"Having completed your collegiate course, your next step, my son, is to decide upon the calling you mean to pursue. In coming to this decision, let me admonish you to look well to the motives that prompt your choice. If you feel a selfish regard to your own advancement in the world, struggle against and repress it; for, though by this you may attain wealth and a name, it will never bring you happiness, and that highest of all honors, the reputation of having accomplished some good for your fellow men. Have, therefore, in choosing a profession, regard to the good you may be able to do, as well as the good to yourself that you wish to obtain. You have spoken of medicine. There are ways in life that lead more certainly to wealth; and there are avenues to distinction more easily trodden But if your mind turns towards the medical profession, with anything like a desire to enter into it, I will not speak a word against your choice. You will find it an arduous calling, but one in which you can do much good; and one in which your own character may be purified and elevated. You will rise into eminence—true eminence—here, as well as in any other pursuit; for I know you have the required ability, and I believe you are not under the dominion of merely selfish purposes." "All that is very good in the abstract," returned Dunbar; "but few, if any, can carry out in life the unselfish purposes from which your father expects you to act. It is not in us. Now, I think that my father understands human nature, and the springs of human impulses better than your father does, and as you have given me the benefit of your parental suggestions, I will give you the benefit of mine;" and the young man drew a letter from his pocket and read— "I have been weighing with great deliberation what you say about the choice of a profession, and, like you, am not yet able to decide which is best. At the bar, you will rise in the world, and gain distinction as a man of talents; while in mercantile pursuits, you will attain wealth and the elevation in society that its possession always gives. In either profession, if you are patient, sagacious, and persevering, your talents and education will carry you up to a high place. Now which of the two conditions is most desirable I am hardly able to determine. Wealth gives great advantages and great power; while eminence, in a profession like the law opens a wide field to ambition, at the same time that it ensures ample means, if not extensive wealth. When we meet, we will consider these matters together, and arrive at some certain conclusion. There is no time to be lost."