I suggested to him that I laboured under disadvantages such as hampered very few other boys, which would act as a clog on the free exercise of my abilities, and that, even if other people refrained from alluding to my Parish breeding, the memory of it would always have a depressing effect on me. But such thoughts he met with something like angry contempt. ‘I don’t know,’ said he, ‘what the custom of the Welsh people may be, but _here_ we regard personal character and worth, not pedigree. With us, people are advanced, not for what their parentage may have been, but for what they are themselves. All whom I meet in broadcloth have risen through their own efforts, and not because they were their father’s children. President Buchanan was made our chief magistrate because he was himself, and not because of his father, or his ancestors, or because he was poorly or richly brought up. We put a premium on the proper exercise of every faculty, and guarantee to every man full freedom to better himself in any way he chooses, provided always he does not exercise it at the expense of the rights of other people. It is only those who refuse to avail themselves of their opportunities, and shamefully abuse them, that we condemn.’ At other times, the vehemence of youth would frequently betray itself; and, if I had not been checked, I should probably have developed undue loquacity. Being of sanguine temper by nature, I was led through gushes of healthy rapture into excesses of speech; but he would turn on me, and gravely say that he was not accustomed to carry magnifiers with him; that, owing to his own sense of proportion, my figures gave him no true idea of the fact I wished to state, that my free use of unnecessary ciphers only created confusion in his mind. Sometimes he would assume a comical look of incredulity, which brought me to my senses very quickly, and made me retract what I had said, and repeat the statement with a more sacred regard for accuracy. ‘Just so,’ he would say; ‘if a thing is worth stating at all, it might as well be stated truly. A boy’s fancy is very warm, I know; but, if once he acquires the habit of multiplying his figures, every fact will soon become no better than a fable.’