one, "he is the artificer of
his own fortune," it could be said of Nat. The bobbin boy was father of
the young and popular orator.

It is generally true, as we have intimated before, that the influence of
habits at ten or fifteen years of age, is distinctly traceable through
the whole career of eminent men. Sir James Mackintosh was thirteen years
of age when Mr. Fox and Lord North were arrayed against each other on
the subject of the American war. He became deeply interested in the
matter through their speeches, and from that time concentrated his
thoughts upon those topics that contributed to make him the
distinguished orator and historian that he became. He always considered
that the direction given to his mind, at that early period of his life,
settled his destiny. The great naturalist Audubon, was just as fond of
birds and other animals, when ten years old, as he was in manhood. He
studied natural objects with perfect admiration, and took the portraits
of such birds as he particularly fancied. When he was sent to Paris to
be educated, away from the beauty and freshness of rural objects, he
became tired of his lessons, and exclaimed, "What have I to do with
monstrous torsos and the heads of heathen gods, when my business lies
among birds?" The foundation of his success as a naturalist was laid in
his sparkling boyhood. Benjamin West was made a painter, as he said, by
his mother's kiss of approbation, when she saw a picture he sketched, at
seven or eight years of age. He became just what he promised to be in
his boyhood, when he robbed the old cat of the tip of her tail out of
which to manufacture a brush, to prosecute his delicate art. Thus it was
with Eli Whitney, who proved himself such a benefactor to mankind by his
inventive genius. His sister gives the following account of his boyhood:
"Our father had a workshop, and sometimes made wheels of different
kinds, and chairs. He had a variety of tools, and a lathe for turning
chair-posts. This gave my brother an opportunity of learning the use of
tools when very young. He lost no time; but, as soon as he could handle
tools, he was always making something in the shop, and seemed not to
like working on the farm. On a time, after the death of our mother, when
our father had been absent from home two or three days, on his return he
inquired of the house-keeper what the boys had been doing? She told him
what B. and J. had been about. 'But what has Eli been doing?' said he.