What Answer?

In flower of youth and beauty's pride. DRYDEN
A crowded New York street,—Fifth Avenue at the height of the afternoon; a gallant and brilliant throng. Looking over the glittering array, the purple and fine linen, the sweeping robes, the exquisite equipages, the stately houses; the faces, delicate and refined, proud, self-satisfied, that gazed out from their windows on the street, or that glanced from the street to the windows, or at one another,—looking over all this, being a part of it, one might well say, This is existence, and beside it there is none other. Let us dress, dine, and be merry! Life is good, and love is sweet, and both shall endure! Let us forget that hunger and sin, sorrow and self-sacrifice, want, struggle, and pain, have place in the world. Yet, even with the words, poverty, frost-nipped in a summer suit, here and there hurried by; and once and again through the restless tide the sorrowful procession of the tomb made way.
More than one eye was lifted, and many a pleasant greeting passed between these selected few who filled the street and a young man who lounged by one of the overlooking windows; and many a comment was uttered upon him when the greeting was made:—
A most eligible parti !
Handsome as a god!
O, immensely rich, I assure you!
Isn't he a beauty!
Pity he wasn't born poor!
Why?
O, because they say he carried off all the honors at college and law-school, and is altogether overstocked with brains for a man who has no need to use them.
Will he practise?
Doubtful. Why should he?