It was all scattered at the time of the winding up of the farm estate,
and the only jetsam that Philip inherited out of it was an annotated copy
of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Young's Travels in France, a copy of
The Newcomes, and the first American edition of Childe Harold. Probably
these odd volumes had not been considered worth any considerable bid at
the auction. From his mother, who was fond of books, and had on more
than one occasion, of the failure of teachers, taught in the village
school in her native town before her marriage, Philip inherited his love
of poetry, and he well remembered how she used to try to inspire him with
patriotism by reading the orations of Daniel Webster (she was very fond
of orations), and telling him war stories about Grant and Sherman and
Sheridan and Farragut and Lincoln. He distinctly remembered also
standing at her knees and trying, at intervals, to commit to memory the
Rime of the Ancient Mariner. He had learned it all since, because he
thought it would please his mother, and because there was something in it
that appealed to his coming sense of the mystery of life. When he
repeated it to Celia, who had never heard of it, and remarked that it was
all made up, and that she never tried to learn a long thing like that
that wasn't so, Philip could see that her respect for him increased a
little.
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