pressure of high civilisation is a world for the rich.  Leaving material comforts and advantages out of the question, what ambition can a man satisfy without money?  Take the successful politicians for instance, and it will be found that almost every one of them is rich.  This country is too full; there is scant room for the individual.  Only intellectual Titans can force their heads above the crowd, and, as a rule, they have not even then the money to take them higher.  If I had my life over again—­and it is my advice to all young men of ability and ambition—­I would leave the old country and settle in America or in one of the great colonies.  There, where the conditions are more elastic and the competition is not so cruel, a hard-working man of talent does not need to be endowed with fortune to enable him to rise to the top of the tree.

Well, my desire was to be accomplished, for as it chanced a younger brother of my father, who during his lifetime had never taken any notice of me, died and left me 750 pounds.  Seven hundred and fifty pounds!  To me at that time it was colossal wealth, for it enabled us to rent some rooms in London, where I entered myself as a medical student at University College.

There is no need for me to dwell upon my college career, but if any one were to take the trouble to consult the old records he would find that it was sufficiently brilliant.  I worked hard, and I had a natural, perhaps an hereditary liking, for the work.  Medicine always fascinated me.  I think it the greatest of the sciences, and from the beginning I was determined that I would be among the greatest of its masters.

At four and twenty, having finished my curriculum with high honours—­I was gold medallist of my year in both medicine and surgery—­I became house-surgeon to one of the London hospitals.  After my term of office was over I remained at the hospital for another year, for I wished to make a practical study of my profession in all its branches before starting a private practice.  At the end of this time my mother died while still comparatively young.  She had never really recovered from the loss of my father, and, though it was long about it, sorrow sapped her strength at last.  Her loss was a shock to me, although in fact we had few tastes in common.  To divert my mind, and also because I was somewhat run down and really needed a change, I asked a friend of mine who was a director of a great steamship line running to the West Indies and Mexico to give me a trip out, offering my medicine services in return for the passage.  This he agreed to do with pleasure; moreover, matters were so arranged that I could stop in Mexico for three months and rejoin the vessel on her next homeward trip.