Had he but pursued the Science course from the first, who at Whitelaw could have come out ahead of him?
He had wasted a couple of years which might have been most profitably applied: by this time he might have been ready to obtain a position as demonstrator in some laboratory, on his way perhaps to a professorship.

How had he thus been led astray?
Not only had his boyish instincts moved strongly towards science, but was not the tendency of the age in the same direction?
Buckland Warricombe, who habitually declaimed against classical study, was perfectly right; the world had learned all it could from those hoary teachers, and must now turn to Nature.

On every hand, the future was with students of the laws of matter.

Often, it was true, he had been tempted by the thought of a literary career; he had written in verse and prose, but with small success.

An attempt to compose the Prize Poem was soon abandoned in discouragement; the essay he sent in had not been mentioned.