Chapter 2

"The proudest moment of my life," he once wrote, "was when I had first gained the full meaning of the first fifteen lines of that noble work. I took a short triumphal walk, in favor of that exploit."

Just before the boarders came back for their dinner he put away all his Greek and Latin books and took up a work in Italian, because it was less likely to attract the notice of the noisy crowd. After dinner he fell again upon his Greek, and in the evening read Spanish until bedtime. In this way he lived and labored for three months, a solitary student in the midst of a community of students; his mind imbued with the grandeurs and dignity of the past while eating flapjacks and molasses at a poor tavern.

Returning to his home in New Britain, he obtained the mastership of an academy in a town near by, but he could not bear a life wholly sedentary; and at the end of a year abandoned his school and became what is called a "runner" for one of the manufacturers of New Britain. This business he pursued until he was about twenty-five years of age, when, tired of wandering, he came home again, and set up a grocery and provision store, in which he invested all the money he had saved. Soon came the commercial crash of 1837, and he was involved in the widespread ruin. He lost the whole of his capital, and had to begin the world anew.

He resolved to return to his studies in the languages of the East. Unable to buy or find the necessary books, he tied up his effects in a small handkerchief and walked to Boston, one hundred miles distant, hoping there to find a ship in which he could work his passage across the ocean, and collect oriental works from port to port. He could not find a berth. He turned back, and walked as far as Worcester, where he found work, and found something else which he liked better. There is an antiquarian society at Worcester, with a large and peculiar library, containing a great number of books in languages not usually studied, such as the Icelandic, the Russian, the Celtic dialects, and others. The directors of the society placed all their treasures at his command, and he now divided his time between hard study of languages and hard labor at the forge. To show how he passed his days, I will copy an entry or two from his private diary he then kept:

"Monday, June 18. Headache; 40 pages Cuvier's Theory of the Earth; 64 pages French; 11 hours forging.

"Tuesday, June 19. 60 lines Hebrew; 30 pages French; 10 pages Cuvier; 8 lines Syriac; 10 lines Danish; 10 lines Bohemian; 9 lines Polish; 15 names of stars; 10 hours forging.

"Wednesday, June 20. 25 lines Hebrew; 8 lines Syriac; 11 hours forging."

He spent five years at Worcester in such labors as these. When work at his trade became slack, or when he had earned a little more money than usual, he would spend more time in the library; but, on the other hand, when work in the shop was pressing, he could give less time to study. After a while he began to think that he might perhaps earn his subsistence in part by his knowledge of languages, and thus save much waste of time and vitality at the forge. He wrote a letter to William Lincoln, of Worcester, who had aided and encouraged him; and in this letter he gave a short history of his life, and asked whether he could not find employment in translating some foreign work into English. Mr. Lincoln was so much struck with his letter that he sent it to Edward Everett, and he, having occasion soon after to address a convention of teachers, read it to his audience as a wonderful instance of the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. Mr. Everett prefaced it by saying that such a resolute purpose of improvement against such obstacles excited his admiration, and even his veneration.

"It is enough," he added, "to make one who has good opportunities for education hang his head in shame."

All this, including the whole of the letter, was published in the newspapers, with eulogistic comments, in which the student was spoken of as the "Learned Blacksmith." The bashful scholar was overwhelmed with shame at finding himself suddenly famous. However, it led to his entering upon public life. Lecturing was then coming into vogue, and he was frequently invited to the platform. Accordingly, he wrote a lecture, entitled "Application and Genius," in which he endeavored to show that there is no such thing as genius, but that all extraordinary attainments are the results of application. After delivering this lecture sixty times in one season, he went back to his forge at Worcester, mingling study with labor in the old way.

On sitting down to write a new lecture for the following season, on the "Anatomy of the Earth," a certain impression was made upon his mind which changed the current of his life. Studying the globe, he was impressed with the need that one nation has of other nations, and one zone of another zone; the tropics producing what assuages life in the northern latitudes and northern lands furnishing the means of mitigating tropical discomforts. He felt that the earth was made for friendliness and coöperation, not for fierce competition and bloody wars.

