Page:Fourteen sonnets and poems.djvu/16

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during those days that served him through life; a power of will that could not be defeated when he had decided on a line of study, work, or conduct; a devotion to what he believed to be right and true, that never faltered or doubted; and he developed a glowing enthusiasm that glorified and made easy all his future labors.

He studied law, and was admitted to the Hillsborough County, N. H., bar in 1870, and for a time was a legal practitioner. It frequently happens that the practice of law dulls the moral sense, for divine law and human law are by no means synonymous. But this was not the case with Mr. Hazzen. He readily detected the fallibilities of the civil law, and never hesitated to condemn them, and to urge righteous legislation.

He became interested in public affairs, and took an interest in shaping them, canvassing his native state in their behalf, where he is remembered by his contemporaries as a brilliant and ready orator. Honest in every fiber of his being, scorning to lend his influence in behalf of any measure that was even equivocal, he could never be induced, as a lawyer, to plead for a cause whose rightfulness was not clearly apparent. Nor would he accept as a client any person whose case was not perfectly just. For such a man the law has few rewards, and it was not strange that he came to feel the need of more congenial employment.

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