One of the first resolutions he made--and he's never broken it, for when he grew wise enough to do so, the opportunity had gone by forever--was never to leave his native country.

He wanted to prove to himself, and to everybody else whom it might concern, that a man of fair abilities might become learned and wise, without ever helping himself to the good things that lay beyond the shadow of his native flag.

'The majority of people have to live where they are born,' was his argument; 'I'll be their representative.' Well, that would seem all well enough; but it stood in his way twice--each time lost him an opportunity that has never come again--the opportunity to be distinguished, and perhaps great; and the opportunity to have a happy home, and a luxurious one.

It was better for him, no doubt, that his life was a hard and disappointed one, instead of--as it might have been; he's had blessings enough, that's certain; but he has much to regret, too; the more, because the ill effects of a man's folly and willfulness fall upon his friends quite as often, and sometimes more heavily, than upon himself.
"He was a poor man in college, and an orphan.

The property of his family had been lost in the War of 1812; from then till he was twenty-one, he had followed a dozen trades, and saved a couple of hundred dollars; and he'd picked up book-learning enough to enter the sophomore class.