4 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



were to come over again, there is nothing I would less 

 willingly part with than my inheritance of mother wit. 



I have next to nothing to say about my childhood. In 

 later years my mother, looking at me almost reproach- 

 fully, would sometimes say, " Ah ! you were such a 

 pretty boy!" whence I had no difficulty in concluding 

 that I had not fulfilled my early promise in the matter 

 of looks. In fact, I have a distinct recollection of cer- 

 tain curls of which I was vain, and of a conviction that 

 I closely resembled that handsome, courtly gentleman, 

 Sir Herbert Oakley, who was vicar of our parish, and 

 who was as a god to us country folk, because he was 

 occasionally visited by the then Prince George of 

 Cambridge. I remember turning my pinafore wrong 

 side forwards in order to represent a surplice, and 

 preaching to my mother's maids in the kitchen as 

 nearly as possible in Sir Herbert's manner one Sunday 

 morning when the rest of the family were at church. 

 That is the earliest indication I can call to mind of the 

 strong clerical affinities which my friend Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer has always ascribed to me, though I fancy 

 they have for the most part remained in a latent state. 



My regular school training was of the briefest, per- 

 haps fortunately, for though my way of life has made 

 me acquainted with all sorts and conditions of men, 

 from the highest to the lowest, I deliberately affirm 

 that the society I fell into at school was the worst I 

 have ever known. We boys were average lads, with 

 much the same inherent capacity for good and evil 

 as any others; but the people who were set over us 

 cared about as much for our intellectual and moral 

 welfare as if they were baby-farmers. We were left 

 to the operation of the struggle for existence among 

 ourselves, and bullying was the least of the ill prac- 



