extraordinary talents and virtue. It is true they were but few, very
few; yet on them my attention had been constantly fixed. Them I was
determined to emulate, exert the same powers, rise by the same means,
and enjoy the same privileges. Every example of successful genius
delighted, animated me, and fired my glowing imagination. The
histories of great men even when persecuted and distressed, a Galileo,
a Dryden, or an Otway, did but excite my admiration and my envy. Let
me but equal them and I could willingly live with them in poverty and
imprisonment, or die with them of misery, malady, and famine.

These were no transient feelings, but the daily emanations of desire.
From my infancy, the lessons and incidents of my life had rendered me
aspiring; and, however steep and rugged the rock might be described on
which the temple of fame stood, I was determined to ascend and enter.
I was possessed of that hilarity which, when not regulated by a strong
desire to obtain some particular purpose, shews itself in a thousand
extravagant forms, and is then called animal spirits; but, when thus
turned to the attainment of one great end, assumes the more worthy
appellation of activity of mind.

It must be acknowledged I was but little aware how much I had to
learn, and unlearn, or of the opposition I should meet from my own
prejudices, as well as from those of the world. But dangers never
imagined are never feared, and my leading characteristic was the most
sanguine hope. Were all the dangers of life to present themselves to
the imagination in a body, drawn up in battle array, the prospect
would indeed be dreadful; but coming individually they are less
formidable, and successively as they occur are conquered. Foreboded,
their aspect is terrific; but seen in retrospect, they frequently
excite present satisfaction and future fortitude: and this is the way