MEMOIR, Xlll 



The mother, a thrifty housekeeper and a religious wo- 

 man, occupied with her many cares, cooking, mending, 

 scrubbing, and setting things to rights, probably looked 

 forward with some apprehension to the future condition 

 of her sensitive Benjamin, even if he lived. The dreamy, 

 shy ways of the boy were not such as indicated the stern 

 stuff that enables poor men's children to grapple with the 

 world. Left to himself, his will began to grow imperious. 

 The busy mother could not severely scold her ailing child ; 

 but a sharp rebuke had probably often been pleasanter to 

 him than the milder treatment that resulted from affec- 

 tionate compassion, but showed no real sympathy. It 

 is evident, from the tone in which he always spoke of 

 his childhood, that his recollections of it were not alto- 

 gether agreeable. It was undoubtedly clouded by a want 

 of sympathy, which he could not understand at the time, 

 but which appeared plainly enough when his genius came 

 into play. It is the same kind of clouded childhood that 

 so often occurs in literary biography, where there was great 

 mutual affection and no ill feeling, but a lack of that in- 

 stinctive apprehension of motives and aims, which makes 

 each one perfectly tolerant of each other. 



When Andrew was seven years old, his father died, 

 and his elder brother succeeded to the management of the 

 nursery business. Andrew's developing tastes led him to 

 the natural sciences, to botany and mineralogy. As he 

 grew older he began to read the treatises upon these favor- 

 ite subjects, and went, at length, to an academy at Mont- 

 gomery, a town not far from Newburgh, and in the same 

 county. Those who remember him here, speak of him as 

 a thoughtful, reserved boy, looking fixedly out of his large, 

 dark brown eyes, and carrying his brow a little inclined 

 forward, as if slightly defiant. He was a poor boy, and 



