[119] ‘Some years,’ he said,
must elapse before the best of us can make any perceptible advance in our new life. We shall be strongly tempted to rush rashly forward into notice. The hardest lesson men have to learn is to sacrifice a present to a future good; but if any one has reason to reserve his powers, it is a scholar. He knows that every great work is matured in silence, and long seclusion must ripen the mind which brings it forth. When we are laying the foundations of professional success, how can we hope to reach its height if we allow our attention to be called away and become absorbed in other objects, if we are enticed by public applause to seek it too soon, or if we waste our energies by turning them to many directions before we have ever concentrated them in one? As many fail from premature efforts as from the lack of any effort at all.Notwithstanding his fondness for literature, there was nothing about him of the ascetic or the recluse. He was quite an enthusiast in his love for manly sports, vindicating some of the roughest of them as a salutary discipline for the body. He welcomed the establishment of the Gymnasium, and took a leading part in word and practice in the formation of the public sentiment of a Class which left the nurture of Alma Mater as remarkable for its muscle as for any of its other qualities. His own physical system was trained by exercise to toughness and strength; and, without losing anything of the dignity and grace of his carriage, he added great firmness and power of endurance to a fine but somewhat sensitive constitution. Immediately on graduating he began the study of his chosen profession. He spent a few months in the offices of ex-Governor Andrew and A. G. Browne, Esq., and then entered the Law School in Cambridge. It was said of him by one of the professors of that School, ‘He will make just as good a lawyer as he chooses to he.’ The truth of that remark was indorsed by every one who noted his determination to win eminence at the bar. As two of his brothers entered the army soon after the commencement of hostilities, Thomas was led by his strong preference for the pursuits of civil life and the wishes of his kindred to resist, as long
