Biography of Self Taught Men |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
acquaintance acquired Africa afterwards American Colonization Society appeared appointed assistance attained attention Baldwin Baxter became Belzoni Bible brother character church circumstances commenced continued course DAVID RITTENHOUSE Davy death degree distinguished duties early efforts eminent employed engaged England English exertions extraordinary farm father favor friends gave genius Göttingen Grammar Greek habits Hebrew honor hundred individual instruction intellect interesting Isaac Milner JOHN OPIE knowledge labor land language Latin learned letter literary lived LOTT CARY M'Lean master mathematics ment mind mother native nature never Niebuhr object observations obtained orrery period person philosopher powers principal procured profession pursuits received remarks RICHARD BAXTER Rittenhouse Roger Sherman SAMUEL HUNTINGTON says scholar Scorton Scott Sherman Society soon STEPHEN HOPKINS talent taught thought tion took transit of Venus translated vigorous whole Yale College young
Popular passages
Page 211 - A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.
Page 140 - ... with all the modes of life. His character requires that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition; observe the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and trace the changes of the human mind as they are modified by various institutions and accidental influences of climate or custom, from the sprightliness of infancy to the despondence of decrepitude.
Page 36 - to lay down a new and difficult book after it had wearied me ; to take up another — then a 'third — and to resume this rotation frequently and laboriously. I always strove to seize the sense ; but, when I supposed that I had succeeded, I did not weary myself with analyzing every sentence.
Page 100 - Paradise Lost,' and some novels. These books he lent to Robert ; who spent all his leisure hours in reading the 'Seasons,' which he was now capable of reading. I never heard him give so much praise to any book as to that.
Page 198 - Had he," proceeds his biographer, " in the commencement of his career been furnished with all those appliances which he enjoyed at a later period, it is more than probable that he might never have acquired that wonderful tact of manipulation, that ability of suggesting expedients, and of contriving apparatus so as to meet and surmount the difficulties which must constantly arise during the progress of the philosopher through the unbeaten tracks and unexplored regions of science. In this art Davy...
Page xlvi - And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore.
Page 252 - take a long, thin piece of whalebone ; hold one end of it fast between your finger and thumb, and wind it round your finger; it will then endeavor to unwind itself; and if you fix the other end of it to the inside of a small hoop, and leave it to itself, it will turn the hoop round and round, and wind up a thread tied to the outside of the hoop.
Page 74 - See the sage Rittenhouse, with ardent eye, Lift the long tube, and pierce the starry sky : Clear in his view the circling systems roll, And broader splendours gild the central pole. He marks what laws th...
Page 174 - Even so late as the year 1471, when Louis XI. of France borrowed the works of the Arabian physician Rhasis, from the faculty of medicine at Paris, he not only deposited, by way of pledge, a quantity of valuable plate, but was obliged to procure a nobleman to join with him as surety in a deed, by which he bound himself to return it under a considerable forfeiture.
Page 52 - ship-boy on the high and giddy mast," but also in the cabin, where every menial office fell to my lot : yet if I was restless and discontented, I can safely say, it was not so much on account of this, as of my being precluded from all possibility of reading; as my master did not possess, nor do I recollect seeing during the whole time of my abode with him, a single book of any description, except the Coasting Pilot.