Lost Art Press

I hold that a man may become a teacher at any age, but that he should not take upon himself to write reminiscences until he is in the sere and yellow leaf, otherwise “in the thin grey line.” It is only then that his retrospective eye sees further than the mass of his neighbours, and he can, if the spirit moves him, picture scenes and phases of life which are far beyond the common.

It is said of man that he may look forward in life up to the fiftieth year of his age, and beyond that he must look backward. In doing the latter, a long vista is presented to a man like myself, who counts his winters to be three score years and ten, and on reflection one is led to say with Shakespeare that “a man in his time plays many parts.”

Personally, I can endorse this truism, for one of my parts has been that of a professional handrailer and staircase builder, when the newel staircases, now so general, were scarcely known. I started in this line in 1847, when fourteen years of age, my father fitting me out with a bench in his shop, and equipping me with the necessary tools.
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James Wilson, who has the honor of being the maker of the first pair of terrestrial and celestial globes ever made in America, was a native of Londonderry, N.H. He was born in 1763. He early felt a strong love of knowledge, and gave proof of talents of the right stamp for acquiring it, but felt constrained by circumstances to devote himself to the laborious occupation of a farmer.

Up to the age of thirty-three he pursued that employment in the place of his nativity; not, however, without reading, observation, and reflection. His inclination and genius turned his thoughts and studies especially to geography and astronomy, with the means of their illustration.
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