VII

But Alexander had small liking for his employment. He had as much
affinity with the sordid routine of a general store and counting-house
as Tom Mitchell had with the angels. But pride and ambition carried him
through most of the distasteful experiences of his life. He would come
short in nothing, and at that tender age, when his relatives were
prepared to forgive his failures with good-humoured tact, he was willing
to sacrifice even his books to clerical success. He soon discovered that
he had that order of mind which concentrates without effort upon what
ever demands its powers,--masters the detail of it with incredible
swiftness. At first he was a general clerk, and attended to the loading
and unloading of Mr. Cruger's sloops; after a time he was made
bookkeeper; it was not long before he was in charge of the
counting-house. He got back to his books in time--for business in the
Islands finishes at four o'clock--and when he had learned all the Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, and mathematics Hugh Knox could teach him, he spent his
leisure hours with Pope, Plutarch, Shakespeare, Milton, Plato, and the
few other English poets and works of Greek philosophers which Knox
possessed, as well as several abridged histories of England and Europe.
These interested him more than aught else, purely literary as his
proclivities were supposed to be, and he read and reread them, and
longed for some huge work in twenty volumes which should reveal Europe
to his searching vision. But this was when he was fourteen, and had
almost forgotten what the life of a mere boy was like. Shortly after he
entered Mr. Cruger's store he wrote his famous letter to young Stevens.
It will bear republication here, and its stilted tone, so different from
the concise simplicity of his business letters, was no doubt designed to
produce an effect on the mind of his more fortunate friend. He became a
master of style, and before he was twenty; but there is small indication