Passing from family records, I will now revert to myself, and will endeavor to show what creatures of circumstances most men are. One day, when a boy (aged about eight years), my father left me at a store in Market Street, near Water Street, Philadelphia, Pa., where he usually obtained his family groceries. Over the door of that store was a modest signboard, and on it was painted the names, Hamilton and Hood. Mr. Hood was always kind to me, and usually gave me a paper of candy or other sweetmeats. On this particular occasion, it being a rainy day, I was left there alone with Mr. Hood, and I remember now--although near seventy years have passed--what there and then occurred. Eating candies and playing about in the store, I discovered hanging in the office a picture of a young person (full-size bust) clad in a gray coat, with three rows of round brass buttons thereon, braided horizontally. From some cause it riveted my boyish attention. After looking at it for some time, I exclaimed: "Who is that?" Mr. Hood replied: "That is my son." "What is he dressed so fine for?" I asked. Mr. Hood then told me his son was a cadet at the United States military academy at West Point; that he was at school there. Dancing around, I said: "I want to go to that school too." The response was, "Only a few boys can go to that school; to get there the boy's father must have influence with the President, and get an appointment from him," etc. I still looked at the picture, and I can see it to-day as I did then. It will never be effaced. As years rolled on, and I knew nothing about West Point, except that it was not open to all applicants, it was fading away in my mind, until one day when passing along Chestnut Street I saw in the window of a clothing house a large picture of the cadets of the United States military academy on dress parade. I gazed on it a very long time, oblivious to all around me, calling to mind only the remarks made to me by Mr. Hood; on these I pondered long, and made some inquiries, and finally resolved to make an effort to get an appointment to the academy. On entering school, kept by the Rev. Samuel Aaron in Burlington, N. J., my roommate was a boy named Duer, who was from Pennsylvania. One day he opened his trunk and showed me his appointment as a cadet to the United States Military Academy. I told him I wanted to go there also, and questioned him about how he obtained the appointment. It was the same story that Mr. Hood had told me when I was almost a child. But, undaunted by the requirements, I resolved to act for myself, for up to this time I had not mentioned the subject to either my father or mother, because the former belonged to the Society of Friends, or Quakers; save only that, marrying "out of meeting," he was no longer regarded as an orthodox member, and they were not considered as warlike people in any respect. Accordingly, when at home one day, I wrote to the President of the United States asking in the