2 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT [CHAP. I 



things, but with the exception of the maidservants (and 

 these are not individualised) I recollect none of my family 

 who were there. I remember either myself or Catherine 

 being naughty, and being shut up in a room and trying to 

 break the windows. I have an obscure picture of a house 

 before my eyes, and of a neighbouring small shop, where the 

 owner gave me one fig, but which to my great joy turned 

 out to be two : this fig was given me that the man might 

 kiss the maidservant. I remember a common walk to a kind 

 of well, on the road to which was a cottage shaded with 

 damascene 1 trees, inhabited by an old man, called a hermit, 

 with white hair, who used to give us damascenes. I know not 

 whether the damascenes, or the reverence and indistinct fear 

 for this old man produced the greatest effect on my memory. 

 I remember when going there crossing in the carnage a broad 

 ford, and fear and astonishment of white foaming water has 

 made a vivid impression. I think memory of events com- 

 mences abruptly ; that is, I remember these earliest things 

 quite as clearly as others very much later in life, which were 

 equally impressed on me. Some very early recollections are 

 connected with fear at Parkfield and with poor Betty Harvey. 

 I remember with horror her story of people being pushed into 

 the canal by the towing rope, by going the wrong side of the 

 horse. I had the greatest horror of this story keen instinct 

 against death. Some other recollections are those of vanity 

 namely, thinking that people were admiring me, in one 

 instance for perseverance and another for boldness in climb- 

 ing a low tree, and what is odder, a consciousness, as if 

 instinctive, that I was vain, and contempt of myself. My 

 supposed admirer was old Peter Haile the bricklayer, and 

 the tree the mountain ash on the lawn. All my recollections 

 seem to be connected most closely with myself ; now 

 Catherine 2 seems to recollect scenes where others were the 

 chief actors. When my mother died I was 8J years old, and 

 [Catherine] one year less, yet she remembers all particulars 

 and events of each day whilst I scarcely recollect anything 

 (and so with very many other cases) except being sent for, 

 the memory of going into her room, my father meeting me 



1 Damson is derived from Damascene ; the fruit was formerly known 

 as a " Damask Prune." 



9 His sister, Catherine Darwin, 1 810-66. 



