There are exceptions to this general rule, and they are always noticeable when they occur—­this deviation from the traits of the earliest years —­and offer material fox some of the subtlest and most interesting studies of the novelist.

It was impossible for those who met Philip Burnett after he had left college, and taken his degree in the law-school, and spent a year, more or less studiously, in Europe, to really know him if they had not known the dreaming boy in his early home, with all the limitations as well as the vitalizing influences of his start in life.  And on the contrary, the error of the neighbors of a lad in forecasting his career comes from the fact that they do not know him.  The verdict about Philip would probably have been that he was a very nice sort of a boy, but that he would never “set the North River on fire.”  There was a headstrong, selfish, pushing sort of boy, one of Philip’s older schoolmates, who had become one of the foremost merchants and operators in New York, and was already talked of for mayor.  This success was the sort that fulfilled the rural idea of getting on in the world, whereas Philip’s accomplishments, seen through the veneer of conceit which they had occasioned him to take on, did not commend themselves as anything worth while.  Accomplishments rarely do unless they are translated into visible position or into the currency of the realm.  How else can they be judged?  Does not the great public involuntarily respect the author rather for the sale of his books than for the books themselves?

The period of Philip’s novitiate—­those most important years from his acquaintance with Celia Howard to the attainment of his professional degree—­was most interesting to him, but the story of it would not detain the reader of exciting fiction.  He had elected to use his little patrimony in making himself instead of in making money—­if merely following his inclination could be called an election.  If he had reasoned about it he would have known that the few thousands of dollars left to him from his father’s estate, if judiciously invested in business, would have grown to a good sum when he came of age, and he would by that time have come into business habits, so that all he would need to do would be to go on and make more money.  If he had reasoned more deeply he would have seen that by this process he would become a man of comparatively few resources for the enjoyment of life, and a person of very little interest to himself or to anybody else.  So perhaps it was just as well that he followed his instincts and postponed the making of money until he had made himself, though he was to have a good many bitter days when the possession of money seemed to him about the one thing desirable.

It was Celia, who had been his constant counselor and tormentor, about the time when she was beginning to feel a little shy and long-legged, in her short skirts, who had, in a romantic sympathy with his tastes, opposed his going into a “store” as a clerk, which seemed to the boy at one time an ideal situation for a young man.