"You must not think that what I am going to say is in the least
disrespectful. I assure you that I gave your letter, as coming from
you, a consideration that I should not have thought of extending for
a moment to any other man except one or two friends for whose opinion
I have the highest respect; but it is a subject upon which, though I
can not exactly say that my mind is made up, yet I see so distinctly
which way my disposition lies and in what direction my opinions are
capable of undergoing change, that I may say I have very little
doubt—it is, in short, almost a fixed conviction.

"The moment when any one finds himself in radical opposition to the
traditions in which he was brought up is very painful—I can assure
you of that—to himself, as I fear it is painful to those from whom
he dissents; and nothing but a desire for absolute sincerity would
induce me to enter upon it. But knowing and trusting you as I do,
with a firm and filial confidence in your loving thoughts and candid
open-mindedness, I venture to say exactly what I think, believing
that it would be a far more essential disrespect to endeavour to
blink those opinions.

"Shortly, I do _not_ believe that practical usefulness of a direct
kind is the end of life. I do _not_ believe that success is either a
test of greatness nor, as you suggest, an adequate aim for it, though
you will perhaps excuse me if I say that the reasons you give seem to
me to be only the material view skillfully veiled.

"I do not feel in my own mind assured that the highest call in my case
is to engage in a practical life. In fact, I feel fairly well assured
that it is not. I do not know that I intend deliberately to shirk