then); and imprisonment at the office on the eves of mail nights till
the large hours p.m. Even the full fruition of such aspirations--the
large waistcoat beginning to 'point,' (as it soon does in merchants),
heavy watchchain, and cheerful conviction of the coming scarcity of
necessaries for everybody else, would have failed to please. The sort of
merchant I wanted to be was never found in 'Post Office Directory,' but
in the 'Arabian Nights,' trading to Bussorah, chiefly in pearls and
diamonds. When the Paterfamiliases of my acquaintance instance certain
stenches and messes which their Toms and Harrys make with chemicals all
over their house, as a proof of 'their natural turn for engineering,' I
say, 'Very likely,' or 'A capital thing,' but I _think_ of that early
attraction of my own towards Bussorah. The young gentlemen never dream
of what I once heard described, in brief, as the real business life of a
scientific apprentice: 'To lie on your back with a candle in your hand,
while another fellow knocks nails into a boiler.'

Boys have rarely any special aptitude for anything practical beyond
punching each others' heads, or (and these are the clever ones) for
keeping their own heads unpunched. As a rule, in short, Nature is not
demonstrative as respects our professional future.

It must nevertheless be conceded that if the boy is ever father to the
man in this respect, it is in connection with literature. Also, however
prosaic their works are fated to be, it is curious that the aspirants
for the profession below Burgesses always begin with Poetry. Even
Harriet Martineau wrote verses in early life bad enough to comfort the
soul of any respectable parent. The approach to the Temple of Literary
Fame is almost always through double gates--couplets. And yet I have
known youthful poets, apparently bound for Paternoster Row, bolt off the
course in a year or two, to the delight of their friends, and become, of