Under the influence of these feelings, his lecture became an eloquent plea for peace, and to this object his after life was chiefly devoted. The dispute with England upon the Oregon boundary induced him to go to England with the design of travelling on foot from village to village, preaching peace, and exposing the horrors and folly of war. His addresses attracting attention, he was invited to speak to larger bodies, and, in short, he spent twenty years of his life as a lecturer upon peace, organizing Peace Congresses, advocating low uniform rates of ocean postage, and spreading abroad among the people of Europe the feeling which issued, at length, in the arbitration of the dispute between the United States and Great Britain, an event which posterity will, perhaps, consider the most important of this century. He heard Victor Hugo say at the Paris Congress of 1850:

"A day will come when a cannon will be exhibited in public museums, just as an instrument of torture is now, and people will be amazed that such a thing could ever have been. . . ."

Elihu Burritt spent the last years of his life upon a little farm which he had contrived to buy in his native town. He was never married, but lived with his sister and her daughters. He was not so very much richer in worldly goods than when he started out for Boston, with his property wrapped in a small handkerchief. He died in March, 1879, aged sixty-nine years.

JOHN B. GOUGH

(1817-1886)

THE CONQUEST OF A BAD HABIT

Happily few human beings sink to the depths in which John B. Gough found himself at the age of twenty-five years. By sheer force of will he raised himself from the slough in which he wallowed, till he attained a position honored among men, and performed a service of exceptional usefulness to society.

His story, as told in his own vivid words, is one of the most absorbing in the annals of self-help. His example must have helped thousands among the myriads whom he thrilled by the dramatic recital of his experience.

From his "Autobiography."

I boarded in Grand Street at this time, and soon after laid the foundation of many of my future sorrows. I possessed a tolerably good voice, and sang pretty well, having also the faculty of imitation rather strongly developed; and being well stocked with amusing stories, I was introduced into the society of thoughtless and dissipated young men, to whom my talents made me welcome. These companions were what is termed respectable, but they drank. I now began to attend the theatres frequently, and felt ambitious of strutting my part upon the stage. By slow but sure degrees I forgot the lessons of wisdom which my mother had taught me, lost all relish for the great truths of religion, neglected my devotions, and considered an actor's situation to be the _ne plus ultra_ of greatness.

During my residence at Newburyport my early serious impressions on one occasion in a measure revived, and I felt some stinging of conscience for my neglect of the Sabbath and religious observances. I recommenced attending a place of worship, and for a short time I attended the Rev. Mr. Campbell's church, by whom, as well as by several of his members, I was treated with much Christian kindness. I was often invited to Mr. Campbell's house, as well as to the house of some of his hearers, and it seemed as if a favorable turning-point or crisis in my fortunes had arrived. Mr. Campbell was good enough to manifest a very great interest in my welfare, and frequently expressed a hope that I should be enabled, although late in life, to obtain an education. And this I might have acquired had not my evil genius prevented my making any efforts to obtain so desirable an end. My desire for strong liquors and company seemed to present an insuperable barrier to all improvement; and after a few weeks every aspiration after better things had ceased; every bud of promised comfort was crushed. Again I grieved the spirit that had been striving with my spirit, and ere long became even more addicted to the use of the infernal draughts, which had already wrought me so much woe, than at any previous period of my existence.

And now my circumstances began to be desperate indeed. In vain were all my efforts to obtain work, and at last I became so reduced that at times I did not know when one meal was ended, where on the face of the broad earth I should find another. Further mortification awaited me, and by slow degrees I became aware of it. The young men with whom I had associated, in barrooms and parlors, and who wore a little better clothing than I could afford, one after another began to drop my acquaintance. If I walked in the public streets, I too quickly perceived the cold look, the averted eye, the half recognition, and to a sensitive spirit such as I possessed such treatment was almost past endurance. To add to the mortification caused by such a state of things, it happened that those who had laughed the loudest at my songs and stories, and who had been social enough with me in the barroom, were the very individuals who seemed most ashamed of my acquaintance. I felt that I was shunned by the respectable portion of the community also; and once, on asking a lad to accompany me in a walk, he informed me that his father had cautioned him against associating with me. This was a cutting reproof, and I felt it more deeply than words can express. And could I wonder at it? No. Although I may have used bitter words against that parent, my conscience told me that he had done no more than his duty in preventing his son being influenced by my dissipated habits. Oh! how often have I lain down and bitterly remembered many who had hailed my arrival in their company as a joyous event. Their plaudits would resound in my ears, and peals of laughter ring again in my deserted chamber; then would succeed stillness, broken only by the beatings of my agonized heart, which felt that the gloss of respectability had worn off and exposed my threadbare condition. To drown these reflections, I would drink, not from love of the taste of the liquor, but to become so stupefied by its fumes as to steep my sorrows in a half oblivion; and from this miserable stupor I would wake to a fuller consciousness of my situation, and again would I banish my reflections by liquor.

