Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/275



T the opening of the year 1902 my life appeared to be fixed in certain well-defined grooves and my future to be assured along lines of advancement entirely satisfactory and agreeable. I was president judge of what was regarded as the strongest court in the city, my services were acceptable to the bar and the community, I had recently been elected for a further term of ten years, and it was generally believed by both lawyers and politicians that upon the occurrence of the next vacancy, I would be sent to the Supreme Court.

From the estates of my Uncle Joseph and my mother I had received about fifty thousand dollars, and I had also a share of my uncle's inheritance, from which, some years before his death, he had distributed, in accordance with his view that while he was free to bestow his own accumulations as he saw fit, inherited money was in the nature of a trust fund to be divided without favor among members of the family.

Having always lived within my income, I was entirely out of debt. I had a house in town and had recently bought the historic home of the family, which had been in its possession for one hundred and fifty years, and there I intended to spend my summers. I owned a library of over ten thousand volumes of Americana especially relating to Pennsylvania, which in some respects was unequaled in the world.

I was president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, and these were to be the diversions and activities outside of my Rh