Micah Clarke by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — Read

I fear, my children, that you will think that the prologue is over long / for the play; but the foundations must be laid before the building is / erected, and a statement of this sort is a sorry and a barren thing / unless you have a knowledge of the folk concerned. Be patient, then, / while I speak to you of the old friends of my youth, some of whom you / may hear more of hereafter, while others remained behind in the country / hamlet, and yet left traces of our early intercourse upon my character / which might still be discerned there.

Foremost for good amongst all whom I knew was Zachary Palmer, the / village carpenter, a man whose aged and labour-warped body contained the / simplest and purest of spirits. Yet his simplicity was by no means the / result of ignorance, for from the teachings of Plato to those of Hobbes / there were few systems ever thought out by man which he had not studied / and weighed. Books were far dearer in my boyhood than they are now, / and carpenters were less well paid, but old Palmer had neither wife nor / child, and spent little on food or raiment. Thus it came about that on / the shelf over his bed he had a more choice collection of books -- few as / they were in number -- than the squire or the parson, and these books he / had read until he not only understood them himself, but could impart / them to others.