[441] After graduation he remained at home for a time in ill health; then entered on his law studies, at first with the help of a reader, and afterwards unaided, as his eyes grew better. He studied for a year in the office of Messrs. Devens and Hoar, in Worcester; and in September, 1860, entered the Law School at Cambridge. His desire was to become a scholar and a lawyer. ‘If his life had been spared,’ writes one of those who knew him best,
it would probably have been respected and useful, though not distinguished. His friends might fairly have hoped for him that he would have become one of the leaders of the bar of his native county; that he would have done his full share to promote all the institutions and schemes for the public good which in our community depend on the voluntary public spirit of the citizens; and that his purity, his generosity, his rectitude of purpose, his friendly and unselfish nature, would have won for him an enviable place in the public regard.He was ambitious of success, but his standard was a very high one. Speaking about an acquaintance just going into business, he said to one of his companions:—
I think he will succeed; but I should not wish to succeed by such means as I feel sure he uses. I never could stoop to the little meannesses and deceits which many business men practise without seeming to dream that they are wrong.He was in every respect thoroughly manly. Strong of body, he was also self-relying and brave. He had, too, a purity and chastity of nature to which no stain of indelicacy ever attached itself. Of his love for his mother, about which a strong statement has just been made, his brother-in-law writes:—
It manifested itself, not much in expressions of endearment, not at all in any mode which would attract the attention of strangers, but in constantly making her comfort and happiness the predominant consideration in all his plans of life. When he was in College and in the Law School, no week passed without at least two letters from him to her; not letters written as in the performance of a self-imposed task, but full and complete journals of his life and thoughts. This feeling grew stronger with the separation caused by his life in
