I pass over the joy of again seeing my parents, the dear sisters, and brother Henry. I was soon settled down, soon visiting friends, going to evening parties, making morning or afternoon calls, and after a little while was entered as a law-student in the office of John Cadwallader in Fourth Street.
I cannot pass over the fact, for it greatly influenced my after life, that though everybody was very kind to me, and I was even in a small way a kind of lion, the change from my late life was very hard to bear. I have read a wonderful story of a boy who while at a severe school had a marvellous dream. It seemed to last for years, and while it lasted, he went to the University, graduated, passed into diplomatic life, was a great man and beloved; when all at once he awoke and found himself at school again and birchable. After the freedom of student life in Heidelberg and Munich and Paris, and having been among the few who had carried out a great revolution, and much familiarity with the most cosmopolite type of characters in Europe, and existing in literature and art, I was settled down to live, move, and have all being henceforth and perhaps for ever in Philadelphia! Of which city, at that time, there was not one in the world of which so little evil could be said, or so much good, yet of which so few ever spoke with enthusiasm. Its inhabitants were all well-bathed, well-clad, well-behaved; all with exactly the same ideas and the same ideals. A decided degree of refinement was everywhere perceptible, and they were so fond of
flowers that I once ascertained by careful inquiry that in most respectable families there was annually much more money expended for bouquets than for books. When a Philadelphian gave a dinner or supper, his great care was to see that everything on the table was as good or perfect as possible. I had been accustomed to first considering what should be placed around it on the chairs as the main item. The lines of demarcation in “society” were as strongly drawn as in Europe, or more so, with the enormous difference, however, that there was not the slightest perceptible shade of difference in the intellects, culture, or character of the people on either side of the line, any more than there is among the school-boys on either side of the mark drawn for a game. Very trifling points of difference, not perceptible to an outsider, made the whole difference between the exclusives and the excluded; just as the witch-mark no larger than a needle-point indicates to the judge the difference between the saved and the damned.
I had not been long engaged in studying law when I made the acquaintance of Richard B. Kimball, a lawyer of New York, who had written a few novels which were very popular, and are still reprinted by Tauchnitz. He knew everybody, and took a great interest in me, and opened the door for me to the Knickerbocker Magazine. To this I had contributed articles while at Princeton. I now sent it my translation of Professor Neumann’s “Chinese in Mexico in the Fifth Century.” I forget whether this was in 1849 or 1850. In after years I expanded it to a book, of which a certain Professor said, firstly in a paper read before the American Asiatic Society, and secondly in a pamphlet, that there was nothing of any importance in it which had not already appeared in Bancroft’s work on the Pacific. I wrote to him, pointing out the fact that Bancroft’s work did not appear till many years after my article in the Knickerbocker. To which the Sinologist replied very suavely and apologetically indeed that he was “very sorry,” but had never seen the article in
the Knickerbocker, &c. But he did not publish the correction, as he should have done. For which reason I now vindicate myself from the insinuated accusation that I borrowed from Bancroft. I had, indeed, almost forgotten this work, “Fusang,” when, in 1890, Prince Roland Bonaparte, at a dinner given by him to the Congrès des Traditions Populaires, startled me by recurring to it and speaking of it with great praise. For it vindicates the claim of the French that Desguignes first discovered the fact that the Chinese were the first to discover America. If any one doubts this, let him read the truly great work of Vinton on the whole. Prince Roland had been in China and earnestly studied the subject. Von Eichthal had endorsed my views, and wrote to me on Fusang. I have been for many years well acquainted with his nephew, Baron von Eichthal, and his remarkably accomplished wife, who is expert in all the minor arts.
My father’s resources became about this time limited, and I, in fact, realised that he had taxed himself more than I had supposed to maintain me abroad. His Congress Hall property did not pay much rent. For my position in the world, friends, studies, and society, I found myself very much and very often in great need of money. As at that time we were supposed to be much richer than we really were, this was an additional source of trial. I began to see clearly that in the law, as in all business or professions, I should have to wait for years ere I could make a living. For the instances are very few and far between in which a young man, who has not inherited or grown up to a practice, can make one himself at once.
More than this, I was not fitted for law at all. From my birth I had absolutely one of those peculiar temperaments which really disqualify men for “business.” If I had entered a law-office in which there was much office-work or practice, I might have acquired a practical interest in the profession, but of this there was in ours literally none whatever. I had a great fondness for copying deeds, &c., but Mr.
Cadwallader, though he very much admired my quaint round hand, being the very soul of honour, observing that I was eager for such work, would not give me much of it though it would have been to his profit, because, as he said, “students who paid should not be employed as clerks only, much less as copying machines.” As it had always been deeply impressed on my mind by every American friend that I had “no business capacity,” and, moreover, as I greatly dreaded speaking in court, I had from the beginning a great fear that I could never live by the law. I mention this because there are many thousands of young men who suffer terribly from such apprehension, and often ruin life by it. A few months’ practice in a mercantile college will go far to relieve the first apprehension, while as regards stage fright, it can be easily educated out of anybody, as I have since those days educated it out of myself, so that rising to debate or speak inspires in me a gaudium certaminis, which increases with the certainty of being attacked. Let the aspirant begin by reading papers before, let us say, a family or school, and continue to do so frequently and at as short intervals as possible before such societies or lyceums as will listen to him. Then let him speak from memory or improvise and debate. This should form a part of all education whatever, and it should be thorough. It is specially needed for lawyers and divines, yet a great proportion of both are most insufficiently trained in it; and while I was studying law it was never mentioned to me. I was never so much as once taken into court or practically employed in any manner whatever.
I remember an amusing incident in the office. Mr. Cadwallader asked me one day to call, returning from my lunch, on a certain Mr. Dimpfel, one of his clients, leave a certain message and his request as follows:—“I want you, Mr. Leland, to be very careful. I have observed that you are sometimes inaccurate in such matters, therefore be sure that you give me Mr. Dimpfel’s very words.” Mr. Cadwallader knew French and Spanish perfectly, but not German, and was
not aware that I always conversed with Mr. Dimpfel in the latter language. When I returned my teacher said—