Physically speaking, human nature can redress itself of climate, can
generate warmth in high latitudes, and cold at the equator; but in
respect to mind and manners, from the law of latitude there is no
appeal. Man, like the plants that grow for him, has a proper sky and
soil: with them to flourish, without them to fade; through either
kingdom, vegetable and moral, in situations that are aquatic, the alpine
nature cannot live.
All this applies to Hamilton wasting himself at Westminster. "Wild
nature's vigour working at his root;"
his situation should have been accordingly; where he might have spread
wide and struck deep.
With more than boyish aptitudes and abilities, he should not thus have
been lost among boys. His incessant intrepidity, his restless curiosity,
his undertaking spirit, all indicated early maturity; all should have
led to pursuits, if not better, at least of more pith and moment than
the mere mechanism of dead language!
This by Hamilton (disdaining as a business what as an amusement perhaps
might have delighted him) was deemed a dead letter, and as such,
neglected; while he bestowed himself on other mechanism, presenting more
material objects to the mind.
[Illustration: page081]
Exercises out of school took place of exercises within.
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