In
this way he lived and labored for three months, a solitary student in the
midst of a community of students; his mind imbued with the grandeurs and
dignity of the past while eating flapjacks and molasses at a poor tavern.
Returning to his home in New Britain, he obtained the mastership of an
academy in a town near by, but he could not bear a life wholly sedentary;
and at the end of a year abandoned his school and became what is called a
"runner" for one of the manufacturers of New Britain. This business he
pursued until he was about twenty-five years of age, when, tired of
wandering, he came home again, and set up a grocery and provision store,
in which he invested all the money he had saved. Soon came the
commercial crash of 1837, and he was involved in the widespread ruin. He
lost the whole of his capital, and had to begin the world anew.
He resolved to return to his studies in the languages of the East.
Unable to buy or find the necessary books, he tied up his effects in a
small handkerchief and walked to Boston, one hundred miles distant,
hoping there to find a ship in which he could work his passage across the
ocean, and collect oriental works from port to port.
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