CHAPTER II.
"Deep thought oft seemed to fix his infant eye; Silent when glad, affectionate, though shy: And now his look was most demurely sad, And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why. The neighbors stared and sighed, yet blessed the lad; Some deemed him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad."
Beattie.
Our young student retired to his garret, a small room in the roof of thecottage, heated by the summer sun resting on its roof almost to the heatof a furnace. One small window looking towards the east admitted theevening breeze.
In the remotest corner was a low and narrow pallet, by the side of whichhung the indispensable articles of a man's apparel.
A small table, covered with ink spots, and a solitary chair stood in thecentre of the little apartment. A few deal shelves contained the odd andworn volumes of the student's library. A Greek Testament, severallexicons, half a volume of Horace, lay scattered on the table. Virgilwas the book he had brought with him from the pine-knot torch, and itwas the old Grecian, Homer that he was so anxious to possess.
The uncarpeted floor was thickly strewn with sheets half written over,and torn manuscripts were scattered about. Wherever the floor wasvisible, the frequent ink spots indicated that it was not without mentalagitation that these manuscripts had been produced.
It was not to repose from the labors of the day that the young manentered his little chamber: to bodily labor must now succeed mentaltoil.
He cast a wistful look towards his little pallet; he longed to rest hislimbs, aching with the labor of the day; but no; his lamp was on thetable, and, resolutely throwing off his coarse frock, he sat down tothink and to write.
Wearied by a long day of labor, the student in vain tried to collect histhoughts, to calm his weakened nerves. He rose and walked his chamberwith rapid steps, the drops of heat and anguish resting on his brow.
"Oh!" said he, "that I had been content to remain the clod, thetoil-worn slave that I am!"
Little do they know, who have leisure and wealth, and all theappurtenances of literary ease--the lolling study-chair, the convenientapartment, the brilliant light--how much those suffer who indulge inaspirations beyond their lowly fortune.
The student sat down again to write. His hands were icy cold, while hiseyes and brow were burning hot. He was engaged on a translation from theGreek. His efforts to collect and concentrate his thoughts on his work,exhausted as he was with toil, were vain and unavailing. At length hethrew down his pen.
"Oh God!" thought he, "is this madness? am I losing my memory, my mind?"Again he walked his little room, but with gentler steps; for he wouldnot disturb his aged relatives, who slept beneath.
"Have I deceived myself?" he said; "were all my aspirations onlydelusions, when, yet a boy, I followed the setting sun, and the rainbowhues of the evening clouds, with a full heart that could only findrelief in tears?--when I believed myself destined to be other than ahewer of wood and a drawer of water, because I felt an immeasurable pityfor my fellow-men, groping, as I did myself, under all the evils ofignorance and sin? Was it only vanity, when I hoped to rise above theclods of the earth, and aspired to have my lips, as Isaiah's, touched bya coal from the holy altar? Was it only impatience at my lot whichdestined me to inexorable poverty?"
"Let me not despair of myself;" and he took from his table a manuscriptof two or three sheets, and began to read it.
As he went on, his dissatisfaction seemed to increase. With thesensitiveness and humility of true genius, when under the influence ofdespondency, every line seemed to him feeble or exaggerated; all thefaults glared out in bold relief; while the real beauty of thecomposition escaped his jaded and toil-worn attention.
"Oh Heaven!" he said, "I have deceived myself; I am no genius, able torise above the lowliness of my station. The bitter cup of poverty is atmy lips. I have not even the power to purchase a single book. Shall I goagain to my good friend at C----? Shall I appear as a beggar, or apeasant, to beg the trifling pittance of a book?"
A burning blush for a moment passed over his pale countenance. "Willthey not say, and justly, 'Go back to your plough; it is your destinyand proper vocation to labor?'"
He sat down on the side of his little pallet, and burst into tears. Hewept long, and, as he wept, his mind became more calm. The shortsummer's night, in its progress, had bathed the earth in darkness, andcooled the heated roof of his little apartment. The night breeze, as itcame in at his window, chilled him, and he rose to close it.
As he looked from his little window, the dawn was just appearing in theeast, and the planet Venus, shining with the soft light of a crescentmoon, was full before him.
"O beautiful star!" he thought, "the same that went before the sages ofthe East, and guided them to the manger of the Savior! I aspire only tobe a teacher of the sublime wisdom of that humble manger. Let me butlift up my weak voice in his cause, and let all worldly ambition diewithin me.
'---- Thou, O Spirit! who dost prefer, Before all temples, th' upright heart and pure,'
I consecrate my powers to thee."
The morning breeze, as it blew on his temples, refreshed him. The youngbirds began to make those faint twitterings beneath the downy breast ofthe mother, the first faint sound that breaks the mysterious silence ofearly dawn.
He turned from the window; the rush-light was just expiring in its rudecandlestick. He threw himself on his bed, and was soon lost in deep anddreamless slumbers.