Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 1.djvu/118

 want of instruction which I first felt in the study of navigation, proved in the end of great service to me: I was forced to study more intensely, and to comprehend the principles on which I founded my theory, so that I was prepared to prove by mathematical demonstration, what others could only assert who worked by "inspection."

The pride of surpassing my seniors, and the hope of exposing their ignorance, stimulated me to inquiry, and roused me to application. The books which I had reported lost to my father, were handed out from the bottom of my chest, and read with avidity; many others I borrowed from the officers, whom, I must do the justice to say, not only lent them with cheerfulness, but offered me the use of their cabin to study in.

Thus I acquired a taste for reading. I renewed my acquaintance with the classic authors. Horace and Virgil, licentious, but alluring, drove me back to the study of Latin, and fixed in my mind a knowledge of the dead languages, at the