4 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT [CHAP. I 



a very great story-teller for the pure pleasure of exciting 

 attention and surprise. I stole fruit and hid it for these 

 same motives, and injured trees by barking them for similar 

 ends. I scarcely ever went out walking without saying I 

 had seen a pheasant or some strange bird (natural history 

 taste) ; these lies, when not detected, I presume, excited 

 my attention, as I recollect them vividly, not connected with 

 shame, though some I do, but as something which by having 

 produced a great effect on my mind, gave pleasure like a 

 tragedy. I recollect when I was at Mr. Case's inventing a 

 whole fabric to show how fond I was of speaking the truth \ 

 My invention is still so vivid in my mind, that I could 

 almost fancy it was true, did not memory of former shame 

 tell me it was false. I have no particularly happy or un- 

 happy recollections of this time or earlier periods of my life. 

 I remember well a walk I took with a boy named Ford 

 across some fields to a farmhouse on the Church Stretton 

 road. I do not remember any mental pursuits excepting 

 those of collecting stones, etc., gardening, and about this 

 time often going with my father in his carriage, telling him 

 of my lessons, and seeing game and other wild birds, which 

 was a great delight to me. I was born a naturalist. 



When I was g\ years old (July 1818) I went with 

 Erasmus to see Liverpool : it has left no impressions on 

 my mind, except most trifling ones fear of the coach 

 upsetting, a good dinner, and an extremely vague memory 

 of ships. 



In Midsummer of this year I went to Dr. Butler's School. 1 

 I well recollect the first going there, which oddly enough I 

 cannot of going to Mr. Case's, the first school of all. I 

 remember the year 1818 well, not from having first gone 

 to a public school, but from writing those figures in my 

 school book, accompanied with obscure thoughts, now ful- 

 filled, whether I should recollect in future life that year. 



In September (1818) I was ill with the scarlet fever. 

 I well remember the wretched feeling of being delirious. 



1819, July (ioj years old). Went to the sea at Plas 

 Edwards 2 and stayed there three weeks, which now appears 



1 Darwin entered Dr. Butler's school in Shrewsbury in the summer 

 of 1818, and remained there till 1825 (Life and Letters ; I., p. 30). 



2 Plas Edwards, at Towyn, on the Welsh coast. 



