believed there must be something wrong with a fellow who could
conceive such a stupendous undertaking. Surely no one would think for a
moment of putting it into execution! I also read with stolid indifference
of the Herculean feats of labor performed by men known to history. For
example, Demosthenes copied in his own handwriting Thucydides' _History_
eight times, merely to make himself familiar with the style of that great
man. An incident that appealed to me in a more benign way was this:--

"Pray, of what did your brother die?" said the Marquis Spinola to Sir
Horace Vere. "He died, sir," was the answer, "of having nothing to do!"

That, I thought, must have been an easy death.

CHAPTER IV.

HIS PURSUIT OF AN EDUCATION.

When I arrived at an age when my character should have been in some
measure "moulded," I was, like most persons of a peculiar nervous
temperament, very vacillating and changeful. No one knew how to size me
up; in fact, I didn't know myself. I was now constantly developing new,
short-lived ambitions. Occasionally I became industrious for short periods
of time. Indulgent and now prosperous parents provided a way for me to
pursue my little ambitions. I had secured the rudimentary part of an
education and I determined to build upon it. I was going to reach the
topmost rung.

It was my ambition--for a short time--to obtain a classical education and
become one of the literati; but I soon became weary of one line of study,
and when a thing got to be too irksome I passed it by for something else.
I could not be occupied with any study long unless I seemed to be
progressing in it with marvelous speed. This rapid-transit progress was,
of course, very unusual. I had read that quasi-science, phrenology, and
came to the conclusion that I could not stick to any one thing because my
_bump of "continuity" was poorly developed_.

[Illustration: My bump of continuity was poorly developed.]

I read that a very learned man used to admire Blackstone; so I dropped
everything and began perusing Blackstone's _Commentaries_. Soon after I
chanced to hear that Oliver Ellsworth gained the greater part of his
information from conversation, and I determined upon this method for a
while. I soon grew tired of it, however, and next took up general history
and literature. While taking my collegiate course, I pursued a number of
different studies, but the pursuit as well as the possession amounted to
very little. I h