d bolts could hardly prevent me from peeping. But there were a
thousand lions in the way--or at least _two or three_. One was extreme
indigence on the part of my parents. They came together nearly as poor
as John Bunyan and his wife, or Sydney Smith and his companion. Or if,
in addition to a knife, fork, and spoon, they had a looking-glass, an
old iron kettle, an axe, and a hoe, I am sure the inventory of their
property at first could not have extended much farther; and now that
they had a family of four children, their wants had increased about as
fast as their income.

Besides, there was a confused belief in the public mind--and of course
in mine--that medical men were a species of conjurors; or if nothing
more, that they had a sort of mysterious knowledge of human character,
obtained by dealing with the stars, or by reliance on some supernatural
source or other. And to such a height as this I could not at that time
presume to aspire; though I certainly did aspire, even at a very early
period, to become a learned man.

As a means to such an end, I early felt an ardent desire to become a
printer. This desire originated, in part at least, from reading the
autobiography of Dr. Franklin, of which I was exceedingly fond. It was a
desire, moreover, which I was very slow to relinquish till compelled. My
father, as we have seen, was a poor laborer, and thought himself unable
either to give me any extra opportunities of education, or to spare me
from the cultivation of a few paternal acres. Still, in secret, I I
clung to the hope of one day traversing the lengths and breadths and
depths and heights of the world of science.

But for what purpose, as a final end? for, practically, the great
question was, _cui bono_? As for becoming a lawyer, that, with me, was
quite out of the question; for lawyers, even thus early, were generally
regarded as bad men. All over the region of my nativity the word lawyer
was nearly synonymous with liar; and to liars and lawyers the Devil was
supposed to have a peculiar liking, not to say affinity. I had never at
that time heard of but one honest lawyer; and him I regarded as a sort
of _lusus naturae_ much more than as an ordinary human being. My friends
would have been shocked at the bare thought of my becoming a lawyer, had
the road to that profession been open to my youthful aspirations.

The clerical profession was in some respects looked upon more favorably
than the legal or the medical. I w