Harpers Ferry Free Press

Interesting anecdote of Capt. Parry.—

Mrs. Fordyce, (wife of the Rev. James Fordyce, D. D.) was particularly intimate with the late Dr. Parry and his family; and used to relate, with conscious and visible delight, an anecdote of the present enterprising navigator, Captain Parry. When a child, he had accompanied some of the females of his family in a morning visit: and to amuse him, she ordered a servant to take him to a rocking horse which she happened to have. The boy continued very quiet, and fearing he might be at some mischief, they took a peep at him; when instead of the rocking horse, he was mounted across a terrestrial globe which stood in the room, and turning it round and round with all his little might. "You rogue," said Mrs. Fordyce, "what are you doing? that is not a horse." "No," replied he; "but papa says it is a world, and here it goes; and I will go round and round till I come to the end of it." "But you may go round and round, and still go round, and never come to the end of it, because it has no end." The boy was mute for an instant, then bolting out, "I'm off again, then; and if it has no end, I'll go as far as I can." "If that boy lives," said Mrs. Fordyce, in the true spirit of her knowledge in physiognomy, and as it would seem in prophecy, "he will be a sailor and a navigator, and come to great honor; for the spirit of investigation shines in him already."

Memoirs of the late Mrs. Fordyce.