"Don't trust him too far. I dare say you have not been half severe enough upon him," said Dr. Van Horne, who had a very high opinion of Harry. "But to speak seriously, Mr. Hazlehurst, I don't at all like a notion my son Ben has of going to Europe." "What is your objection?" "I doubt if it is at all an advantage to send most young men to Europe. I've seen so many come back conceited, and dissatisfied, and good-for-nothing, that I can't make up my mind to spoil Ben by the same process. He tries very hard to persuade me, that now-a-days, no doctor is fit to be trusted who has not finished off in Paris; but we managed without it thirty years ago." "You must know much more than I do on that subject, doctor," said Hazlehurst, taking a seat on the other side of Elinor. "Of course, I know more about the hospitals. But as I have never been abroad myself, I don't know what effect a sight of the Old World has on one. It seems to me it ruins a great many young fellows." "And it improves a great many," said Hazlehurst. "I am by no means so sure of that. It improves some, I grant you; but I think the chances are that it is an injury. We have happened to see a great deal, lately, of two young chaps, nephews of mine, who came home last spring. Three years ago they went abroad, sober, sensible, well-behaved lads enough, and now they have both come back, worse than good-for-nothing. There was Rockwell, he used to be a plain, straight-forward, smooth-faced fellow; and now he has come home bristling with whiskers, and beard, and moustaches, and a cut across the forehead, that he got in a duel in Berlin. Worse than all, his brain is so befogged, and mystified, that he can't see anything straight to save his life; and yet, forsooth, my gentleman is going to set the nation to rights with some new system of his own." "I know nothing of the German Universities, doctor, from my own observation; but I should think it might be a dangerous thing to send a young man there unless he was well supplied with sound common sense of his own." "Well, there is Bill Hartley, again, who staid all the time in Paris. He has come back a regular grumbler. If you would believe him, there is not a single thing worth having, from one end of the Union to the other. He is disgusted with everything, and only last night said that our climate wants fog! Now, I think it is much better to go plodding on at home, than to travel for the sake of bringing back such enlarged views as make yourself and your friends uncomfortable for the rest of your days." "But it is a man's own fault, my dear sir, if he brings back more bad than good with him. The fact is, you will generally find the good a man brings home, in proportion to the good he took abroad."