TEE BOYHOOD OF DARWIN. 211 



at night. This, I think, was in many ways advantageous to me by 

 keeping up home affections and interests. I remember in the early 

 part of my school-life that I often had to run very quickly to be in 

 time, and from being a fleet runner was generally successful ; but when 

 in doubt I prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I well remember 

 that I attributed my success to the prayers and not to my quick run- 

 ning, and marveled how generally I was aided. 



I have heard my father and elder sister say that I had, as a very 

 young boy, a strong taste for long, solitary walks ; but what I thought 

 about I know not. I often became quite absorbed, and once, while 

 returning to school on the summit of the old fortifications round 

 Shrewsbury, which had been converted into a public foot-path with no 

 parapet on one side, I walked off and fell to the ground, but the 

 height was only seven or eight feet. Kevertheless, the number of 

 thoughts which passed through my mind during this very short but 

 sudden and wholly unexpected fall, was astonishing, and seem hardly 

 compatible with what physiologists have, I believe, proved about each 

 thought requiring quite an appreciable amount of time. 



Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind 

 than Dr. Butler's school, as it was strictly classical, nothing else being 

 taught, except a little ancient geography and history. The school as 

 a means of education to me was simply a blank. During my whole 

 life I have been singularly incapable of mastering any language. 

 Especial attention was paid to verse-making, and this I could never do 

 well. I had many friends, and got together a good collection of old 

 verses, which, by patching together, sometimes aided by other boys, I 

 could work into any subject. Much attention was paid to learning by 

 heart the lessons of the previous day ; this I could effect with great 

 facility, learning forty or fifty lines of Virgil or Homer, v.hile I was 

 in morning chapel ; but this exercise was utterly useless, for every 

 verse was forgotten in forty-eight hours. I was not idle, and, with the 

 exception of versification, generally worked conscientiously at my 

 classics, not using cribs. The sole pleasure I ever received from such 

 studies was from some of the odes of Horace, which I admired greatly. 



When I left the school I was for my age neither high nor low in 

 it ; and I believe that I was considered by all my masters and by my 

 father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in 

 intellect. To my deep mortification my father once said to me, " You 

 care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you Avill be a 

 disgrace to yourself and all your family." But my father, who was the 

 kindest man I ever knew, and whose memory I love with all my heart, 

 must have been angry and somewhat unjust when he used such words. 



Looking back as well as I can at my character during my school- 

 life, the only qualities which at this period promised well for the 

 future were, that I had strong and diversified tastes, much zeal for 

 whatever interested me, and a keen pleasure in understanding any 



