midnight
He read every thing , it was said -- history , poetry , political economy , and theology . Swift was said to be his literary divinity , and Rabelais was at his elbow always . Poor , uneducated , ignorant of nearly every thing , he was educating himself for the future -- sharpening , by attrition with the strongest minds in all literatures , ancient and modern , that trenchant weapon which afterward flashed its superb lightnings in the heated atmosphere of the great epoch in which he figured . Bitter , misanthropic , solitary ; burning the midnight lamp , instead of moving among his fellows in the sunshine , he yet possessed hardy virtues and a high pride of gentleman . He hated the world at large , it was said , but loved his few friends with an ardor which shrank at nothing . One of them owed a sum of money -- and Daniel went on foot , twenty-two miles , to Petersburg , paid it , and returned in the same manner . Afterward he went in person to Charlottesville , to purchase a house for the use of another friend of limited means .