Stories of Achievement, Volume III | Page 7

earn his
subsistence in part by his knowledge of languages, and thus save much
waste of time and vitality at the forge. He wrote a letter to William
Lincoln, of Worcester, who had aided and encouraged him; and in this
letter he gave a short history of his life, and asked whether he could not
find employment in translating some foreign work into English. Mr.
Lincoln was so much struck with his letter that he sent it to Edward
Everett, and he, having occasion soon after to address a convention of
teachers, read it to his audience as a wonderful instance of the pursuit
of knowledge under difficulties. Mr. Everett prefaced it by saying that
such a resolute purpose of improvement against such obstacles excited
his admiration, and even his veneration.
"It is enough," he added, "to make one who has good opportunities for
education hang his head in shame."
All this, including the whole of the letter, was published in the
newspapers, with eulogistic comments, in which the student was
spoken of as the "Learned Blacksmith." The bashful scholar was
overwhelmed with shame at finding himself suddenly famous.
However, it led to his entering upon public life. Lecturing was then
coming into vogue, and he was frequently invited to the platform.
Accordingly, he wrote a lecture, entitled "Application and Genius," in
which he endeavored to show that there is no such thing as genius, but
that all extraordinary attainments are the results of application. After
delivering this lecture sixty times in one season, he went back to his
forge at Worcester, mingling study with labor in the old way.
On sitting down to write a new lecture for the following season, on the
"Anatomy of the Earth," a certain impression was made upon his mind
which changed the current of his life. Studying the globe, he was
impressed with the need that one nation has of other nations, and one
zone of another zone; the tropics producing what assuages life in the
northern latitudes and northern lands furnishing the means of
mitigating tropical discomforts. He felt that the earth was made for

friendliness and coöperation, not for fierce competition and bloody
wars.
Under the influence of these feelings, his lecture became an eloquent
plea for peace, and to this object his after life was chiefly devoted. The
dispute with England upon the Oregon boundary induced him to go to
England with the design of travelling on foot from village to village,
preaching peace, and exposing the horrors and folly of war. His
addresses attracting attention, he was invited to speak to larger bodies,
and, in short, he spent twenty years of his life as a lecturer upon peace,
organizing Peace Congresses, advocating low uniform rates of ocean
postage, and spreading abroad among the people of Europe the feeling
which issued, at length, in the arbitration of the dispute between the
United States and Great Britain, an event which posterity will, perhaps,
consider the most important of this century. He heard Victor Hugo say
at the Paris Congress of 1850:
"A day will come when a cannon will be exhibited in public museums,
just as an instrument of torture is now, and people will be amazed that
such a thing could ever have been. . . ."
Elihu Burritt spent the last years of his life upon a little farm which he
had contrived to buy in his native town. He was never married, but
lived with his sister and her daughters. He was not so very much richer
in worldly goods than when he started out for Boston, with his property
wrapped in a small handkerchief. He died in March, 1879, aged
sixty-nine years.

JOHN B. GOUGH
(1817-1886)
THE CONQUEST OF A BAD HABIT
Happily few human beings sink to the depths in which John B. Gough
found himself at the age of twenty-five years. By sheer force of will he
raised himself from the slough in which he wallowed, till he attained a

position honored among men, and performed a service of exceptional
usefulness to society.
His story, as told in his own vivid words, is one of the most absorbing
in the annals of self-help. His example must have helped thousands
among the myriads whom he thrilled by the dramatic recital of his
experience.
From his "Autobiography."
I boarded in Grand Street at this time, and soon after laid the
foundation of many of my future sorrows. I possessed a tolerably good
voice, and sang pretty well, having also the faculty of imitation rather
strongly developed; and being well stocked with amusing stories, I was
introduced into the society of thoughtless and dissipated young men, to
whom my talents made me welcome. These companions were what is
termed respectable, but they drank. I now began to attend the