There lived in Newburyport at that time a Mr. Law, who was a rum seller, and I had spent many a shilling at his bar; he proposed to me that he would purchase some tools, and I could start a bindery on my own account, paying him by installments. He did so; and I thought it an act of great kindness then, and for some time afterward, till I found he had received pay from me for tools he had never paid for himself, and I was dunned for the account he had failed to settle. He even borrowed seventy-five dollars from me after I signed the pledge, which has never been repaid. "Such is life."

Despite all that had occurred, my good name was not so far gone but that I might have succeeded, by the aid of common industry and attention, in my business. I was a good workman, and found no difficulty in procuring employment, and, I have not the slightest doubt, should have succeeded in my endeavor to get on in the world but for the unhappy love of stimulating drinks, and my craving for society. I was now my own master; all restraint was removed, and, as might be expected, I did as I pleased in my own shop. I became careless, was often in the barroom when I should have been at my bindery, and instead of spending my evenings at home in reading or conversation, they were almost invariably passed in the company of the rum bottle, which became almost my sole household deity. Five months only did I remain in business, and during that short period I gradually sunk deeper and deeper in the scale of degradation. I was now the slave of a habit which had become completely my master, and which fastened its remorseless fangs in my very vitals. Thought was a torturing thing. When I looked back, memory drew fearful pictures, the lines of lurid flame, and, whenever I dared anticipate the future, hope refused to illumine my onward path. I dwelt in one awful present; nothing to solace me--nothing to beckon me onward to a better state.

I knew full well that I was proceeding on a downward course, and crossing the sea of time, as it were, on a bridge perilous as that over which Mahomet's followers are said to enter paradise. A terrible feeling was ever present that some evil was impending which would soon fall on my devoted head, and I would shudder as if the sword of Damocles, suspended by its single hair, was about to fall and utterly destroy me.

Warnings were not wanting, but they had no voice of terror for me. I was intimately acquainted with a young man in the town, and well remember his coming to my shop one morning and asking the loan of ninepence with which to buy rum. I let him have the money, and the spirit was soon consumed. He begged me to lend him a second ninepence, but I refused; yet, during my temporary absence, he drank some spirit of wine which was in a bottle in the shop, and used by me in my business. He went away, and the next I heard of him was that he had died shortly afterward. Such an awful circumstance as this might well have impressed me, but habitual indulgence had almost rendered me impervious to salutary impressions. I was, at this time, deeper in degradation than at any period before which I can remember.

My custom now was to purchase my brandy--which, in consequence of my limited means, was of the very worst description--and keep it at the shop, where, by little and little, I drank it, and continually kept myself in a state of excitement.

This course of procedure entirely unfitted me for business, and it not unfrequently happened, when I had books to bind, that I would instead of attending to business keep my customers waiting, whilst in the company of desolute companions I drank during the whole day, to the complete ruin of my prospects in life. So entirely did I give myself up to the bottle that those of my companions who fancied they still possessed some claims to respectability gradually withdrew from my company. At my house, too, I used to keep a bottle of gin, which was in constant requisition. Indeed, go where I would, stimulant I must and did have. Such a slave was I to the bottle that I resorted to it continually, and in vain was every effort which I occasionally made to conquer the debasing habit. I had become a father; but God in his mercy removed my little one at so early an age that I did not feel the loss as much as if it had lived longer, to engage my affections.

A circumstance now transpired which attracted my attention, and led me to consider my situation, and whither I was hurrying. A lecture was advertised to be delivered by the first reformed drunkard, Mr. I. J. Johnson, who visited Newburyport, and I was invited by some friends, who seemed to feel an interest, to attend and hear what he had to say. I determined after some consideration to go and hear what was to be said on the subject. The meeting was held in the Rev. Mr. Campbell's church, which was pretty well crowded. I went to the door, but would go no farther; but in the ten minutes I stood there, I heard him in graphic and forcible terms depict the misery of the drunkard and the awful consequences of his conduct, both as they affected himself and those connected with him. My conscience told that he spoke the truth--for what had I not suffered! I knew he was right, and I turned to leave the church when a young man offered me the pledge to sign. I actually turned to sign it; but at that critical moment the appetite for strong drink, as if determined to have the mastery over me, came in all its force. Oh, how I wanted it! and remembering that I had a pint of brandy at home I deferred signing, and put off to "a more convenient season," a proceeding that might have saved me so much after sorrow. I, however, compromised the matter with my conscience by inwardly resolving that I would drink up what spirit I had by me, and then think of leaving off altogether.

