of this ponderous block, now rough from the quarry of human nature.
But, in the mean time, he evidently possessed in an unusual degree the
sort of learning that refines other minds,--the critical acquaintance
with the great poets and historians of antiquity, and apparently an
appreciation of their merits, and power to teach their beauty. So the
boy had an able tutor, capable, it would seem, of showing him the way
to the graces he did not himself possess; besides helping the growth of
the strength without which refinement is but sickly and disgusting.

Another sort of culture, which it seemed odd that this rude man should
undertake, was that of manners; but, in fact, rude as the grim Doctor's
own manners were, he was one of the nicest and severest censors in that
department that was ever known. It is difficult to account for this;
although it is almost invariably found that persons in a low rank of
life, such as servants and laborers, will detect the false pretender to
the character of a gentleman, with at least as sure an instinct as the
class into which they seek to thrust themselves. Perhaps they recognize
something akin to their own vulgarity, rather than appreciate what is
unlike themselves. The Doctor possessed a peculiar power of rich rough
humor on this subject, and used to deliver lectures, as it were, to
little Ned, illustrated with sketches of living individuals in the town
where they dwelt; by an unscrupulous use of whom he sought to teach the
boy what to avoid in manners, if he sought to be a gentleman. But it
must be confessed he spared himself as little as other people, and
often wound up with this compendious injunction,--"Be everything in
your behavior that Doctor Grim is not!"

His pupil, very probably, profited somewhat by these instructions; for
there are specialties and arbitrary rules of behavior which do not come
by nature. But these are few; and beautiful, noble, and genial manners