Self Help by Samuel Smiles (desktop ebook reader txt) 📖

>contemptuous tone, “but I suspect that YOUR library is very small.”

His lordship was notoriously a furious political partisan, the

author of several anonymous pamphlets characterised by unusual

violence and dogmatism. Curran, roused by the allusion to his

straitened circumstances, replied thus; “It is very true, my lord,

that I am poor, and the circumstance has certainly curtailed my

library; my books are not numerous, but they are select, and I hope

they have been perused with proper dispositions. I have prepared

myself for this high profession by the study of a few good works,

rather than by the composition of a great many bad ones. I am not

ashamed of my poverty; but I should be ashamed of my wealth, could

I have stooped to acquire it by servility and corruption. If I

rise not to rank, I shall at least be honest; and should I ever

cease to be so, many an example shows me that an ill-gained

elevation, by making me the more conspicuous, would only make me

the more universally and the more notoriously contemptible.”

 

The extremest poverty has been no obstacle in the way of men

devoted to the duty of self-culture. Professor Alexander Murray,

the linguist, learnt to write by scribbling his letters on an old

wool-card with the end of a burnt heather stem. The only book

which his father, who was a poor shepherd, possessed, was a penny

Shorter Catechism; but that, being thought too valuable for common

use, was carefully preserved in a cupboard for the Sunday

catechisings. Professor Moor, when a young man, being too poor to

purchase Newton’s ‘Principia,’ borrowed the book, and copied the

whole of it with his own hand. Many poor students, while labouring

daily for their living, have only been able to snatch an atom of

knowledge here and there at intervals, as birds do their food in

winter time when the fields are covered with snow. They have

struggled on, and faith and hope have come to them. A well-known

author and publisher, William Chambers, of Edinburgh, speaking

before an assemblage of young men in that city, thus briefly

described to them his humble beginnings, for their encouragement:

“I stand before you,” he said, “a self-educated man. My education

was that which is supplied at the humble parish schools of

Scotland; and it was only when I went to Edinburgh, a poor boy,

that I devoted my evenings, after the labours of the day, to the

cultivation of that intellect which the Almighty has given me.

From seven or eight in the morning till nine or ten at night was I

at my business as a bookseller’s apprentice, and it was only during

hours after these, stolen from sleep, that I could devote myself to

study. I did not read novels: my attention was devoted to

physical science, and other useful matters. I also taught myself

French. I look back to those times with great pleasure, and am

almost sorry I have not to go through the same experience again;

for I reaped more pleasure when I had not a sixpence in my pocket,

studying in a garret in Edinburgh, then I now find when sitting

amidst all the elegancies and comforts of a parlour.”

 

William Cobbett’s account of how he learnt English Grammar is full

of interest and instruction for all students labouring under

difficulties. “I learned grammar,” said he, “when I was a private

soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of my berth, or

that of my guard-bed, was my seat to study in; my knapsack was my

book-case; a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing-table; and

the task did not demand anything like a year of my life. I had no

money to purchase candle or oil; in winter time it was rarely that

I could get any evening light but that of the fire, and only my

turn even of that. And if I, under such circumstances, and without

parent or friend to advise or encourage me, accomplished this

undertaking, what excuse can there be for any youth, however poor,

however pressed with business, or however circumstanced as to room

or other conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper I was

compelled to forego some portion of food, though in a state of

half-starvation: I had no moment of time that I could call my own;

and I had to read and to write amidst the talking, laughing,

singing, whistling, and brawling of at least half a score of the

most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the hours of their

freedom from all control. Think not lightly of the farthing that I

had to give, now and then, for ink, pen, or paper! That farthing

was, alas! a great sum to me! I was as tall as I am now; I had

great health and great exercise. The whole of the money, not

expended for us at market, was twopence a week for each man. I

remember, and well I may! that on one occasion I, after all

necessary expenses, had, on a Friday, made shifts to have a

halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of a

redherring in the morning; but, when I pulled off my clothes at

night, so hungry then as to be hardly able to endure life, I found

that I had lost my halfpenny! I buried my head under the miserable

sheet and rug, and cried like a child! And again I say, if, I,

under circumstances like these, could encounter and overcome this

task, is there, can there be, in the whole world, a youth to find

an excuse for the non-performance?”

