To recapitulate. Where there were three professions sixty years ago there are now dozens: given a young man of ability and activity, it is difficult not to find for him an opening where he will get a chance of gaining a splendid prize of success. For the man of exceptional ability, the Church leads him to a Bishopric with a life peerage and £10,000 a year; the Bar leads him to an income of £10,000 a year, and, if he pleases, a peerage; Medicine may give him £15,000 a year, also with a peerage, or a baronetcy, if he wishes one; all the other professions have their splendid prizes and their magnificent chances which are open to a young man of ability. Compared with the condition of 1837, we are like the occupants of a broad expanse of country which has been suddenly widened in all directions by the removal of walls and fences and the abolition of prohibitions. One thing remains with the new as with the old professions: they all demand an apprenticeship and a training. No one can enter the Law, or Medicine, or any other, without being able to pay, over a period of five years, at least a thousand pounds, probably two thousand when all is done. Until this condition is removed, which is not likely to happen, it is not true to say, or to think, that every career in this country is open to every boy. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER V TRANSFORMATION OF WOMAN “A perfect Woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a Spirit still, and bright With something of angelic light.” WORDSWORTH. Let me present to you, first, an early Victorian girl, born, indeed, about the Waterloo year; next, her granddaughter, born about 1875.