He was a sober young man: as his
father's teaching had been strict, so he was now strict in his rule over
himself. He frequented religious services, going about listening to
popular preachers of all sorts, and critically commenting upon their
sermons to his friends. He was really a very religious and
well-intentioned man, all of which stood in his favour with the more
sober portion of society whose favour he courted. As his talents and
industry gained him grace in the eyes of the dons of his college, so his
good life and good understanding made him friends among the more worthy
of his companions. He was conceited and self-righteous, but not
obviously so.
When his college had conferred upon him the degree of doctor of
medicine, he felt that he had climbed only on the lower rungs of the
ladder of knowledge. It was his father, not himself, who had chosen his
profession, and now that he had received the right to practise medicine
he experienced no desire to practise it; learning he loved truly, but
not that he might turn it into golden fees, and not that by it he might
assuage the sorrows of others; he loved it partly for its own sake,
perhaps chiefly so; but there was in his heart a long-enduring ambition,
which formed itself definitely into a desire for higher culture, and
hoped more indefinitely for future fame.
Caius resolved to go abroad and study at the medical schools of the Old
World.
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