ould 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 influenc