The life of George Stephenson, railway engineer - Lighthouse ...

440 LIFE OF GEOEGE STEPHENSON. [chaf. xxxvi.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
HIS CHAEACTER.
The life of George Stephenson, though imperfectly portrayed
in the preceding pages, will be found to contain many valuable
lessons. His was the 'life of a true man, and presented a strik-
ing combination of those sterling qualities which we are proud
to regard as essentially English.
Doubtless he owed much to his birth, belonging as he did to
the hardy and persevering race of the north,—a race less supple,
soft, and polished than the people of the more southern districts
of England, but, like their Danish progenitors, full of courage,
vigour, ingenuity, and persevering industry. Their strong, gut-
tural speech, which sounds so harsh and unmusical in southern
ears, is indeed but a type of their nature. When Mr. Stephen-
son was struggling to give utterance to his views upon the loco-
motive before the Committee of the House of Commons, those
who did not know him supposed he was " a foreigner." Before
long the world saw in him an Englishman, stout-hearted and
true,—one of those master minds who, by energetic action in
new fields of industry, impress their character from time to time
upon the age and nation to which they belong.
The poverty of his parents being such that they could not
give him any, even the very simplest education, beyond the good
example of integrity and industry, he was early left to shift for
himself, and compelled to be self-reliant. Having the will to
learn, he soon forced for himself a -way. No beginning could
have been more humble than his ; but he persevered : he had
determined to learn, and he did learn. To such a resolution as
his, nothing really beneficial in life is denied. He might have
said, like Sebastian Bach, " I was industrious ; and whoever is
equally sedulous will be equally successful."