Well, here it is, and you shall judge: I will skip the first years, except to say that my father was one of
the New York Pooles who moved South after the Civil War. My mother was
from Richmond. We were prosperous folk, with an unassailable social
position. My mother, gracious and charming, is little more than a
memory; she died when I was a child. My father married again, and died
when I was in college. There were three children by this second
marriage, and when the estate was settled, only a modest sum fell to my
share.
I had been a lonely little boy--at college I was a dreamy, idealistic
chap, with the saving grace of a love of athletics. Your
brother-in-law will tell you something of my successes on our school
team. That was my life--the day in the open, the nights among my books.
As time went on, I took prizes in oratory--there was a certain
commencement, when the school went wild about me, and I was carried on
the shoulders of my comrades.
There seemed open to me the Church and the law. Had I lived in a
different environment, there would have been also the stage. But I saw
only two outlets for my talents, the Church, toward which my tastes
inclined, and the law, which had been my father's profession.
At last I chose the Church. I liked the thought of my scholarly
future--of the power which my voice might have to sway audiences and to
move them.
I am putting it all down, all of my boyish optimism, conceit--whatever
you may choose to call it.
Yet I am convinced of this, and my success of a few years proved it,
that had nothing interfered with my future, I should have made an
impression on ever-widening circles.
But something came to interfere.
In my last years at the Seminary, I boarded at a house where I met
daily the daughter of the landlady. She was a little thing, with
yellow hair and a childish manner. As I look back, I can't say that I
was ever greatly attracted to her. But she was a part of my life for
so long that gradually there grew up between us a sort of good
fellowship. Not friendship in the sense that I have understood it with
you; there was about it nothing of spiritual or of mental congeniality.
But I played the big brother. I took her to little dances; and to
other college affairs. I gave both to herself and to her widowed
mother such little pleasures as it is possible for a man to give to two
rather lonely women. There were other students in the house, and I was
not conscious that I was doing anything more than the rest of them.