136 JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. 



ever ready to start on his voyage when the public would 

 supply the means of building his ships. Meanwhile, to be 

 ready at a moment s warning, he packs his mind pell-mell 

 like a carpet bag, wraps a geologist s hammer in a shirt 

 with a Byron collar, does up Yolney s &quot; Ruins &quot; with 

 an odd volume of Wordsworth, and another of Bell s 

 &quot; Anatomy &quot; in a loose sheet of Webster s Dictionary, 

 jams Moore s poems between the leaves of Bopp s 

 Grammar and forgets only such small matters as combs 

 and brushes. It never seems to have entered his head that 

 the gulf between genius and its new world is never too wide 

 for a stout swimmer. Like all sentimentalists, he reversed 

 the process of nature, which makes it a part of greatness 

 that it is a simple thing to itself, however much of a marvel 

 it may be to other men. He discovered his own genius, as 

 he supposed a thing impossible had the genius been real. 

 Donne never wrote a profounder verse than 



&quot; Who knows his virtue s name and place, hath none.&quot; 



Percival s life was by no means a remarkable one, except, 

 perhaps, in the number of chances that seem to have been 

 offered him to make something of himself, if anything were 

 possibly to be made. He was never without friends, never 

 without opportunities, if he could have availed himself 

 of them. It is pleasant to see Mr. Ticknor treating him 

 with that considerate kindness which many a young scholar 

 can remember as shown so generously to himself. But 

 nothing could help Percival, whose nature had defeat 

 worked into its very composition. He was not a real, but 

 an imaginary man. His early attempt at suicide (as Mr. 

 Ward seems to think it) is typical of him. He is not the 

 first young man who, when crossed in love, has spoken 

 of &quot; loupin o er a linn,&quot; nor will he be the last. But that 

 anyone who really meant to kill himself should put himself 

 resolutely in the way of being prevented, as Percival did, 

 is hard to believe. Chateaubriand, the arch sentimentalist 

 of these latter days, had the same harmless velleity of 

 self-destruction, enough to scare his sister and so give him 



