“’But now, Henry, seriously, just attend to the active and passive voice.  Now, I strike, is active, you see, because if you strike you do something.  But, I am struck, is passive, because if you are struck you don’t do any thing, do you?’

“‘Yes, I do; I strike back again.’

“Sometimes his views of philosophical subjects were offered gratuitously.  Being held rather of a frisky nature, his sister appointed his seat at her elbow when she heard her classes.  A class in natural philosophy, not very well prepared, was stumbling through the theory of the tides.  ‘I can explain that,’ said Henry.  ’Well, you see, the sun, he catches hold of the moon and pulls her, and she catches hold of the sea and pulls that, and this makes the spring tides.’

“‘But what makes the neap tides?’

“‘Oh, that’s when the sun stops to spit on his hands.’”

It will hardly surprise the reader to be told that Master Henry remained with his sister only six months, and was returned at the end of that time to his father as an indifferent scholar and a most inveterate joker.

A change now occurred in his life.  When he was twelve years old his father removed to Boston to assume the charge of the Hanover-Street Church.  Here the boy had a chance to see something more than nature, and to employ his powers of observation in receiving impressions from the daily life and aspect of a large and crowded city.  His father entered him at the Boston Latin School, and appealed to him not to disgrace his name any longer by his stupidity.  The appeal roused the little fellow’s pride, and he set to work to show to his family that he was not the dunce they had thought him.  He went at his studies manfully, mastering the tedious puzzle of the Latin verbs and nouns, and acquiring a respectable acquaintance with the grammar of that language.  It was a terrible task to him, for he had no liking for the language, and did his work merely to please his father and escape disgrace.  His success cost him a share of his health, and his vigorous constitution began to show the effects of such intense application.  His father noticed this, and as a diversion to his mind advised him to enter upon a course of biographical reading.  He read the lives of Captain Cook, Nelson, and the great naval commanders of the world, and at once became possessed of the desire to go to sea.  This feeling made him restless and discontented, and he resolved to leave home and ship on board some vessel sailing from the harbor.  He hovered about the wharves, conversing with the sailors and captains, and sometimes carrying his little bundle with him.  But the thoughts of home were too strong for him, and he could never quite summon up resolution enough to run away.  In a fit of desperation he wrote a letter to his brother, telling him of his wish to go to sea, and informing him that he should first ask his father’s permission, and if that were not granted he should go without it.  This letter he dropped where his father would be sure to find it.  The old gentleman soon discovered it, and, reading it, put it into his pocket without comment.  The next day he asked the boy if he had ever thought of any definite avocation for his future life.