This was not the only occasion on which he was selected to speak in public. When a classmate, a general favorite, died, young Webster was unanimously selected to deliver an address of commemoration. He is said to have spoken with a fervor and eloquence which deeply stirred the hearts of the large audience that had assembled to hear him. “During the delivery the fall of a pin could have been heard at any moment; a dense audience were carried entirely away, and kept spellbound by the magic of his voice and manner; and when he sat down, he left a thousand people weeping real tears over a heartfelt sorrow. It is reported that there was not a dry eye in all the vast congregation which the event and the fame of the orator had brought together.” CHAPTER XII. STUDYING LAW. Daniel had now successfully accomplished the first object of his ambition. He was a college graduate. Though not the first scholar in his class he was very near the head, and probably in general culture stood first. There was a little misunderstanding which led to his declining to appear at Commencement. His friends desired him to deliver the valedictory, but the Faculty selected another, and Daniel remained silent. There is a report that he tore up his diploma in anger and disgust in presence of his classmates, saying, “My industry may make me a great man, but this miserable parchment cannot.” Had this story been true it would have done Daniel little credit. George Ticknor Curtis, who has written the most elaborate and trustworthy memoir of Webster states emphatically that there is no foundation for this story. Even if not entirely satisfied with the treatment he received at that time, Daniel’s loyalty to his Alma Mater was never doubted. And now the world was before the young graduate. What was he to do? His thoughts had long been fixed upon the legal profession. This was no proof of a special fitness for it, for at least half of the young men who graduate from our colleges make the same choice. But with Daniel the choice was a more serious one, for he very well knew that he could not afford to make a mistake here. Poverty was still his hard taskmaster, and he leaned beneath its dark shadow. My young reader will remember that at the age of fourteen Daniel officiated as office-boy for a young lawyer in his native town—Thomas W. Thompson. Now a college graduate of nineteen, he re-entered the same office as a law student. Mr. Thompson was a man of ability. He was a graduate of Harvard, where also he had filled the position of tutor. While the boy was obtaining an education at Dartmouth, Thompson was establishing a lucrative law practice. He became in time prominent in State politics, and finally went to Congress. It will be seen, therefore, that Daniel made a good choice, and that Mr. Thompson was something more than an obscure country lawyer.