pon lofty
heights, that had inspired mariners seeking their homes after distant
adventures. As he plodded back and forward he imagined himself some hero
of antiquity. He was reading "Plutarch's Lives" with deep interest. This
had been recommended at a former college, and he was now taking it up in
the midst of his French course.

He fancied, even, that some future Plutarch was growing up in Lynn,
perhaps, who would write of this night of suffering, and glorify its
heroes.

For himself he took a severe cold and suffered from chilblains, in
consequence of going back and forward through the snow, carrying the
wood.

But the flames of the bonfire caught the blinds of the professor's
room, and set fire to the building, and came near burning up the whole
institution. Agamemnon regretted the result as much as his predecessor,
who gave him his name, must have regretted that other bonfire, on the
shores of Aulis, that deprived him of a daughter.

The result for Agamemnon was that he was requested to leave, after
having been in the institution but a few months.

He left another college in consequence of a misunderstanding about the
hour for morning prayers. He went every day regularly at ten o'clock,
but found, afterward, that he should have gone at half-past six. This
hour seemed to him and to Mrs. Peterkin unseasonable, at a time of year
when the sun was not up, and he would have been obliged to go to the
expense of candles.

Agamemnon was always willing to try another college, wherever he could
be admitted. He wanted to attain knowledge, however it might be found.
But, after going to five, and leaving each before the year was out, he
gave it up.

He determined to lay out the money that would have been expended in a
collegiate education in buying an Encyclopaedia, the most complete that
he could find, and to spend his life studying it systematically. He
would not content himself with merely reading it, but he would study
into each subject as it came up, and perfect himself in that subject.
By the time, then, that he had finished the Encyclopaedia he should have
embraced all knowledge, and have experienced much of it.

The family were much interested in this plan of making practice of every
subject that came up.

He did not, of course, get on very fast in this way. In the second
column of the very first page he met with A as a note in music. This led
him to the study of music. He bought a flute, and took some lessons