father tell him of some wealthy man who during his lifetime had given
away a million pounds--anonymously. ... His own pocket-money just then
was five shillings a week, and his expectations just exactly--nothing.

But before his dreams could know accomplishment, he must have means.
To be of use to anybody at all he must make himself effective. The
process must be reversed, for no man could fight without weapons, and
weapons were only to be had as the result of steady, concentrated
effort--selfish effort. A man must fashion himself before he can be
effective for others. Self-effacement, he learned, was rather a futile
virtue after all.

As the years passed he saw his chances. He cut short a promising
University career and entered business. His talents lay that way, as
his friends declared, and unquestionably he had a certain genius for
invention; for, while scores of futile processes he first discovered
remained mere clever solutions of interesting problems, he at length
devised improvements in the greater industries, and, patenting them
wisely, made his way to practical results.

But the process had been a dangerous one, and during the long business
experience the iron had entered his soul, and he had witnessed at
close quarters the degrading influence of the lust of acquisition. The
self-advertising humbug of most philanthropy had clouded something in
him that he felt could never again grow clear and limpid as before,
and a portion of his original zest had faded. For the City hardly
encouraged it. One bit of gilt after another had been knocked off his
brilliant dream, one jet of flame upon another quenched. The single
eye that fills the body full of light was a thing so rare that its
possession woke suspicion. Even of money generously given, so little