I forgot the impressions made upon me by the speaker at the meeting. Still, I madly drained the inebriating cup, and speedily my state was worse than ever. Oh, no, I soon ceased to think about it, for my master passion, like Aaron's rod, swallowed up every thought and feeling opposed to it which I possessed.

My business grew gradually worse, and at length my constitution became so impaired that even when I had the will I did not possess the power to provide for my daily wants. My hands would at times tremble so that I could not perform the finer operations of my business, the finishing and gilding. How could I letter straight, with a hand burning and shaking from the effects of a debauch. Sometimes, when it was absolutely necessary to finish off some work, I have entered the shop with a stern determination not to drink a single drop until I completed it. I have bitterly felt that my failing was a matter of common conversation in the town, and a burning sense of shame would flush my fevered brow at the conviction that I was scorned by the respectable portion of the community. But these feelings passed away like the morning cloud or early dew, and I pursued my old course.

One day I thought I would not go to work, and a great inducement to remain at home existed in the shape of my enemy, West India rum, of which I had a quantity in the house. Although the morning was by no means far advanced, I sat down, intending to do nothing until dinner-time. I could not sit alone without rum, and I drank glass after glass until I became so stupefied that I was compelled to lie down on the bed, where I soon fell asleep. When I awoke it was late in the afternoon, and then, as I persuaded myself, too late to make a bad day's work good. I invited a neighbor, who, like myself, was a man of intemperate habits, to spend the evening with me. He came, and we sat down to our rum, and drank foully together until late that night, when he staggered home; and so intoxicated was I that, in moving to go to bed, I fell over the table, broke a lamp, and lay on the floor for some time, unable to rise. At last I managed to get to bed, but, oh, I did not sleep, only dozed at intervals, for the drunkard never knows the blessings of undisturbed repose. I awoke in the night with a raging thirst. No sooner was one draught taken than the horrible dry feeling returned; and so I went on, swallowing repeated glassfuls of the spirit until at last I had drained the very last drop which the jug contained. My appetite grew by what it fed on; and, having a little money by me, I with difficulty got up, made myself look as tidy as possible, and then went out to buy more rum, with which I returned to the house.

The fact will, perhaps, seem incredible, but so it was that I drank spirits continually without tasting a morsel of food for the next three days. This could not last long; a constitution of iron strength could not endure such treatment, and mine was partially broken down by previous dissipation.

I began to experience a feeling hitherto unknown to me. After the three days' drinking to which I have just referred, I felt, one night, as I lay on my bed, an awful sense of something dreadful coming over me. It was as if I had been partially stunned, and now in an interval of consciousness was about to have the fearful blow, which had prostrated me, repeated. There was a craving for sleep, sleep, blessed sleep, but my eyelids were as if they could not close. Every object around me I beheld with startling distinctness, and my hearing became unnaturally acute. Then, to the ringing and roaring in my ears would suddenly succeed a silence so awful that only the stillness of the grave might be compared with it.

At other times, strange voices would whisper unintelligible words, and the slightest noise would make me start like a guilty thing. But the horrible, burning thirst was insupportable, and to quench it and induce sleep I clutched again and again the rum bottle, hugged my enemy, and poured the infernal fluid down my parched throat. But it was no use, none; I could not sleep. Then I bethought me of tobacco; and staggering from my bed to a shelf near by, with great difficulty I managed to procure a pipe and some matches. I could not stand to light the latter, so I lay again on the bed, and scraped one on the wall. I began to smoke, and the narcotic leaf produced a stupefaction. I dozed a little, but, feeling a warmth on my face, I awoke and discovered my pillow to be on fire! I had dropped a lighted match on the bed. By a desperate effort I threw the pillow on the floor, and, too exhausted to feel annoyed by the burning feathers, I sank into a state of somnolency.

How long I lay, I do not exactly know; but I was roused from my lethargy by the neighbors, who, alarmed by the smell of fire, came to my room to ascertain the cause. When they took me from my bed, the under part of the straw with which it was stuffed was smouldering, and in a quarter of an hour more must have burst into a flame. Had such been the case, how horrible would have been my fate! for it is more than probable that, in my half-senseless condition, I should have been suffocated, or burned to death. The fright produced by this incident, and a very narrow escape, in some degree sobered me, but what I felt more than anything else was the exposure now; all would be known, and I feared my name would become, more than ever, a byword and a reproach.