Alexander Bickerton Edmison 

Farm boy Alexander dislikes his teaching job and dreams of other careers. His “greatest ambition is to have a cultivated mind” and contribute to society. So, he teaches himself Latin and logic and reads Herodotus and Shakespeare. He gains confidence by delivering speeches and debating at the Temperance Society. When he isn’t studying, he goes to a fortune teller, dabbles in phrenology, enjoys his male friends, and pines for a young woman he calls “the intellectual.” Sadly, though so full of ambition, he suffers from tuberculosis and dies young.