The Bobbin Boy Part 27

CHAPTER XXIV.

ANOTHER STEP.

"What are you doing here, Nat?" inquired Charlie, one day, as he entered the carpenter's shop where he was at work with his father.

"I am going to run a part.i.tion through here to make a new study for me.

Father has given me liberty to use this part of the shop."

"It will make a cozy room," said Charlie, "though it is a little lower down in the world than your other study. It seems you are really going to be a student and nothing else. You must look out that Mother Lane's prophecies are not fulfilled," the last sentence being intended for a sly appeal to Nat's good nature.

"I expect to do a good deal of work yet," replied Nat; "at least, I shall be obliged to work until I find the way to wealth as plain as the way to market. I shall study part of the time, and work the remainder."

At this time Nat had resolved to devote a larger portion of his time to study, and labor only enough to pay his own way along, and provide himself with books--a plan in which his parents cheerfully acquiesced.

He went on and finished off his study in his father's shop, and furnished it as well as his limited means would allow. A table, two or three chairs, his scanty library, and a couch on which he slept nights, const.i.tuted the furniture of this new apartment. It was more convenient for him to lodge in his study, since he could sit up as late as he pleased, and rise as early, without disturbing any one.

Now he ceased to labor constantly in the machine shop, and worked at his trade only a few months at a time, enough to support himself while pursuing his studies. Occasionally he labored with his father, and played the part of a carpenter.

Charlie was anxious to see the new study when it was completed, and he availed himself of the earliest opportunity to look in upon Nat.

"Here you are, in a brown study. This is capital--I had no idea you would have so good a room as this, Nat. Did you do all this yourself?"

"Certainly; have you any criticisms to offer? You look as if you hardly credited my word."

"I guess your father was round about home," said Charlie, pleasantly.

"But he did not drive a nail, nor plane a board."

"A carpenter, then, with all the rest," added Charlie. "I suppose now the library will be read up pretty fast."

"Not so fast as you imagine. I could never begin with you in reading books. You have read two to my one, I should think."

"Not so bad as that; and it is a poor compliment if it were true, for too much reading is as bad as too little, I expect. The difference between you and me is very plain; _you_ read and study to have something to use; and _I_ read for the pleasure of it."

"It is true," answered Nat, "that I try to make use of what I learn, though I enjoy the mere pleasure of study as well as you do. But when a person learns something, and then makes use of it, he will never forget it. I might study surveying a whole year in school, but if I did not go out into the fields to apply what I learned to actual practice, it would do me little good; and it is so with every thing."

"There is a good deal of truth in that," replied Charlie; "but there is a difference in the ability of persons to use what they acquire. Some persons have a very poor way of showing what they know."

It was true that Nat did not gorge his mind by excessive reading. Some readers can scarcely wait to finish one book, because they hanker so for another. They read for the mere pleasure of reading, without the least idea of laying up a store of information for future use. Their minds are crammed all the time with a quant.i.ty of undigested knowledge. They read as some people bolt down a meal of victuals, and the consequences are similar. The mind is not nourished and strengthened thereby, but is rather impaired finally by mental indigestion.

Coleridge divides readers into four cla.s.ses. "The first," he says, "may be compared to an hour-gla.s.s, their reading being as the sand; it runs in, and it runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second cla.s.s resembles a sponge, which imbibes every thing, and returns it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtier. A third cla.s.s is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pa.s.s away, and retains only the refuse and the dregs. The fourth cla.s.s may be compared to the slave in the diamond mines of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gem." Nat was a reader of the latter cla.s.s, and, at the same time, saved every gem for _use_. He had no disposition to _h.o.a.rd_ knowledge, as the miser does his gold. He thought it was designed for use as really as a coat or hat--an idea that does not seem to have entered the heads of many youth, of whom it may be said, "their apparel is the best part of them."

It is as necessary to have a fixed, n.o.ble purpose behind a disposition to _read_, as behind physical strength in secular pursuits, otherwise what is read will be of comparatively little service. The purpose with which a thing is done determines the degree of success therein, and the principle applies equally to reading. Nat's purpose converted every particle of knowledge acquired into a means of influence and usefulness, so that he made a given amount of knowledge go further towards making a mark on society than Charlie. The latter usually mastered what he read, and he made good use of it, as the end will show, only it was done in another channel, and in a more private way. He could not have made so deep and lasting an impression on those around him as Nat, with even more knowledge, if he had tried.

"What work are you reading now, Nat?"

"Burke's Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful," replied Nat, taking up the volume from the table. "It is a splendid work."

"I never read it," added Charlie; "the t.i.tle is so magnificent that I never thought I should like it. _My_ head is not long enough for such a work."

