PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
tubus arare—ploughing the ground with stubborn steers. . . . Within three or four months, I hope with God's help to be in France; for I greatly desire to understand its fashionable and useful language. I hope by that time to have, or to find there, letters from you to some of your learned correspondents. . . . Your great kindness and your favor, of which I have had so many proofs, make me believe that your advice and your letters will induce my father to be so favorable toward me as to send me the funds which are necessary for a young man, and which will infuse into me new spirit for the prosecution of my studies. Believe me, I desire and strive to be an honor to my father's house and yours, much more strongly than you yourself can wish and endeavor. . . . I would have bought the microscope if the price had not been so much higher than I could venture to pay before receiving your orders. This microscope was one which Mr. Marshall showed to me especially; it is quite new, of his own invention, and shows the motion in fishes very vividly. There was a glass with a candle placed under it, which made the thing itself, and the object, much brighter; so that any one could see the
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