HIS PURSUIT OF AN EDUCATION.
When I arrived at an age when my character should have been in some
measure "moulded," I was, like most persons of a peculiar nervous
temperament, very vacillating and changeful. No one knew how to size me
up; in fact, I didn't know myself. I was now constantly developing new,
short-lived ambitions. Occasionally I became industrious for short periods
of time. Indulgent and now prosperous parents provided a way for me to
pursue my little ambitions. I had secured the rudimentary part of an
education and I determined to build upon it. I was going to reach the
topmost rung.
It was my ambition--for a short time--to obtain a classical education and
become one of the literati; but I soon became weary of one line of study,
and when a thing got to be too irksome I passed it by for something else.
I could not be occupied with any study long unless I seemed to be
progressing in it with marvelous speed. This rapid-transit progress was,
of course, very unusual. I had read that quasi-science, phrenology, and
came to the conclusion that I could not stick to any one thing because my
_bump of "continuity" was poorly developed_.
[Illustration: My bump of continuity was poorly developed.]
I read that a very learned man used to admire Blackstone; so I dropped
everything and began perusing Blackstone's _Commentaries_. Soon after I
chanced to hear that Oliver Ellsworth gained the greater part of his
information from conversation, and I determined upon this method for a
while. I soon grew tired of it, however, and next took up general history
and literature. While taking my collegiate course, I pursued a number of
different studies, but the pursuit as well as the possession amounted to
very little. I had taken up Greek and Latin and had begun to manifest some
interest in these studies, when a friend, in whom I had some confidence,
advised me against wasting my time on obsolete words. He said: "Learn
English first, young man. I'll wager there are plenty of good Anglo-Saxon
words that you can't pronounce or define. For example, tell me what
'y-c-l-e-p-t' spells and what it means."
Thus being picked up on a trifling, useless English word, I decided to
give up the study of dead languages and confine myself to my
mother-tongue. Rhetoric and lexicography were hobbies with me for a time,
but before a great while I thought I needed "mental drill"; so I turned my
attention to mathematics. The subject became dry and uninteresting in the
usual length of time; besides, I began seriously to question mathematics
as being in the utilitarian class of studies. Certainly very little of it
was necessary as a business qualification. I recalled the fact that one
of the best business men, in a mediocre station of life, whom I had ever
known, could not write his own name and his wife had to count his money
for him. So I threw away my Euclid and tried something else; but I would
voluntarily tire of each study in a little while, or drop it at the
counter-suggestion of some friend. Thus I changed from one course to
another as a weather-cock is veered by the ever-changing wind to every
point of the compass.
Then I took up the fad of building air-castles. It is hard to laugh down
this species of architecture--the erection of atmospheric mansions. Every
one has it, in a way, but with me it had broken out in a very virulent
form. It makes one feel mean, indeed, to arouse from one of these Elysian
escapades only to find his feet on the commonest sort of clay.
Day-dreaming never produces the kind of dream that comes true, and mental
speculating is about as useless as indulging in Western mining stock.
Well-laid plans are all right, but ideals that you can't even hope to live
up to have no place in life's calendar. Dabbling with the unattainable is
calculated to sour us on the world and turn the milk of human kindness
into buttermilk. It may be likened to the predicament in which old
Tantalus was placed in the lake, where the water receded when he attempted
to drink it, and delicious fruits always just eluded his grasp.
Next I got hold of the delusion that I was studying and working too hard.
Goodness knows that what little I did was as desultory and haphazard as it
could well be, but nevertheless I stood in great fear of a dissolution of
my gray matter. Once it seemed to me that my brain was loose in my cranium
and I imagined I could hear it rattling around. I went at midnight to
consult a physician in regard to this phenomenal condition. After I had
described my symptoms, the doctor smiled rather more expansively than was
to my liking and said:--
"You may have a little post-nasal catarrh, but I think it is only a
neurosis."
I thought to myself that if it was "only" a neurosis it was one with great
possibilities. The fact that collapses are frequent among brain-workers
was not easily dismissed from my mind. I feared insanity and began to
picture how I would disport myself in a madhouse. It seemed that I could
not carry out the medical advice to take vigorous exercise, as it gave me
palpitation and made me fear that my heart would go out of business.
I concluded that the best thing I could do was to take up some fad to
relieve my overworked (?) brain and radiate some of my pent-up energy. I
had read of the fads of great men, but I could not decide after which one
to pattern. Nero was a great fiddler and went up and down Greece,
challenging all the crack violinists to a contest; the king of Macedonia
spent his time in making lanterns; Hercalatius, king of Parthia, was an
expert mole-catcher and spent much of his time in that business; Biantes
of Lydia was the best hand in the country at filing needles;
Theophylact--whom nobody but a bookworm ever heard of--bred fine horses
and fed them the richest dates, grapes and figs steeped in wines; an
ex-president of modern times was fond of fishing and spent much time in
piscatorial pursuits. None of these struck me just right, so I thought I
would be obliged to make a selection of my own. First I tried amateur
photography, but this soon grew monotonous and I gave it up. Next I got a
cornet, but I soon found that it required more wind than I could
conveniently spare. I then tried homing pigeons, but before I had scarcely
given the little aerial messengers a fair test I had thought of a dozen
other things that seemed preferable. Everything proved alike tiresome and
tedious. However, I found that in chasing diversions I had forgotten all
about my imagined infirmities. So perhaps, after all, the end accomplished
justified the means employed to secure it.