Excerpt from Biographical Sketches of Rufus Choate The first four or five years of his practice was in Danvers, which he twice represented, meanwhile, in the State Legis lature. It should be recorded, however, for the benefit of such as need such a record, that the early success of Rufus Choate in law business was not such as tended very strongly to his encouragement and, during the first two or three years of his practice, it was not unfrequently a subject of serious debate with him whether he had not mistaken his calling, and whether he would not better relinquish his profession, and apply himself to some other occupation. He persevered, however, and at length his great diligence and fidelity, joined with the fame of his eloquence and skill, were rewarded with a full share of business. A most important professional trait of Mr. Choate developed itself in the very early stages of his practice - a trait which proved a permanent character istic throughout his whole brilliant career, and which, doubt less, conduced materially to his distinguished success. We allude here to his marvelous faithfulness to any and every cause which he undertook to manage and defend and that, too, irrespective utterly of its importance or otherwise, or of any recompense or lack of recompense. Before a justice of the peace, in an office not larger than a shoemaker's shop, in defense of some petty offender, he poured forth the same wealth of words and illustrations, of humor and wit, and, in its measure, of learning and argument which, afterward, de lighted the Supreme Court and Senate. Indeed, through out his life, he never reserved his brilliant arguments for a suitable audience. He early made it a rule, for the sake of' increasing his power as an advocate, to argue, at full length, every case he tried, and do his best on every occasion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.