"Another fatal point is in the choice of a vocation. Having drifted through an education, he next drifts into his business or profession. He rarely stops to take an inventory of his capital, or, at best, he takes a very partial one. Chance or circumstance decides him. His grandfather sits on the judge's bench. He thinks the judge's bench a desirable place, so he takes to the law. He puts on his grandfather's coat without the slightest reference to whether it will fit or not. Perhaps he intends to grow to _it_, but a willow sapling cannot grow into an oak. It may grow into a very respectable willow, but if it aspires to the higher dignity, it will most likely get crushed or blown over. It may be that he has a grand vision of commercial splendor, and plunges into business life with a very good idea of Sophocles and Horace and no idea whatever of trade; with a very good talent for theories, but none whatever for facts; with some insight into metaphysics, but none at all into people. Instead of trying his strength in shallow waters, he starts to cross the Atlantic in a very small skiff. By the time he has reached mid-ocean he discovers his error, but it is too late to turn back; so he is buffeted about by winds and waves until he, too, goes down and counts among the failures.
"Another of the few points upon which life hinges is marriage, and people drift into that as they do into everything else. It is one of the things to be done in order to complete the circle of human experience. A man is caught by a pretty face and a winning smile. He takes no thought of the new element he is adding to his life, either with reference to his outward career or his inward needs. Caprice governs his choice, or perhaps a hard form of self-interest. Having committed one or two of the grand errors of life, he settles down to its serious business, and speedily discovers that he has a dead weight to carry. He has mistaken his vocation, whatever it may be.
"He is conscious now that it is too late to change; that he might have attained supreme excellence in some other calling. He toils with heavy heart and sinking spirit at the plodding pace of dull mediocrity. His work is drudgery and wearies him body and soul. Those who once smiled upon him pass him by. Men of far inferior capabilities distance him in the race. Perhaps too he has made another misstep, and has a wife who sympathizes neither with his tastes nor his trials: who has no comprehension of him whatever, save that he is a being whose business it is to love her and furnish her with spending money. The beauty which fascinated him has grown faded and insipid. The pretty coquetries that won him pall upon him; he is absolutely alone with the burden of life pressing heavily upon him. Is it strange that he is mastered in the battle and finally falls beneath the world's pitiless tread? This is a sad little picture, but it is an every-day one, and the world goes on its way as before.