He followed up with tenacity whatever
he set about so long as it answered his general purpose, and
thence he rarely failed in some good degree to effect the things
he undertook.'
'From fifteen years and upward he felt a good deal of anxiety to
learn, but could only read and study a little, both for want of
time and on account of inflammation of the eyes. He managed by
the help of books, however, to make himself tolerably well
acquainted with common arithmetic and surveying, which he
practised more or less after he was twenty years old.' 'John
began early in life to discover a great liking to fine cattle,
horses, sheep, and swine; and as soon as circumstances would
enable him, he began to be a practical shepherd--it being a
calling for which, in early life, he had a kind of enthusiastic
longing, together with the idea that as a business it bade fair
to afford him the means of CARRYING OUT HIS GREATEST OR PRINCIPAL
OBJECT.'
Here we touch the keynote of this life of manifold outward
occupations, but of one consuming desire. That PRINCIPAL OBJECT
filled his horizon even in childhood. He loved to tell how, like
his father before him, he fell captive to the slave's dumb plea
and pledged his whole strength to the chivalrous task of breaking
his fetters.
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