession of Medicine would have been unavailable, while from that of the Law, nobler in every way, I was equally precluded. For some time, however, we canvassed very carefully the strong claims of Diplomacy, for which in many ways, as my father agreed with me, I was most admirably fitted. And I am still convinced that both as attaché and ambassador I should have found congenial and Xtian employment. Unhappily, however, such a career involved the acquirement of the French language, with attendant dangers, to which my father could not persuade himself to expose me. Whether he was right in this is perhaps open to argument, and I have since met several apparently devout men who have not only spoken this tongue with reported fluency, but have deliberately sojourned in the country of its origin. Personally, however, while reluctant to condemn them, I must confess to sharing my father’s views, and I am happy in the knowledge that the vicar of my parish holds precisely the same opinion. Abandoning Diplomacy, therefore, we considered the Consolidated Water Board, in which my father of course had considerable influence. But here, as in the Church of England, the emoluments were unsatisfactory, while the spiritual opportunities, of course, were far more restricted. Thus step by step, as though by the hand of Providence—and indeed, as my father said, it could have been by no other hand—we were slowly led to the conclusion that in some branch of Commerce lay my future destiny. Requiring no previous examinations, with liberal, nay illimitable, monetary possibilities, this was the field—the highest, perhaps, of all—that was now unfolded before our gaze. For a few moments, I remember, we sat there speechless, one on each side of the parlour table. Then my father rose and stood for another few moments with his right hand resting on the harmonium. In his face there was a great joy, not unmixed with solemnity. His eyes looked beyond me out towards eternity. Indeed it was to eternity that he addressed himself. “Augustus,” he said, “my son Augustus—a Xtian tradesman, preferably wholesale.” My mother came in to announce the supper. But almost impatiently he motioned her aside.