The Reminiscences of an Astronomer | Page 6

the folks raise a
terrible laugh. I one evening lectured on astronomy at home; the house
was pretty well filled, I suppose about twenty were present. You were
not quite ten years old and small at that. Almost as soon as I was done
you said: "Father, I think you were wrong in one thing." Such a roar of
laughter almost shook the house.
You were an uncommon child for truth. I never knew you to deviate
from it in one single instance, either in infancy or youth.
From your infancy you showed great physical courage in going along
the woods or in places in the dark among cattle, and I am surprised at
what you say about your fears of a stove-pipe and trees.
Perhaps I should have said "mental" instead of physical courage, for in
one respect you were uncommonly deficient in that sort of courage
necessary to perform bodily labor. Until nine or ten years of age you
made a most pitiful attempt at any sort of bodily or rather "handy"
work.
* * * * *

An extraordinary peculiarity in you was never to leap past a word you
could not make out. I certainly never gave you any particular
instructions about this, or the fact itself would not at the time have
appeared so strange to me. I will name one case. After a return to
Wallace (you were eleven) I, one day, on going from home for an hour
or so, gave you a borrowed newspaper, telling you there was a fine
piece; to read it, and tell me its contents when I returned. On my return
you were near the house chopping wood. "Well, Simon, did you read
the piece?" "No, sir." "Why not?" "I came to a word I did not know."
This word was just about four lines from the commencement.
At thirteen you read Phrenology. I now often impressed upon you the
necessity of bodily labor; that you might attain a strong and healthy
physical system, so as to be able to stand long hours of study when you
came to manhood, for it was evident to me that you would not labor
with the hands for a business. On this account, as much as on account
of poverty, I hired you out for a large portion of the three years that we
lived at Clements.
At fifteen you studied Euclid, and were enraptured with it. It is a little
singular that all this time you never showed any self-esteem; or spoke
of getting into employment at some future day, among the learned. The
pleasure of intellectual exercise in demonstrating or analyzing a
geometrical problem, or solving an algebraic equation, seemed to be
your only object. No Junior, Seignour or Sophomore class, with annual
honors, was ever, I suppose, presented to your mind.
Your almost intuitive knowledge of geography, navigation, and
nautical matters in general caused me to think most ardently of writing
to the Admiral at Halifax, to know if he would give you a place among
the midshipmen of the navy; but my hope of seeing you a leading
lawyer, and finally a judge on the bench, together with the possibility
that your mother would not consent, and the possibility that you would
not wish to go, deterred me: although I think I commenced a letter.
Among the books which profoundly influenced my mode of life and
thought during the period embraced in the foregoing extracts were
Fowler's "Phrenology" and Combe's "Constitution of Man." It may

appear strange to the reader if a system so completely exploded as that
of phrenology should have any value as a mental discipline. Its real
value consisted, not in what it taught about the position of the "organs,"
but in presenting a study of human nature which, if not scientific in
form, was truly so in spirit. I acquired the habit of looking on the
characters and capabilities of men as the result of their organism. A hot
and impulsive temper was checked by the reflection that it was beneath
the dignity of human nature to allow a rush of blood to the organs of
"combativeness" and "destructiveness" to upset one's mental
equilibrium.
That I have gotten along in life almost without making (so far as I am
aware) a personal enemy may be attributed to this early discipline,
which led me into the habit of dealing with antagonism and personal
opposition as I would deal with any physical opposition--evade it,
avoid it, or overcome it. It goes without saying, however, that no
discipline of this sort will avail to keep the passions of a youth always
in check, and my own were no exception. When about fifteen I once
made a great scandal by taking out my knife in prayer meeting and
assaulting