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Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt (Classics in Legal History Reprint Series)
Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt - Classics in Legal History Reprint Series Author:John P. Kennedy, Roy M. Mersky Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. 1783 — 1787. IMAGINATIVE TEMPERAMENT. HIS STUDIES. WHOLESOME INFLUENCE OF Mil. HUNT. HIS LIBRARY. SKETCHES BY CRUSE. —VERSE-MAKING. FIRST LI... more »TEBARY EFFORT, A PROSE SATIRE ON THE USHER. ITS CONSEQUENCES. A SCHOOL INCIDENT. A VICTORY.—'VISIT TO THE COURT-HOUSE OF MONTGOMERY. MR. DORSEY. THE MOOT COURT. ITS CONSTITUTION. SCHOOL EXERCISES. The memoir which we have just closed presents us nearly all that is known of William Wirt up to his eleventh year. It sufficiently indicates the temperament of the boy, and gives us no slight glimpses of the future aspirations of the man. The lively pictures which it presents of those scenes and persons which dwelt on his memory, show how keenly his youthful observation was impressed by the quaint and grotesque images which surrounded him. They show, too, with what a relish he noted the simple rural objects and employments that were familiar to his childhood, and how true an eye and how true a heart he had for the kindly things and influences that fell in the way of his youthful experience. These qualities of mind and character continued to expand during his life, and were the constant source of that attraction which encircled him, to the last of his days, with troops of admiring friends. We shall have occasion to note, more than once in the course of these pages, the poetical complexion of Mr. Wirt's mind, the somewhat prurient predominance of his imagination, and the alacrity with which he was ever ready to digress from the actual to the ideal of life. The almost inseparable quality of such a temperament is diffidence, that shy reserve which is much more frequently the result of pride and a high self-estimate than of humility. A sensibility to the criticism which our perception enables us to foresee and exp...« less