Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/211

Rh horses and dogs and clothes than the next fellow, and get fat and arrogant and short tempered or silly. Ever notice that?"

He cocked an eye over his pipe at Kenneth and stretched his long legs toward the fire.

"I've a notion the particular Guardian Angel who was put in charge of this planet is a hopeful sort of cuss who likes to try it out. So every once in a while he gives a man what all the rest of the world has to struggle for or die off—wealth and the leisure that comes from relief of that pressure—in hopes that man will go ahead and do something with it. He certainly runs against a lot of disappointments! But I'm preaching away like a parson!"

"No, you're not!" cried Kenneth, earnestly. "I like intellectual conversations; but you don't often find a man you can talk to that way!"

Brainerd hastily concealed a grin that nearly surprised him.

"Well, we're getting a long way off the subject, anyway. Of course a young man like yourself doesn't intend to settle down and live on his father."

"Of course not. I—I thought some of going into the bank."

Brainerd was silent for so long that finally Kenneth asked him:

"What is your advice?"

"Boyd, one man can never give another advice. Advice is a word that should be stricken from the language. The most one can do is to call to another's attention certain facts in the situation of which he may not be aware, leaving him to form his own judgment. If you form another man's judgment for him you have absolutely deprived him of all the value of that experience."

"How do you mean?"

"Life is a series of opportunities for making decisions. Making decisions is the only way you form character. If somebody else makes a decision for you, he has deprived you of one chance."

"But he may be much wiser or experienced than yourself. His decision may be a better one."

"It may be a better one as; far as practical results go; yes," admitted Brainerd. "But no amount of practical results can make up for a lost opportunity of growth."