But at last the true meaning of Daniel’s indifference flashed upon him, and he looked at him earnestly.
He straightened himself up in his chair, and he regarded him intently.
“Daniel, Daniel,” he said, “don’t you mean to take that office?”
“No, indeed, father,” answered Daniel lightly, though his lightness was assumed, and covered a feeling of anxiety; “I hope I can do much better than that. I mean to use my tongue in the courts, not my pen; to be an actor, not a register of other men’s acts. I hope yet, sir, to astonish your honor in your own court by my professional attainments.”
Youth is hopeful and ready to take risks; age is conservative and takes little for granted. Judge Webster must have thought his son’s decision exceedingly rash. Let me tell the rest of the story in Daniel’s words, as indeed I have closely adhered to his version thus far.
“For a moment I thought he was angry. He rocked his chair slightly; a flash went over an eye softened by age, but still as black as jet; but it was gone, and I thought I saw that parental partiality was, after all, a little gratified at this apparent devotion to an honorable profession, and this seeming confidence of success in it. He looked at me for as much as a minute, and then said slowly, ‘Well, my son, your mother has always said you would come to something or nothing, she was not sure which; I think you are now about settling that doubt for her.’ This he said, and never a word spoke more to me on the subject.”
Daniel explained to his father the reasons which had induced him to arrive at the decision he had just expressed, and as an earnest of the good fortune which he anticipated in the career he had chosen he produced the money he had borrowed, and placed it in his father’s hands. Probably this satisfied Judge Webster that there were others who had faith in his son’s promise, since he could offer no other security for borrowed money. At any rate it softened his disappointment, since it brought him help which he sorely needed.
Daniel stayed at home a week, contributing as such a son might to the happiness of his parents, who, now in the sunset of life, had little to hope for themselves, but lived wholly for their children.
Now he must go back to Boston, for the period of his preparatory studies was drawing to a close, and he was almost to seek immediately admission to the bar.
In March, 1805, he was admitted to practice in the Court of Common Pleas in Boston, the usual motion being made by his friend and teacher, Mr. Gore. This eminent lawyer, according to the custom of that time, accompanied his motion by a brief speech, which was of so complimentary a character that it must have been exceedingly gratifying to the legal neophyte, who stood waiting for the doors to open through which he was to enter into the precincts of a dignified and honorable profession. “It is a well-known tradition,” says Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, “that on this occasion Mr. Gore predicted the future eminence of his young friend. What he said has not been preserved; but that he said what Mr. Webster never forgot, that it was distinctly a prediction, and that it excited in him a resolve that it should not go unfulfilled, we have upon his own authority, though he appears to have been unwilling to repeat the words of Mr. Gore’s address.”