' Well, that would seem all well enough; but it stood in
his way twice--each time lost him an opportunity that has never come
again--the opportunity to be distinguished, and perhaps great; and the
opportunity to have a happy home, and a luxurious one. It was better for
him, no doubt, that his life was a hard and disappointed one, instead
of--as it might have been; he's had blessings enough, that's certain;
but he has much to regret, too; the more, because the ill effects of a
man's folly and willfulness fall upon his friends quite as often, and
sometimes more heavily, than upon himself.
"He was a poor man in college, and an orphan. The property of his family
had been lost in the War of 1812; from then till he was twenty-one, he
had followed a dozen trades, and saved a couple of hundred dollars; and
he'd picked up book-learning enough to enter the sophomore class. The
first thing he did was to make a friend; he loved him with his whole
heart; thought nothing was too good for him, and so on. He and his
friend led the class for three years; and up to the time of the last
examination, he was first and his friend second. In the examination they
sat side by side; one question the friend couldn't answer; the other
wrote it out for him; after the examination the two papers were found to
be alike in the answer to that question, and the friend was summoned
before the faculty, and asked if he had copied it.
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