Let us point to him,
unguarded by a parent's care from his third year, that parent one of the
master-spirits of a great Revolution and ever absent in his fearful
work, remarkable for his correct deportment and that perseverance in
well-doing so strikingly shown by the fact that he, alone among his
young contemporaries, finished his studies at college with the
approbation of the faculty, and received the only degree conferred upon
his class. Let us point our youth to the zeal with which he sought
instruction in useful knowledge; how, a mere boy, almost imperceptibly,
it may be in the office of his grandfather, or of Mr. Wythe, or of Mr.
Wickham, or of the General Court, but some how, somewhere, perhaps drawn
on the instant from the philosophy of the law, he acquired a thorough
knowledge of all the mysteries and learning of a clerk of a court--a
mastery so thorough, that in after years he was consulted by the most
eminent clerks in difficult cases in their calling; and how he not only
mastered that department of knowledge, but studied its mere mechanical
details, and learned that beautiful hand which was conspicuous in all
his writings.
Pages:
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194