Volume 1

The pursuit of knowledge under difficulties / [George L. Craik].

  • Craik, George L. (George Lillie), 1798-1866
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pursuit of knowledge under difficulties / [George L. Craik]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of about ten years old. During all this time, he made little or no progress in reading—“ I was too much pressed,” he says, “ by fatigue, hunger, cold, and na- kedness.” Yet as he continued to repeat his prayers and catechism morning and evening, and to read the prayer-book and Bible on Sundays, he, at least, did not forget what he had formerly learned. On one occasion, too, he states, that the ballad of Chevy Chace having fallen into his hands, his father, who was very proud of what he conceived to be his son’s talents, and particularly of his memory, set him to get by heart the whole song, by way of task, which he performed, in the midst of his toils, in three days. His father gave him a halfpenny for the achievement, which made him think himself at the time quite a rich man. When in his eleventh or twelfth year, having been present at the Nottingham races, he was so much struck by the contrast between his own mean and ragged condition, and that of the clean, well-fed, and well-clothed stable-boys, that he determined to try if he could not find a master to engage him in that capacity at Newmarket. After much perseverance, and being turned off upon a short trial, first by one master and then by another, from the little knowledge he was found to have of riding, he was at last taken into the service of a person who was considerate enough not to expect him to be a finished groom almost before he could have ever mounted a horse. He very soon began to distinguish himself by his expertness in his new occupation , and the language m which he speaks of his change of circumstances forcibly paints his sense of the miseries from which he had been extricated. Alluding to the hearty meal which he and his companions were wont to make every morning at nine o’clock, after four hours’ exercise of their horses, he says, “ Nothing,