Youth
James Bruce was born at the family seat of Kinnaird, Stirlingshire, and educated at Harrow School and Edinburgh University, and began to study for the bar; but his marriage to the daughter of a wine merchant resulted in him entering that business. His wife died in October 1754, within nine months of marriage, and Bruce thereafter travelled in Portugal and Spain. The examination of oriental manuscripts at the Escurial led him to the study of Arabic and Ge'ez and determined his future career. In 1758 his father's death placed him in possession of the estate of Kinnaird.
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Famous quotes containing the word youth:
“The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a barroom around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremarked seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and
oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little,
perhaps not a word.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)