The whole man revealed himself in that utterance: a soul full of the native instinct of justice; an overpowering sense of right and wrong, which made him look at the problems of human society from the lofty plane of an ideal morality, which fixed for him, high beyond the existing condition of things, the aims for which he must strive, and inspired and fired his ardent nature for the struggle. His education had singularly favored and developed that ideal tendency. It was not that of the self-made man in the common acceptation of the word. The distracting struggles for existence, the small, harassing cares of every day life had remained foreign to him. His education was that of the favored few. He found all the avenues of knowledge wide open to him. All that his country could give, he had: the most renowned schools; the living instruction of the most elevating personal associations. It was the education of the typical young English gentleman. Like the English gentleman, also, he travelled abroad to widen his mental horizon. And again, all that foreign countries could give, he had: the instruction of great lawyers and men of science, the teachings and example of statesmen, the charming atmosphere of poetry and art which graces and elevates the soul. He had also learned to work, to work hard and with a purpose, and at thirty-four, when he first appeared conspicuously before the people, he could already point to many results of his labor.
But his principal work had been an eager accumulation of knowledge in his own mind, an accumulation most extraordinary in its scope and variety. His natural inclination to search for fundamental principles and truths had been favored by his opportunities, and all his industry in collecting knowledge became subservient to the building up of his ideals. Having not been tossed and jostled through the school of want and adversity, he lacked, what that school is best apt to develop,—keen practical,
