Pockets Praised

Nat was accustomed, at this period of his life, to carry some book with him for use every spare moment he found. He had a literary pocket into which volume after volume found its way, to remain until its contents were digested. The grammar had its turn in this convenient pocket, and every day was compelled to disclose some of its hidden knowledge. Pockets have been of great service to self-made men. A more useful invention was never known, and hundreds are now living who will have occasion to speak well of pockets till they die, because they were so handy to carry a book. Roger Sherman had one when he was a hard-working shoemaker in Stoughton, Mass. Into it he stuffed geography, history, biography, logic, mathematics, and theology, in turn, so that he actually carried more science than change. Napoleon had one, in which he carried the Iliad when he wrote to his mother, “With my sword by my side, and Homer in my pocket, I hope to carve my way through the world.” Hugh Miller had one from which he often drew a profitable work as he was sitting on a stone for a few moments’ rest from his hard toils. Elihu Burritt had one from the time he began to read in the old blacksmith shop until he acquired a literary fame, and on “a grand scale set to working out his destiny at the flaming forge of life.” In writing to a friend, he said, “Those who have been acquainted with my character from my youth up, will give me credit for sincerity when I say, that it never entered into my head to blazon forth any acquisition of my own. All that I have accomplished, or expect, or hope to accomplish, has been, and will be, by that plodding, patient, persevering process of accretion which builds the ant-heap,–particle by particle, thought by thought, fact by fact. And if ever I was actuated by ambition, its highest and warmest aspiration reached no further than the hope to set before the young men of my country an example in employing those invaluable fragments of time, called ‘odd moments.’” He was once an agent for a manufacturing company in Connecticut, and his pocket served him a noble purpose, for it furnished him with a valuable work often, in unfrequented spots, where he would let his horse rest, and spend a few moments in studying by the road-side. The horse soon learned to appreciate the wants of his driver, and would voluntarily stop in certain lonely retreats for him to pursue his studies. Thus pockets that have carried the leanest purses, have often proved the greatest blessing to mankind.