"I had now arrived at my seventeenth year, and had attained my full height, a fraction over six feet. I was well endowed with youthful energy, and was of an extremely sanguine temperament"

A young man pauses at a threshold and takes inventory of himself. Age marks a rite of passage: the seventeenth year signals an early adulthood, a point where childhood’s dependencies give way to self-directed ambition. The language of arrival carries momentum; he has come from somewhere, and he is going somewhere. Height is registered with engineer’s precision, “a fraction over six feet”, turning the body into a measured instrument. That habit of exactness hints at a mind comfortable with quantification, a useful temperament for an inventor who will weigh, gauge, and calibrate.

Physical stature here also functions socially. In Victorian Britain, tallness connoted vigor and command, aligning with ideals of masculine competence. Yet the emphasis is less vanity than capability: vigor at the service of endeavor. “Well endowed with youthful energy” suggests a reservoir of kinetic promise, a battery charged and ready to drive experiments, apprenticeships, and risk.

The final note, an extremely sanguine temperament, draws from the old humoral lexicon. Sanguine is not just cheerful; it is buoyant, confident, disposed to action, and resilient after setbacks. Such a nature forms the psychological scaffolding for innovation, where optimism must repeatedly outlast failure. It can border on rashness, but without it, breakthroughs stall at the threshold of caution.

What emerges is a self-portrait of readiness combining three vectors: time (seventeen), body (full stature), and spirit (cheerful resolve). Together they prefigure a life of enterprise. The careful measurement of height foreshadows empirical method; the celebration of energy foreshadows untiring experimentation; the sanguine outlook foreshadows the tenacity required to rework metals and markets alike. There is also a subtle myth-making: the young man stands complete in form, as if nature has delivered its materials and now the forge of experience must shape them. The passage situates potential as both gift and obligation, an account that anticipates a career spent turning raw endowment into durable achievement.