"Harry, the only way to be a real man, is to have a cause you care for more than yourself. That made your father--that made your New England Fathers--that raises literature above some child's play, and makes it manly--but if you would do it you must count on one thing--that the devil will tempt you in the outset with the bread question as he did the Lord. "Command that these stones be made bread;" is the first onset--you'll want money, and money will be offered for what you ought not to write. There's the sensational novel, the blood and murder and adultery story, of which modern literature is full--you can produce it--do it perhaps as well as anybody--it will sell. Will you be barkeeper to the public, and when the public call for hot brandy sling give it to them, and help them make brutes of themselves? Will you help to vulgarize and demoralize literature if it will pay?" "No;" said I, "not if I know myself." "Then you've got to begin life with some motive higher than to make money, or get a living, and you'll have sometimes to choose between poisonous nonsense that brings pay, and honest truth that nobody wants." "And I must tell the Devil that there is a higher life than the bread-life?" said I. "Yes; get above that, to begin with. Remember the story of General Marion, who invited some British officers to dine with him and gave them nothing but roasted potatoes. They went away and said it was in vain to try to conquer a people when their officers would live on such fare rather than give up the cause. Do you know, Harry, what is my greatest hope for this State? It's this: Two or three years ago there was urgent need to carry this State in an election, and there was no end of hard money sent up to buy votes among our poor farmers: but they couldn't be bought. They had learned, 'Man shall not live by bread alone,' to some purpose. The State went all straight for liberty. What I ask of any man who wants to do a life-work is ability to be happy on a little." "Well," said I, "I have been brought up to that. I have no expensive habits. I neither drink nor smoke. I am used to thinking definitely as to figures, and I am willing to work hard, and begin at the bottom of the ladder, but I mean to keep my conscience and my religion, and lend a helping hand to the good cause wherever I can." "Well, now, my boy, there're only two aids that you need for this--one is God, and the other is a true, good woman. God you will have, but the woman--she must be found." I felt the touch on a sore spot, and so answered, purposely misunderstanding his meaning. "Yes, I have not to go far for her--my mother."