f those in whom we recognize the
luminaries of our race, have passed unconsciously to themselves (for
self-education is rarely conscious of its phases), through each of these
processes. And no one who pauses to reflect will deny, that according to
this theory, illustrated by a man of vast experience, profound
knowledge, and exquisite taste, the struggles of genius would be
infinitely lessened; its vision cleared and strengthened, and the
distance between effort and success notably abridged.

Norreys, however, was far too deep a reasoner to fall into the error of
modern teachers, who suppose that education can dispense with labor. No
mind becomes muscular without rude and early exercise. Labor should be
strenuous, but in right directions. All that we can do for it is to
save the waste of time in blundering into needless toils.

The master had thus first employed his neophyte in arranging and
compiling materials for a great critical work in which Norreys himself
was engaged. In this stage of scholastic preparation, Leonard was
necessarily led to the acquisition of languages, for which he had great
aptitude--the foundations of a large and comprehensive erudition were
solidly constructed. He traced by the ploughshare the walls of the
destined city. Habits of accuracy and of generalization became formed
insensibly; and that precious faculty which seizes, amidst accumulated
materials, those that serve the object for which they are
explored,--(that faculty which quadruples all force, by concentrating it
on one point)--once roused into action, gave purpose to every toil and
quickness to each perception. But Norreys did not confine his pupil
solely to the mute world of a library; he introduced him to some of the
first minds in arts, science, and letters--and active life. "These,"
said he, "are the living ideas of the present, out of which books for
the future will be written: study them; and here, as in the volumes of
the past, diligently amass and deliberately compile."

By degrees Norreys led on that young ardent mind from the selection of
ideas to their aesthetic analysis--from compilation to criticism; but
criticism severe, close, and logical--a reason for each word of praise
or of blame. Led in this stage of his career to examine into the laws of
beauty, a new light broke upon his mind; from amidst the masses of
marble he had piled around him, rose the vision of the statue.

And so, suddenly one day Norreys said to him,