in calf, and printed on cheap,
thin paper. He himself had written verses before his conversion. He now
looked upon his poets as witnesses of his former sinful state. He wanted
to sell them to me with all their sins, and eventually I did buy his
copy of Byron for fifty cents, after borrowing and becoming so enamoured
of it that I felt I could not live without the book. The Byronic moods
and fashion I imitated to the best of my ability. I began to turn down
my Sunday linen collar which had stood up to my ears, and to wear my
hair long and careless; whereas formerly, I had brushed it back and
upward as straight as possible, after the manner of ministers and
school-masters, now I let it hang as it would over my forehead and neck.
Melancholy was the wear, and for this, in my present temper, not much
effort was required. I did not, as Alexander and Chrysostom had done,
put my favorite author under my pillow; but often having to sleep on the
floor, this volume of Byron served as my pillow. In turn one book after
another held me like a captive lover, and I endeavored to conform my
life to what I read, no sooner enthralled by one than I found another
more enchanting. I formed a taste for reading that has lasted all my
life, in which, if there be any education, any mental discipline, is the
only consistent part of my development. Our critics and literary mentors
extol such books as are fit to be read a second time. I have a still
better reason for a second reading, because I forget the first. When I
strictly examine myself I cannot say that the contents of any book
remain long with me, not even the Greek and Latin grammars over which I
spent years of terrible toil. Somewhat survives the years, vague,
inexact and never at hand when wanted. Enough for me that I know pretty
well where to find what I have once read. I have been drawn to the
authors, who have written especially for me, by a certain, recurrent
impulse and appetite. Then I can go to the shelf in the dark. I find
that memory is a faculty over which we cannot use the whip and spur to
much purpose. It goes its own gait through barren or fertile fields,
gathering many a weed with its flowers. How many trifles one carries
through life from childhood days, by no effort of his own, things of the
senses mostly, when these were unwritten tablets and blank for the first
impressions. Upon these tablets are indelibly retained a certain box, a
spool, a pair of stairs, the smell of a n