74 RISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 



* We went a little out of the way to go to a place called 

 the Bourne, which lies in the heath at about a mile from 

 Farnham. We went to Bourne in order that I might show 

 my son the spot where I received the rudiments of my 

 education. There is a little hop garden in which I used to 

 work when from eight to ten years old, from which I have 

 scores of times run to follow the hounds, leaving the hoe to 

 do the best that it could to destroy the weeds. But the 

 most interesting thing was a sand-hill which goes from a part 

 of the heath down to the rivulet. As a due mixture of 

 pleasure with toil, I, with two brothers, used occasionally to 

 disport ourselves, as the laAvyers call it, at this sand-hill. 

 Our diversion was this. We used to go to the top of the hill, 

 which was steeper than the roof of a house; one used to 

 draw his arms out of the sleeves of his smock-frock, and lay 

 himself down with his arms by his sides ; and then the others, 

 one at head and the other at feet, sent him rolling down 

 the hill like a barrel or a log of wood. By the time he got 

 to the bottom, his hair, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth were 

 all full of this loose sand ; then the others took their turn, 

 and, at every roll, there was a monstrous spell of laughter. 

 I had often told my sons of this, while they were very little, 

 and I now took one of them to see the spot. But that was 

 not alL This was the spot where I was receiving my educa- 

 tion ; and this was the sort of education ; and I am perfectly 

 satisfied that, if I had not received such an education, cr 

 something very much like it, — that, if I had been brought up 

 a milksop, with a nursery-maid everlastingly at my heels, — I 

 should have been at this day as great a fool, as inefficient a 

 mortal, as any of those frivolous idiots that are turned out 

 from Winchester and Westminster School, or from any of those 



