from the hours of no business, nor, indeed, from the hours of necessary
exercise: the hours usually spent on the tea and coffee slops and in the
mere gossip which accompany them; those wasted hours of only _one year_,
employed in the study of English grammar, would make you a correct
speaker and writer for the rest of your life. You want no school, no
room to study in, no expenses, and no troublesome circumstances of any
sort. I learned grammar when I was a private soldier on the pay of
sixpence a day. The edge of my berth, or that of the guard-bed, was my
seat to study in; my knapsack was my book-case; a bit of board, lying on
my lap, was my writing-table; and the task did not demand any thing like
a year of my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil; in
winter-time it was rarely that I could get any evening-light but that of
_the fire_, and only my _turn_ even of that. And if I, under such
circumstances, and without parent or friend to advise or encourage me,
accomplished this undertaking, what excuse can there be for _any youth_,
however poor, however pressed with business, or however circumstanced as
to room or other conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper I was
compelled to forego some portion of food, though in a state of
half-starvation; I had no moment of time that I could call my own; and I
had to read and to write amidst the talking, laughing, singing,
whistling and brawling of at least half a score of the most thoughtless
of men, and that too in the hours of their freedom from all control.
Think not lightly of the _farthing_ that I had to give, now and then,
for ink, pen, or paper! That farthing was, alas! a _great sum_ to me! I
was as tall as I am now; I had great health and great exercise. The
whole of the money, not expended for us at market, was _two-pence a
week_ for each man. I remember, and well I may! that upon one occasion
I, after all absolutely necessary expenses, had, on a Friday, made shift
to have a halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of
a _red-herring_ in the morning; but, when I pulled off my clothes at