There
is no royal road to learning; men do not acquire knowledge by intuition.
Aversion to study is by no means unusual among the young; nor is it
probable that Patrick Henry was much more averse to it than the
generality of youth; indeed, his domestic educational advantages were
uncommonly good, and the early development of his mind proves that he
did not neglect them. The mercantile adventure, after the experiment of
a year, proving a failure, William, who, it would appear, had less
energy than Patrick, retired from the concern, and the management was
devolved upon the younger brother. Patrick, disgusted with an
unpromising business, listened impatiently to the hunter's horn, and the
cry of hounds echoing in the neighboring woods. Debarred from these
congenial sports, he sought a resource in music, and learned to play
not unskilfully on the flute and the violin, the latter being the
favorite instrument in Virginia. He found another source of
entertainment in the conversation of the country people who met at his
store, particularly on Saturday; and was fond of starting debates among
them, and observed the workings of their minds; and by stories, real or
fictitious, studied how to move the passions at his will. Many country
storekeepers have done the same thing, but they were not Patrick Henrys.
That he employed part of his leisure in storing his mind with
information from books, cannot be doubted. Behind the counter he could
con the news furnished by the _Virginia Gazette_, and he probably dipped
sometimes into the _Gentleman's Magazine_. At the end of two or three
years, a too generous indulgence to his customers, and negligence in
business, together perhaps with the insuperable difficulties of the
enterprise itself, in a period of war, disaster, and public distress,
forced him to abandon his store almost in a state of insolvency. William
Henry, the older brother, was then wild and dissipated; but became in
after-life a member of the assembly from the County of Fluvanna, enjoyed
the title of colonel, and had a competent estate. In the mean time
Patrick had married the daughter of a poor but honest farmer of the
neighborhood, named Shelton; and now by the joint assistance of his
father and his father-in-law, furnished with a small farm and one or two
slaves, he undertook to support himself by agriculture. Yet, although he
tilled the ground with his own hands, whether owing to his negligent,
unsystematic habits, much ins