"You don't know what it is. It is one of the most practical and useful volumes there is. It is not so taking a book for rapid reading as many others; but it is a work to be _studied_."

"What is the particular use of it?"

"Its use to me is, the information it gives concerning those objects and ill.u.s.trations that have the most power over the hearts of men in speaking and writing. I should think it must aid a person very much in the ability to ill.u.s.trate and enforce a subject."

"I suppose you are right," said Charlie, "but it is all gammon to me.

That is what helped you to ill.u.s.trate and enforce the claims of our Dramatic Society in the lyceum, was it?" meaning no more than a joke by this suggestion.

"No; I never read it much until recently," answered Nat.

"Well, I thought you had some of the _sublime_ in that speech, if you had none of the _beautiful_," continued Charlie in a vein of humor. "I concluded that Burke might have helped you some, as I thought it hardly probable that Nat did it alone."

"What do you think you should do, Charlie, if you had not me to make fun of?" asked Nat. "You would have the dyspepsia right away. It is altogether probable that I was made to promote your digestion."

"Very likely," replied Charlie, a.s.suming a grave appearance. "I believe they administer rather powerful medicine for that disease. But they say you go to college now," and here his seeming gravity was displaced by a smile. "When are you going to graduate?"

"About the time you know enough to enter," answered Nat, paying back in the same coin.

Charlie was much amused at this turn, for his allusion to college was in a jesting way, occasioned by the fact that Nat had obtained permission to use the library of Cambridge College, to which place he frequently walked to consult volumes. It was a great advantage to him, to enjoy the opportunity to examine works which he could not possess on account of his poverty, and such works, too, as the library of his native village did not contain. It was quite a walk to Harvard College, but necessity made it comparatively short and pleasant to Nat. Many times he performed the trip to settle some point of inquiry, or compa.s.s some difficult subject; and the journeys proved to him what similar walks did to Count Rumford many years before. He, also, was accustomed to visit the Athenaeum in Boston, at this period of his life, where he spent some pleasant and profitable hours. To many youth it would seem too great an outlay of labor to make for an education; but to Nat it was a cheap way of obtaining knowledge. He was willing to make any sacrifice, and to perform almost any labor, if he could add thereby to his mental stature.

Often a volume would completely absorb his thoughts upon a given subject, and he could not let it alone until he had thoroughly canva.s.sed it; and this was one of the elements of his success--a power of application, in which all the thoughts were concentrated on the subject before him. It was thus with Hugh Miller from his boyhood. As an instance, his biographer relates, that, on one occasion he read a work on military tactics--a subject that one would think could scarcely command his attention--and he was so thoroughly controlled by the desire to understand the military movements described, that he repaired to the sea-sh.o.r.e, where he got up an imposing battle between the English and French, with a peck or half bushel of sh.e.l.ls, one color representing one nation, and another color the other nation. Time after time he fought an imaginary battle with sh.e.l.ls, until he definitely understood the military tactics described in the volume which he read.

Sometimes the perusal of a volume starts off the reader upon a career that is really different from that which the book describes. By its hints or suggestions, it awakens the powers to some incidental subject, upon which they seize with an earnestness and devotion that cannot fail of success. Thus, when William Carey read the "Voyages of Captain Cook,"

he first conceived the idea of going upon a mission to the heathen world. There was information imparted in that volume, which, in connection with the marvellous adventures and success of the great voyager, fired his soul with the determination to carry the gospel to the perishing.

Nat had such a mind, and difficulties rising mountain high could not hinder him from examining a subject that absorbed his thoughts. A walk of ten miles to see a book, the sacrifice of an evening's entertainment at a party of pleasure, or the loss of a night's sleep, never stood between him and the information he earnestly desired. His unwavering purpose surmounted all such obstacles in the attainment of his object.

CHAPTER XXV.

EULOGY BY JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

One of the brief periods in which Nat worked at his trade, after he commenced to study more systematically, was spent on the Mill Dam in Boston. At a machine-shop there, he pursued his business a short time, for the purpose of earning the means to defray his expenses while studying.

"John Quincy Adams is to deliver a eulogy on Madison at the old Federal Street Theatre to-morrow," said one of the hands.

"At what time?" inquired Nat.

"Ten o'clock is the time announced for the procession to form. It will probably be twelve o'clock before they get ready for the eulogy."

"I would go," said Nat, "if I had my best clothes here. I could go without losing much time at that hour."

"Did you ever hear John Quincy Adams?"

"No; and that is one reason why I wish to hear him. I have heard many of the distinguished men, but I have never had the opportunity to hear him. I think I shall go as I am."