human
I have no title to combat a choice which would have been my own, had not my lameness prevented. In the same way, the effects of a fall when about a year old rendered Talleyrand lame for life, and being, on this account, unfit for a military career, he was obliged to renounce his birthright in favour of his second brother. But what seemed an obstacle to his future success was the very reverse, for, turning his attention to politics and books, he eventually became one of the leading diplomatists of his day. Again, Josiah Wedgwood was seized in his boyhood with an attack of smallpox, which was followed by a disease in the right knee, some years afterwards necessitating the amputation of the affected limb. But, as Mr. Gladstone, in his address on Wedgwood's life and work delivered at Burslem, Oct. 26th, 1863, remarked, the disease from which he suffered was, no doubt, the cause of his subsequent greatness, for
gpt
De Sphæra was lent to him, with the perusal of which he was so pleased that he forthwith commenced a course of astronomic studies. Accordingly, he constructed a rude quadrant and calculated a table of the sun's altitudes, pursuing his studies, as he said himself,
human
said he,