But men are often endowed with plenteous gifts for which they never find employment, and thus go to the bad without discovering their natural bent to others or even to themselves. In the years preceding our late war how many were rated as vagabonds, who had that within them which has since won renown! They were "born soldiers," and, in the piping time of peace, out of unison with the bustling crowd around them. Life seemed a muddle, and of course they went astray. But when the great guns sounded, and the bugles rang, they came at once to their birthright, and many a ne'er-do-well made himself a patriot and hero forever. Edwin Booth, having the capabilities of a great actor, found himself about the stage in his childhood, and, by an unwonted kindness of fortune, went through with perhaps the exact training his genius required. If the atmosphere of the theatre had not almost enwrapt his cradle, and thus become a necessity of his after years, his reflective, brooding temperament and aesthetic sensitiveness might have impelled him to one of the silent professions, or kept him an irresolute dreamer through an unsuccessful life. But while his youth was passed in the green-room, a stern discipline early made him self-reliant, matured his powers, taught him executive action, and gave him insight of the passions and manners of our kind. As for black-letter knowledge, such a nature as his was sure to gain that,--to acquire in any event, and almost unknowingly, what mere talent only obtains by severe, methodical application. We know how genius makes unconscious studies, while in the daily routine of life. The soul works on, unassisted, and at length bursts out into sudden blaze. How did Booth study? Just as young Franklin weighed the minister's sermons, while mentally intent upon the architecture of the church roof. Night after night the lonely face brightened the shadows of the stage-wings, and the delicate ear drank in the folly, the feeling, the wit and wisdom of the play. To such a boyhood the personal contact of his father's nature was all in all. It was quaffing from the fountain-head, not from streams of the imitation of imitation. As the genius of the father refined the intellect and judgment of the son, so the weaknesses coupled with that genius taught him strength of character and purpose. We have heard of nothing more dramatic than the wandering companionship of this gifted pair,--whether the younger is awaiting, weary and patient, the end of the heard but unseen play, or watching over his father at a distance, when the clouds settled thickly upon that errant mind, through long nights and along the desolate streets of a strange city. With other years came the time for young Booth to fight his own battle, and wander on his own account through an apprenticeship preceding his mature successes,--to gain those professional acquirements which were needed to complete his education, and to make that tasteful research to which he naturally inclined.