Being an early riser himself, he insisted on my cultivating the habit of rising at dawn, but he also sent me to bed at an early hour. He lost no occasion to urge me to apply the morning hours to study; and, really, his anxiety that I should snatch the flying minutes appeared to be so great, that I was often infected with it as though they were something tangible, but so elusive that only a firm grasp would avail. If he saw me idly gazing on the shores, he would recall me, to ask if I had finished some chapter we had been discussing, or if I had found a different answer to his question than I had last given; and, if he detected an inclination in me to listen to the talk of passengers round the bar, he would ask if there were no books in the cabin, that I must needs hanker for the conversation of idlers. ‘All the babble of these topers, if boiled down,’ he would say, ‘would not give a drachm of useful knowledge. Greatness never sprang from such fruitless gossip. Those men were merely wasting time. From motives of selfishness, they, no doubt, would be glad to exchange trivial talk with anyone, big or little, who might come near them, but it was not to my interest to be in their company.’ He would put his arm in mine, and lead me away to deliver himself of his thoughts on the glory of youth, painting it in such bright colours that, before long, I would be seized with a new idea of its beauty and value. It appeared to be only a brief holiday, which ought to be employed for the strengthening of muscles, gathering the flowers of knowledge, and culling the riper fruits of wisdom. Youth was, really, only the period for gaining strength of bone, to endure the weight put on it by manhood, and for acquiring that largeness of mind necessary to understand the ventures I should hereafter be compelled to take. To squander it among such fellows as congregated around bar-rooms and liquor-counters was as foolish as to open my veins to let out my life-blood. ‘Now is the time to prepare for the long voyage you are to take. You have seen the ships in the docks taking in their stores before leaving for the high sea where nothing can be bought. If the captains neglect their duties, the crews will starve. You are in the dock to-day; have you everything ready for your voyage? Are _all_ your provisions aboard? If not, then, when you have hoisted your sails, it will be too late to think of them, and only good-luck can save you from misfortune’; and so on, until, through his forcible manner, earnestness, and copious similes, I returned to my studies with intense application.