"
The pride of surpassing my seniors, and the hope of exposing their
ignorance, stimulated me to inquiry, and roused me to application. The
books which I had reported lost to my father, were handed out from the
bottom of my chest, and read with avidity: many others I borrowed from
the officers, whom I must do the justice to say, not only lent them
with cheerfulness, but offered me the use of their cabin to study in.
Thus I acquired a taste for reading. I renewed my acquaintance with
the classic authors. Horace and Virgil, licentious but alluring, drove
me back to the study of Latin, and fixed in my mind a knowledge of the
dead languages, at the expense of my morals. Whether the exchange were
profitable or not, is left to wiser heads than mine to decide; my
business is with facts only.
Thus, while the ungenerous malice of the elder midshipmen thought to
have injured me by leaving me in ignorance, they did me the greatest
possible service, by throwing me on my own resources. I continued on
pretty nearly the same terms with my shipmates to the last. With some
of the mess-room officers I was still in disgrace, and was always
disliked by the oldsters in my own mess; with the younger midshipmen
and the foremast men I was a favourite. I was too proud to be a
tyrant, and the same feeling prevented my submitting to tyranny. As I
increased in strength and stature, I showed more determined resistance
to arbitrary power: an occasional turn-up with boys of my own size
(for the best friends will quarrel), and the supernumerary midshipmen
sent on board for a passage, generally ended in establishing my
dominion or insuring for me a peaceable neutrality.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87