As a guide, Philip was not long in discovering that Celia was somewhat uncertain. She kept before him a very high ideal; she expected him to be distinguished and successful, but, her means varied from time to time. Now she would have him take one path and now another. And Philip learned to read in this varying advice the changes in her own experience. There was a time when she hoped he would be a great scholar: there was no position so noble as that of a university professor or president. Then she turned short round and extolled the business life: get money, get a position, and then you can study, write books, do anything you like and be independent. Then came a time--this was her last year in college--when science seemed the only thing. That was really a benefit to mankind: create something, push discovery, dispel ignorance. “Why, Phil, if you could get people to understand about ventilation, the necessity of pure air, you would deserve a monument. And, besides--this is an appeal to your lower nature--science is now the thing that pays.” Theology she never considered; that was just now too uncertain in its direction. Law she had finally approved; it was still respectable; it was a very good waiting-ground for many opportunities, and it did not absolutely bar him from literature, for which she perceived he had a sneaking fondness. Philip wondered if Celia was not thinking of the law for herself. She had tried teaching, she had devoted herself for a time to work in a College Settlement, she had learned stenography, she had talked of learning telegraphy, she had been interested in women's clubs, in a civic club, in the political education of women, and was now a professor of economics in a girl's college. It finally dawned upon Philip, who was plodding along, man fashion, in one of the old ruts, feeling his way, like a true American, into the career that best suited him, that Celia might be a type of the awakened American woman, who does not know exactly what she wants. To be sure, she wants everything. She has recently come into an open place, and she is distracted by the many opportunities. She has no sooner taken up one than she sees another that seems better, or more important in the development of her sex, and she flies to that. But nothing, long, seems the best thing. Perhaps men are in the way, monopolizing all the best things. Celia had never made a suggestion of this kind, but Philip thought she was typical of the women who push individualism so far as never to take a dual view of life.