DISCOURSE OF DR. J. C. WELLING. 179 



Such was the "soul-forward, headlong plunge" which the boyish 

 Henry now first took in the waters of romance, rendered only the 

 sweeter to him, it may be, because, without affront to innocence, 

 they took the flavor of "stolen waters" from the stealth with which 

 they were imbibed. From that time forth he made frequent visits 

 to this library, by the same tortuous and underground passage, 

 reading by preference only works of fiction, the contents of which 

 he retailed to listening comrades around the stove by night, until, 

 in the end, his patron, who shared in his taste for such "light 

 reading," procured for him the right of access to the library in the 

 regular way, and no longer by the narrow fissure in the rear of the 

 book-case. 



At the age of fifteen he left the store of Mr. Broderick in 

 Galway, and, returning to the place of his birth*, entered a watch- 

 maker's establishment in Albany, but finding nothing congenial to 

 his taste in the new pursuit, he soon abandoned it. At this time he 

 had formed a strong predilection for the stage. Two or three years 

 before, while living at Galway, he had seen a play for the first time, 

 on the occasion of a casual visit to Albany, and the impression it 

 made upon his mind was as vivid as that left by the perusal of his 

 first novel. He described and re-enacted its scenes for the wonder- 

 ment of the Galway youth, and now that he was living in Albany 

 he could give full vent to his new inclination. His spare money 

 was all spent in theatrical amusements, until at length he won his 

 way behind the scenes, and procured admission to the green room, 

 where he learned how to put a play on the boards and how to pro- 

 duce the illusion of stage effects. In the skill with which he learned 

 thus early to handle the apparatus of the stage we may discern, 

 perhaps, the first faint prelude of the skill to which he subsequently 

 attained in handling the levers and screws with which, according to 

 Goethe, the experimental philosopher seeks to extort from nature the 

 revelation of her mysteries. 



Invited at this period of his life to join a private theatrical 

 association in Albany, known by the name of "The Rostrum,", the 

 young enthusiast soon distinguished himself among his fellow-mem- 

 bers of riper years by the ingenuity of his dramatic combinations 

 and the felicity of his scenic effects, insomuch that he was made 



