One evening he visited Uncle Zed, ostensibly, to talk about a book.
Uncle Zed was deep in the study of "Natural Law in the Spiritual World"
and would have launched into a discussion of what he had found, but
Dorian did not respond; he had other thoughts in mind.

"Uncle Zed," he said, "how can I become something else than a farmer?"

The old man looked questioningly at his young friend. "What's the matter
with being a farmer?" he asked.

"Well, a farmer doesn't usually amount to much, I mean in the eyes of
the world. Farmers seem to be in a different class from merchants, for
example, or from bankers or other more genteel workers."

"Listen to me, Dorian Trent." Uncle Zed laid down his book as if he had
a serious task before him. "Let me tell you something. If you haven't
done so before, begin now and thank the Lord that you began life on this
globe of ours as a farmer's child and boy. Whatever you do or become in
the future, you have made a good beginning. You have already laid away
in the way of concepts, we may say, a generous store of nature's riches,
for you have been in close touch with the earth, and the life which
teems in soil and air and the waters. Pity the man whose childish eyes
looked out on nothing but paved streets and brick walls or whose young
ears heard nothing but the harsh rumble of the city, for his early
conceptions from which to interpret his later life is artificial and
therefore largely untrue."

Uncle Zed smiled up into the boy's face as if to ask, Do you get that?
Dorian would have to have time to assimilate the idea; meanwhile, he had