Excuse me if I am
tedious on this point, for I feel solicitous to impress it upon you, being
an error extremely prevalent in our country and one into which too many of
our youth have fallen. I am happy, however, to observe the zeal which still
appears to actuate you for the acquisition of knowledge, and augur every
good from the elevated bent of your ambition. May I ask what has been your
course of study for the last six months?"
Never was question more unluckily timed. For the last six months I had been
absolutely buried in novels and romances.
Mr. Somerville perceived that the question was embarrassing, and, with his
invariable good breeding, immediately resumed the conversation, without
waiting for a reply. He took care, however, to turn it in such a way as to
draw from me an account of the whole manner in which I had been educated,
and the various currents of reading into which my mind had run. He then
went on to discuss, briefly but impressively, the different branches of
knowledge most important to a young man in my situation; and to my surprise
I found him a complete master of those studies on which I had supposed him
ignorant, and on which I had been descanting so confidently.
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