gymnastic acquirement (not absolutely necessary, he said, to a
gentleman's education, but very desirable to a man perfect at all
points) by teaching him cudgel-playing and pugilism. In short, in
everything that related to accomplishments, whether of mind or body, no
pains were spared with little Ned; but of the utilitarian line of
education, then almost exclusively adopted, and especially desirable
for a fortuneless boy like Ned, dependent on a man not wealthy, there
was little given.

At first, too, the Doctor paid little attention to the moral and
religious culture of his pupil; nor did he ever make a system of it.
But by and by, though with a singular reluctance and kind of
bashfulness, he began to extend his care to these matters; being drawn
into them unawares, and possibly perceiving and learning what he taught
as he went along. One evening, I know not how, he was betrayed into
speaking on this point, and a sort of inspiration seized him. A vista
opened before him: handling an immortal spirit, he began to know its
requisitions, in a degree far beyond what he had conceived them to be
when his great task was undertaken. His voice grew deep, and had a
strange, impressive pathos in it; his talk became eloquent with depth
of meaning and feeling, as he told the boy of the moral dangers of the
world, for which he was seeking to educate him; and which, he said,
presented what looked like great triumphs, and yet were the greatest
and saddest of defeats. He told him that many things that seemed
nearest and dearest to the heart of man were destructive, eating and
gnawing away and corroding what was best in him; and what a high,
noble, re-creating triumph it was when these dark impulses were
resisted and overthrown; and how, from that epoch, the soul took a new
start. He denounced the selfish greed of gold, lawless passion,
revenge,--and here the grim Doctor broke out into a strange passion and