[13]

When a young man comes out of college he descends suddenly from the highest place in a little world to a very obscure corner in a great one. It is something of a shock, and there is apt to be a chill in the air. Unless the young man’s life has been planned beforehand and a place provided for him by others, which is exceptional, or unless he is fortunate in a strong and dominating purpose or talent which drives him to science or art or some particular profession, he finds himself at this period pausing and wondering where he can get a grip upon the vast and confused world into which he has been plunged.

It is a trying and only too frequently a disheartening experience, this looking for a career, this effort to find employment in a huge and hurrying crowd which appears to have no use for the new-comer. Roosevelt, thus cast forth on his own resources—his father, so beloved by him, having died two years before—fell to work at once, turning to the study of the law, which he did not like, and to the completion of a history of the War of 1812 which he had begun while still in college. With few exceptions, young beginners in the difficult art of writing are either too exuberant or too dry. Roosevelt said that his book was as dry as an encyclopedia, thus erring in precisely the direction one