A Struggle for a Ring — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

’ fe) YOUNG WOMEN NOT ADMITTED, not satisfied. Lord Vivian was just nineteen, and he expected from him the learning, the solidity, the wit, and the wisdom of a man of thirty. Very much against his son’s will, he made arrangements with Doctor Wallis, one of the finest scholars in England, to receive his son as a- boarder for one year, and during that year he was to be fitted to take his place as a statesman and an orator. He _ had the natural gift of eloguence—this handsome young stripling to whom fortune had been so kind. He was to remain for one year with Doctor Wallis to study states- manship as a science, to read all the written speeches cf great men, from Demosthenes downward, to cultivate the art itself; but before the young lord had been with him long, the doctor, who was a keen reader of character, wrote to the earl, strongly advising him to procure for his ‘son a commission in the army, and to let him see a few years service before he entered on his parliamentary career. ‘‘There is a fund of romance in the young man,” wrote the doctor, ‘‘a fund of simplicity, a child-like diréctness of purpose, and want of thought that will cause him, sooner or later, to make great mistakes. The best means - of counteracting this will be to let him see some of the most active and most commonplace grooves of life.” Lord Waldrove was amazed, still he had no thought of opposing this wise counsel. It was arranged that his son should remain for the*year with Doctor Wallis, then his commission should be purchased, and he should join the army. That was the beginning of the chain of circum- stances that ended in his marriage. Doctor Wallis was a man of brilliant attainments; he hada very moderate fortune, which he eked out by taking te four gentlemen bcarders of an unusual style—sons of noblemen, either remarkable for their talent or those who comicbooks.c