Mr. Siddons it was who first planted the conception of Life as a Career in my mind.  
In those talks that did so much towards shaping me into the of a modest, reserved, sporting, seemly, clean and brave, and decently slangy young Englishman, he was constantly to that view of existence. He of failures and successes, talked of statesmen and , peerages and Westminster Abbey. "Nelson," he said, "was once a clergyman's son like you."
 
"England has been made by the sons of the ."
 
He talked of the things that led to failure and the things that had made men prominent and famous.
 
" ruins a man," I remember him saying. "Choose your goal and press to it."
 
"Never do anything needlessly odd. It's a sort of impertinence to all the endless leaders of the past who created our traditions. Do not commit yourself hastily to opinions, but once you have done so, stick to them. The world would far rather have a firm man wrong, than a weak man hesitatingly right. Stick to them."
 
"One has to remember," I recall him , far over my head with his face upturned, "that Institutions are more important than Views. Very often one adopts a View only to express one's belief in an Institution.... Men can............