Arrived at Rochester,—­which place I had selected for my debut because of its remoteness from home,—­I looked in, the evening of my arrival, to see the performances at the theatre.  It was a hall of humble dimensions, seating an audience of five or six hundred.  The piece was a travesty of “Hamlet,” neither edifying nor amusing.  A little of the couleur-de-rose which had flushed my prospect faded that night; but the few friends at home to whom I had confided my plans had so pertinaciously assured me that I—­the most diffident man in the world—­could never appear before an audience without letting them see I was shaky in the knees, that I resolved to do what I could to show my depreciators they were false prophets.

And so I called on the manager,—­with a beating heart, as you may suppose.  He was a small, quiet, gentlemanly person, whom I regret I cannot, consistently with historical truth, show up as a Crummles.  But not even Dickens could have found any salient trait for ridicule in the man.  Frankly and kindly he went into the statistics of the theatrical business, and showed me, that, unless I was rich, and could afford to play for my own amusement, the stage held out few inducements; it was barren of promise to a young man anxious to make himself independent of the world.

I did not reply, “Perish the lucre!” but said that I would be content, in the early part of my career, to labor for reputation.  He soon satisfied me that he could not give up his stage to an experimentalist, and I did not urge my suit; but bade Mr. S. good morning, and, a day or two afterwards, started for Niagara.  Here, wet by the mist and listening to the roar of the great cataract, I speedily forgot my chagrin, and took a not unfriendly leave of the illusions which had lured me on to try my fortune on the stage.  Even now they return occasionally with all their fascination.

While at Rochester, as I was passing through the principal street, I met a crowd assembled about a lifting-machine.  On making trial of it, I found I could lift four hundred and twenty pounds.  I had then been for four years a gymnast, and I supposed my practice would have qualified me to make the crowd stare at my achievement.  But the result was far from triumphant.  I found what many other gymnasts will find, that main strength, by which I mean the strength of the truckman and the porter, cannot be acquired in the ordinary exercises of the gymnasium.

Returning home, I began the study of anatomy and physiology, and in the autumn of 1854 entered the Harvard Medical School.  The question of the extent to which human strength can be developed had long been invested with a scientific interest to my mind.  One of the greatest lifting feats on authentic record is that of Thomas Topham, an Englishman, who in Bath Street, Cold Bath Fields, London, on the 28th of May, 1741, lifted three hogsheads of water, said to weigh, with the connections,