324 Self-reliance. [CHAP. XVIII. 
heard of before, and that they had now been brought to 
light by a poor shoe-maker—a person of no standing what- 
ever. ‘This deterred him, in a great measure, from publish- 
ing his observations, as he did not like his veracity to be 
ealled in question; and it was not until years after, when 
others higher up the ladder of respectability had published 
the same facts, that his observations were accredited—sim- 
ply because they could no longer be denied. 
Toward the close of his labors, Edward, on looking back, . 
was himself surprised that in the midst of his difficulties— 
his want of learning, his want of time, his want of books— 
he should have been able to accomplish the little that he 
did. He had had so many obstructions to encounter. His 
bringing-up as a child, and his want of school education, 
had been very much against him. Then he had begun to 
work for daily bread at six years old, and he had contin- 
ued to labor incessantly for the rest of his life. Of course, 
there was something much more than the mere manual la- 
borer in him. His mind had risen above his daily occupa- 
tion; for he had the soul of a true man. Above all, he 
loved nature and nature’s works. 
We need not speak of his stern self-reliance and his in- 
domitable perseverance. These were among the prominent 
features of his character. Of his courage it is scarcely nec- 
essary to speak. When we think of his nightly wander- 
ings, his trackings of birds for days together, his encount- 
ers with badgers and polecats, his climbing of rocks, and 
his rolling down cliffs in search of sea-birds, we can not but 
think that he taxed his courage a great deal too much. 
A great point with him was his sobriety. For thirty-six 
years he never entered a public-house nor a dram-shop. 
He was not a teetotaler. Sobriety was merely his habit. 
Some of his friends advised him to take “a wee drap whis- 
ky.” with him on cold nights; but he never did. He him- 
self believes that had he drunk whisky he never could have 
stood the wet, the cold, and the privations to which he was 
