Life of Count Rumford. 57 



of his social superiors, who have favors and distinctions 

 to bestow. Conscious of possessing talents and capaci- 

 ties which would make the labors of a country farmer, 

 or even of a pedagogue, distasteful, as well as inadequate 

 for him, he would hardly be a congenial companion for 

 those around him. The facility with which he adapted 

 himself to court-life in Europe, to intimacies with 

 nobles, to the ways of fashion, and to the culture of the 

 intellectual classes, reflects back upon his early years 

 the certainty that he could not have been popular with 

 his townsfolk and neighbors, or even a sociable com- 

 panion with his own kin. He was regarded from his 

 boyhood as being above his position ; and while his 

 inconstancy of occupation gave him the repute of an 

 idler and a dreamer, his dabblings with science were 

 not interpreted as promises of a fruitful and serviceable 

 life. He had also a noble and imposing figure, with 

 great personal beauty, and with those whose acquaint- 

 ance he cultivated he was most affable and winning 

 in his manners. He had never been really indolent, 

 but was ever seeking to rise. Doubtless, in the rustic 

 labor which in his boyhood took him by himself into 

 the forest to chop a load of wood and to team it to the 

 market, to meet the frugal expenses of his livelihood, 

 he kept his mind engaged upon the philosophy of 

 even that work. We may be sure that he learned to 

 wield the axe with scientific skill, and to economize his 

 blows, while all the facilities of sledding, and logging, 

 and adjusting a load would be acquired by experiment. 

 The traditions already referred to of his extraneous 

 performances in gymnastics while a school-teacher, fail 

 to report to us what we may reasonably imagine, 

 that he was the most diligent and acquisitive pupil in 



