Richard’s life passed very happily: he was gaining knowledge, he was assisting his beloved mother, he was inhaling the atmosphere of all others he most enjoyed. He had permission to take home any book at night, provided he brought it in the morning; at first, he greedily devoured all that came in his way, but the reading-stock of a third class library was not likely to feed a mind eager for actual knowledge, and largely comprehensive. Poetry he imbibed fervently; but whenever he could get biography or scientific books, he dispensed with the luxury of sleep, and came with pale cheeks and haggard eyes to his employment in the morning. Sandford and Merton, with its bright lessons of practical independence, was his favorite relaxation, and frequently, as he told his mother, “he took a plunge” into Franklin’s life as a refreshment. Then he wrote copies upon stray slips of paper; worked sums and problems on a rough piece of common slate; read what he most admired to his mother, though he was often grieved that her enthusiasm did not keep pace with his, and that she had little relish for any thing that “had not hope in it.” Then she would insist on his going to rest, when he was all eagerness to finish a book or unravel a mystery—not the transparent mystery of a novel, but the mystery of some mighty worker in the business of life; some giant amongst men, who achieved greatness though born in obscurity; some artist, whose fame towered toward the heavens, like the tree produced by the grain of mustard-seed; some Lancaster, or Washington, or Howard, or Watt, or humble, benevolent Wilderspin, revolutionizing sloth into activity, touching the eyes of multitudes with a magic wand, so that they cried out as one man. Behold, we see!—electrifying nations, calling into existence the dormant powers and sympathies of nature and of art.