One lesson he had learned, which he never needed to relearn.

Just what that lesson was, he tells in his valedictory to the subscribers of the _Free Press_, as follows: "This is a time-serving age; and he who attempts to walk uprightly or speak honestly, cannot rationally calculate upon speedy wealth or preferment." A sad lesson, to be sure, for one so young to learn so thoroughly.

Perhaps some reader will say that this was cynical, the result of disappointment.

But it was not cynical, neither was it the result of disappointment.

It was unvarnished truth, and more's the pity, but truth it was none the less.
It was one of those hard facts, which he of all men, needed to know at the threshold of his experience with the world.