respect. Why
should not I be as daring as they? Adamant and steel have a ductility like water
to a mind sufficiently bold and contemplative. The mind is master of itself; and
is endowed with powers that might enable it to laugh at the tyrant's vigilance.
I passed and repassed these ideas in my mind; and, heated with the
contemplation, I said, No, I will not die!
    My reading in early youth had been extremely miscellaneous. I had read of
housebreakers to whom locks and bolts were a jest, and who, vain of their art,
exhibited the experiment of entering a house the most strongly barricaded, with
as little noise and almost as little trouble as other men would lift up a latch.
There is nothing so interesting to the juvenile mind as the wonderful; there is
no power that it so eagerly covets as that of astonishing spectators by its
miraculous exertions. Mind appeared to my untutored reflections vague, airy and
unfettered, the susceptible perceiver of reasons, but never intended by nature
to be the slave of force. Why should it be in the power of man to overtake and
hold me by violence? Why, when I chuse to withdraw myself, should I not be
capable of eluding the most vigilant search? These limbs and this trunk are a
cumbrous and unfortunate load for the power of thinking to drag along with it;
but why should not the power of thinking be able to lighten the load till it
shall be no longer felt? - These early modes of reflection were by no means
indifferent to my present enquiries.
    Our next-door neighbour at my father's house had been a carpenter. Fresh
from the sort of reading I have mentioned, I was eager to examine his tools,
their powers and their uses. This carpenter was a man of a strong and vigorous
mind; and, his faculties having been chiefly confined to the range of his
profession, he was fertile in experiments and ingenious in reasoning upon these
particular topics. I therefore obtained from him considerable satisfaction; and,
my mind being set in action, I sometimes even improved upon the hints he
furnished. His conversation was particularly agreeable to me; I at first worked
with him sometimes for my amusement, and afterwards occasionally for a short
time as his, journeyman. I was constitutionally vigorous; and by the experience
thus attained I added to the abstract possession of power the skill of applying
it, when I pleased, in such a manner as that no part should be inefficient.
    It is a strange, but no uncommon feature in the human mind, that the very
resource