From this time he made frequent visits to the library, by the underground passage, reading all the novels he could find. In the evening, to the lads who gathered about the stove in the village store, he rehearsed the wonderful things he had read. He was a handsome, slender lad, of delicate complexion, vivacious manners, and a great favorite. Mr. Broderick, the proprietor, enjoyed the stories, and finally obtained proper access to the library for his young clerk. When about thirteen or fourteen, Joseph was apprenticed to Mr. John F. Doty of Albany, a watch-maker and silversmith. He found very little pleasure in the trade, and was probably glad when, after two years, the apprenticeship came to an end, through Mr. Doty leaving the business. Of course he was out of work. He was very fond of the theatre, and, having been behind the scenes, had learned how stage effects are produced. He now joined a private theatrical company, called "The Rostrum," and was soon made president of the society. He dramatized a story, and wrote a comedy, both of which were acted. He seemed destined to become an actor, probably not with the approval of his Scotch Presbyterian mother. Lives are sometimes changed by seemingly trivial events, yet nothing is trivial that influences a human being. Garfield said, "To every man of great original power there comes, in early youth, a moment of sudden discovery--of self-recognition--when his own nature is revealed to himself, when he catches for the first time a strain of that immortal song to which his own spirit answers, and which becomes thenceforth and forever the inspiration of his life. "'Like noble music unto noble words.'" That "moment of sudden discovery" came to Henry at sixteen. A slight accident had confined him to his mother's house for a few days. A young Scotch gentleman, Robert Boyle, who was boarding with her, had left upon the table of his chamber an unostentatious book, "Lectures on Experimental Philosophy, Astronomy, and Chemistry: by G. Gregory, D.D., Vicar of Westham." The book begins by asking several questions: "You throw a stone, or shoot an arrow into the air; why does it not go forward in the line or direction that you give it? Why does it stop at a certain distance, and then return to you?... On the contrary, why does flame or smoke always mount upward, though no force is used to send them in that direction? And why should not the flame of a candle drop toward the floor when you reverse it, or hold it downward, instead of turning up and ascending into the air?... Again, you look into a clear well of water, and see your own face and figure, as if painted there. Why is this? You are told that it is done by reflection of light. But what is reflection of light?"