Paley’s Difficulties a Useful Lesson to Youth
Soon after he became senior wrangler, having no immediate prospect of a fellowship, he became an assistant in a school at Greenwich, where, he says, I pleased myself with the imagination of the delightful task I was about to undertake, “teaching the young idea how to shoot.” As soon as I was seated, a little urchin came up to me and began,—“b-a-b, bab, b-l-e, ble, babble!” Nevertheless, at this time, the height of his ambition was to become the first assistant. During this period, he says, he restricted himself for some time to the mere necessaries of life, in order that he might be enabled to discharge a few debts, which he had incautiously contracted at Cambridge. “My difficulties,” he observes, “might afford a useful lesson to youth of good principles; for my privations produced a habit of economy which was of infinite service to me ever after.” At this time I wanted a waistcoat, and went into a second-hand clothes-shop. It so chanced that I bought the very same garment that Lord Clive wore when he made his triumphal entry into Calcutta.