 

We have been informed of an equally striking instance of

perseverance and application in learning on the part of a French

political exile in London. His original occupation was that of a

stonemason, at which he found employment for some time; but work

becoming slack, he lost his place, and poverty stared him in the

face. In his dilemma he called upon a fellow exile profitably

engaged in teaching French, and consulted him what he ought to do

to earn a living. The answer was, “Become a professor!” “A

professor?” answered the mason—“I, who am only a workman, speaking

but a patois! Surely you are jesting?” “On the contrary, I am

quite serious,” said the other, “and again I advise you—become a

professor; place yourself under me, and I will undertake to teach

you how to teach others.” “No, no!” replied the mason, “it is

impossible; I am too old to learn; I am too little of a scholar; I

cannot be a professor.” He went away, and again he tried to obtain

employment at his trade. From London he went into the provinces,

and travelled several hundred miles in vain; he could not find a

master. Returning to London, he went direct to his former adviser,

and said, “I have tried everywhere for work, and failed; I will now

try to be a professor!” He immediately placed himself under

instruction; and being a man of close application, of quick

apprehension, and vigorous intelligence, he speedily mastered the

elements of grammar, the rules of construction and composition, and

(what he had still in a great measure to learn) the correct

pronunciation of classical French. When his friend and instructor

thought him sufficiently competent to undertake the teaching of

others, an appointment, advertised as vacant, was applied for and

obtained; and behold our artisan at length become professor! It so

happened, that the seminary to which he was appointed was situated

in a suburb of London where he had formerly worked as a stonemason;

and every morning the first thing which met his eyes on looking out

of his dressing-room window was a stack of cottage chimneys which

he had himself built! He feared for a time lest he should be

recognised in the village as the quondam workman, and thus bring

discredit on his seminary, which was of high standing. But he need

have been under no such apprehension, as he proved a most efficient

teacher, and his pupils were on more than one occasion publicly

complimented for their knowledge of French. Meanwhile, he secured

the respect and friendship of all who knew him—fellow-professors

as well as pupils; and when the story of his struggles, his

difficulties, and his past history, became known to them, they

admired him more than ever.

 

Sir Samuel Romilly was not less indefatigable as a self-cultivator.

The son of a jeweller, descended from a French refugee, he received

little education in his early years, but overcame all his

disadvantages by unwearied application, and by efforts constantly

directed towards the same end. “I determined,” he says, in his

autobiography, “when I was between fifteen and sixteen years of

age, to apply myself seriously to learning Latin, of which I, at

that time, knew little more than some of the most familiar rules of

grammar. In the course of three or four years, during which I thus

applied myself, I had read almost every prose writer of the age of

pure Latinity, except those who have treated merely of technical

subjects, such as Varro, Columella, and Celsus. I had gone three

times through the whole of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus. I had

studied the most celebrated orations of Cicero, and translated a

great deal of Homer. Terence, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Juvenal, I

had read over and over again.” He also studied geography, natural

history, and natural philosophy, and obtained a considerable

acquaintance with general knowledge. At sixteen he was articled to

a clerk in Chancery; worked hard; was admitted to the bar; and his

industry and perseverance ensured success. He became Solicitor-General under the Fox administration in 1806, and steadily worked

his way to the highest celebrity in his profession. Yet he was

always haunted by a painful and almost oppressive sense of his own

disqualifications, and never ceased labouring to remedy them. His

autobiography is a lesson of instructive facts, worth volumes of

sentiment, and well deserves a careful perusal.

 

Sir Walter Scott was accustomed to cite the case of his young

friend John Leyden as one of the most remarkable illustrations of

the power of perseverance which he had ever known. The son of a

shepherd in one of the wildest valleys of Roxburghshire, he was

almost entirely self educated. Like many Scotch shepherds’ sons—

like Hogg, who taught himself to write by copying the letters of a

printed book as he lay watching his flock on the hill-side—like

Cairns, who from tending sheep on the Lammermoors, raised himself

by dint of application and industry to the professor’s chair which

he now so worthily holds—like Murray, Ferguson, and many more,

Leyden was early inspired by a thirst for knowledge. When a poor

barefooted boy, he walked six or eight miles across the moors daily

to learn reading at the little village schoolhouse of Kirkton; and

this was all the education he received; the rest he acquired for

himself. He found his way to Edinburgh to attend the college

there, setting the extremest penury at defiance. He was first

discovered as a frequenter of a small bookseller’s shop kept by

Archibald Constable, afterwards so well known as a publisher. He

would pass hour after hour perched on a ladder in mid-air, with

some great folio in his hand, forgetful of the scanty meal of bread

and water which awaited him at his miserable lodging. Access to

books and lectures comprised all within the bounds of his wishes.

Thus he toiled and battled at the gates of science until his

unconquerable perseverance carried everything before it. Before he

had attained his nineteenth year he had astonished all the

professors in Edinburgh by his profound knowledge of Greek and

Latin, and the general mass of information he had acquired. Having

turned his views to India, he sought