Stories of Achievement, Volume III | Page 6

a chance, while he was
waiting for a large piece of iron to get hot, to open his book with his
black fingers, and go through a pronoun, an adjective, or part of a verb,
without being noticed by his fellow-apprentices.
So he worked his way until he was out of his time, when he treated
himself to a whole quarter's schooling at his brother's school, where he
studied mathematics, Latin, and other languages. Then he went back to
the forge, studying hard in the evenings at the same branches, until he
had saved a little money, when he resolved to go to New Haven and
spend a winter in study. It was far from his thoughts, as it was from his
means, to enter Yale College, but he seems to have had an idea that the
very atmosphere of the college would assist him. He was still so timid
that he determined to work his way without asking the least assistance
from a professor or tutor.
He took lodgings at a cheap tavern in New Haven, and began the very
next morning a course of heroic study. As soon as the fire was made in
the sitting-room of the inn, which was at half-past four in the morning,
he took possession, and studied German until breakfast-time, which
was half-past seven. When the other boarders had gone to business, he
sat down to Homer's Iliad, of which he knew nothing, and with only a
dictionary to help him.
"The proudest moment of my life," he once wrote, "was when I had
first gained the full meaning of the first fifteen lines of that noble work.
I took a short triumphal walk, in favor of that exploit."
Just before the boarders came back for their dinner he put away all his
Greek and Latin books and took up a work in Italian, because it was
less likely to attract the notice of the noisy crowd. After dinner he fell
again upon his Greek, and in the evening read Spanish until bedtime. In
this way he lived and labored for three months, a solitary student in the
midst of a community of students; his mind imbued with the grandeurs
and dignity of the past while eating flapjacks and molasses at a poor
tavern.

Returning to his home in New Britain, he obtained the mastership of an
academy in a town near by, but he could not bear a life wholly
sedentary; and at the end of a year abandoned his school and became
what is called a "runner" for one of the manufacturers of New Britain.
This business he pursued until he was about twenty-five years of age,
when, tired of wandering, he came home again, and set up a grocery
and provision store, in which he invested all the money he had saved.
Soon came the commercial crash of 1837, and he was involved in the
widespread ruin. He lost the whole of his capital, and had to begin the
world anew.
He resolved to return to his studies in the languages of the East. Unable
to buy or find the necessary books, he tied up his effects in a small
handkerchief and walked to Boston, one hundred miles distant, hoping
there to find a ship in which he could work his passage across the ocean,
and collect oriental works from port to port. He could not find a berth.
He turned back, and walked as far as Worcester, where he found work,
and found something else which he liked better. There is an antiquarian
society at Worcester, with a large and peculiar library, containing a
great number of books in languages not usually studied, such as the
Icelandic, the Russian, the Celtic dialects, and others. The directors of
the society placed all their treasures at his command, and he now
divided his time between hard study of languages and hard labor at the
forge. To show how he passed his days, I will copy an entry or two
from his private diary he then kept:
"Monday, June 18. Headache; 40 pages Cuvier's Theory of the Earth;
64 pages French; 11 hours forging.
"Tuesday, June 19. 60 lines Hebrew; 30 pages French; 10 pages Cuvier;
8 lines Syriac; 10 lines Danish; 10 lines Bohemian; 9 lines Polish; 15
names of stars; 10 hours forging.
"Wednesday, June 20. 25 lines Hebrew; 8 lines Syriac; 11 hours
forging."
He spent five years at Worcester in such labors as these. When work at
his trade became slack, or when he had earned a little more money than

usual, he would spend more time in the library; but, on the other hand,
when work in the shop was pressing, he could give less time to study.
After a while he began to think that he might perhaps