His mind teemed with ideas; but he saw he would have to serve an
apprenticeship to learn to weave smoothly together the web of his
fancy, till, in his verbal fabric, he had the charm of all the muses
flowering in a single word.
He describes to us how he became a skilled artificer with his pen,
and how with obstinate persistence he taught himself daintiness of
diction. In his first book of travels he mentions how the branch of
a tree caught him, and the flooded Oise bereft him of his canoe. "On
my tomb, if ever I have one," he wrote, "I mean to get these words
inscribed, HE CLUNG TO HIS PADDLE." The paddle he chose was his pen.
It was the motive power which forwarded him along the river of life,
through shoals and rapids. When but a wee toddling bairn, he drew
his nurse aside and commanded her to write, as he had a story to
tell. He dictated to his mother, too, when a boy of six, an essay on
Moses. As a housebound child, he had to amuse himself. Skelt's
dramas were then his delight; but the life of every child is a
prophecy for those who know how to interpret it.
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