Truly here was hard handicap even at the start, that of both birth and environment, as he himself would have been first to admit. Not that it could daunt him, not that it could cause a soul like his to feel the pangs of despair. No; it meant only that much further to travel, that much higher to climb. This American republic was expressly framed for such as Mr. Rawn. The issue never was to be called in doubt. From that first hour of consciousness of his ego which marks the real birth of a human soul, John Rawn must have said to himself that success was meant for him; that not all the hostile array of circumstances, birth, heredity and environment, could do more than temporarily balk his aim. From the cradle, indeed for generations uncounted--as many as he likes--before the cradle, John Rawn believed in himself. How can we fail to join him in that belief? III It was rarely that ever a smile enlivened the somewhat heavy features of young John Rawn, even in the earliest stages of his babyhood. Rarely did the mirth of any situation bring up in his face an answering dawn of appreciation. He was a serious child, as all admitted even from the first. He grew to be a grave boy, a solemn youth. He made no jests, nor smiled at those of others. There was a corrugation between his brows before he was twenty years of age. In his declamations at the exercises of the village school, his hand went instinctively into a bosom not yet ten years of age; his forelock fell across his brow before he was twelve; already his gestures were large and wide, his voice prematurely deep before he had reached fourteen. He was of that temperament which, in accordance with the term, takes itself seriously. It is astonishing what virtue lies in that habit. The world, sometimes for many years, indeed sometimes permanently, accepts seriously those who seriously accept themselves. Many of the most colossal asses ever born have not "Ass" written on their tombstones, where righteously it so very frequently belongs in the history of the great. IV Curious persons might have found certain explanations for these traits in the calling, the temper and training of the father of John Rawn. In that time and place, a minister of the gospel was a man of whom all stood in awe. He was not much gainsaid, not much withstood, not much disapproved. His conclusions were announced for acceptance, not for argument. At best he was only to be avoided, if one dreaded the look of the clerical eye, the denunciation of the clerical tongue. Other men might be met, might be antagonized, might be overcome by fist or thumb or firearms, per example; not so the parson of the village church.