Discourse Occasioned by the Death of Convers Francis, D. D; Delivered Before the First Congregational Society, Watertown, April 19, 1863 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1863 edition. Excerpt: ... ness, which vibrated through his life at every fresh recollection of that morning. Now in the winter evenings he shut himself up alone in the bake-house, because it was still and warm there; and, making a study-table of a flourbarrel, he kneaded his bread for college. From his first lesson in the Latin Grammar to the day of entering in 1811, there was only a year. His sister remembers seeing him throw himself upon the bed and sob, "because some difficulty about a room or a boarding-place made him apprehensive that he might not be able to enter that year." At this time he and his sister Lydia, who was several years younger, used to spend their spare hours together among his piles of books. She had begun to read things that were beyond her childish comprehension, and was constantly calling upon him to explain. "Convers, what does Shakespeare mean by this? What does Milton mean by that?" Sometimes he was roguish, and enjoyed a little mystification. Thus he made her believe that the "raven down of darkness," which was made to smile, was the fur of a black cat that sparkled because it was stroked the wrong way; though why the word down should be used instead of fur continued secretly to puzzle her. The required studies at that time were Adam's Grammar, the whole of Virgil, Sallust's two histories, Cicero's Select Orations; in Greek, the Gloucester Grammar, the New Testament, and Dalzel's Collectanea Minora; Arithmetic, and Geography. "A dear, blessed sister has she been to me: would that I had been half as good a brother to her The writing of her first book, in a little chamber of my house at Watertown, I shall never forget." Nor shall we be likely to forget her books, wherever written. He was not quite sixteen years old when he entered College....