May be through hours of gloom fulfilled_."

James Mesurier knew nothing of all this; but if he had, he might have
understood that after all his children were not so far from the kingdom
of heaven.




CHAPTER IV


OF THE PROFESSIONS THAT CHOOSE, AND
MIKE LAFLIN

However we may hint at its explanation by theories of inheritance, it
still remains curious with what unerring instinct a child of character
will from the first, and when it is so evidently ignorant of the field
of choice, select, out of all life's occupations and distinctions, one
special work it hungers to do, one special distinction that to it seems
the most desirable of earthly honours. That Mary Mesurier loved poetry,
and James Mesurier sermons, in face of the fact that so many mothers and
fathers have done the same with no such result, hardly seems adequate to
account for the peculiar glamour which, almost before he could read,
there was for Henry Mesurier in any form of print. While books were
still being read to him, there had already come into his mind,
unaccountably, as by outside suggestion, that there could be nothing so
splendid in the world as to write a book for one's self. To be either a
soldier, a sailor, an architect, or an engineer, would, doubtless, have
its fascinations as well; but to make a real printed book, with your