I might go, and I was to shut the door after me.
I omit what my father said of the matter from a religious point of view, though he accused me of flying in the face of Providence as well as the Fifth Commandment.

The piety which kept a pure and GOD-fearing atmosphere about my home, and to which I owe all the strength I have found against evil since I left it, was far too sincere in both my parents for me to speak of any phase of it with disrespect.

Though I may say here that I think it is to be wished that more good people exercised judgment as well as faith in tracing the will of Heaven in their own.
Practically I did not even then believe that I was more "called" to that station of life which was to be found in Uncle Henry's office, than to that station of life which I should find on board a vessel in the Merchant Service, and it only discredited truth in my inmost soul when my father put his plans for my career in that light.

Just as I could not help feeling it unfair that a commandment which might have been fairly appealed to if I had disobeyed him, should be used against me in argument because I disagreed with him.
I did disagree with him utterly.

Uncle Henry's office was a gloomy place, where I had had to endure long periods of waiting as a child when my mother took us in to the dentist, and had shopping and visiting of uncertain length to do.