AUTOBIOGRAPHY 3 



Why I was christened Thomas Henry I do not know ; but 

 it is a curious chance that my parents should have fixed for 

 my usual denomination upon the name of that particular 

 Apostle with whom I have always felt most sympathy. 

 Physically and mentally I am the son of my mother so com- 5 

 pletely even down to peculiar movements of the hands, 

 which made their appearance in me as I reached the age 

 she had when I noticed them that I can hardly find any 

 trace of my father in myself, except an inborn faculty for 

 drawing, which unfortunately, in my case, has never beemo 

 cultivated, a hot temper, and that amount of tenacity of pur- 

 pose which unfriendly observers sometimes call obstinacy. 



My mother was a slender brunette, of an emotional and 

 energetic temperament, and possessed of the most piercing 

 black eyes I ever saw in a woman's head. With no more 15 

 education than other women of the middle classes in her day, 

 she had an excellent mental capacity. Her most distinguish- 

 ing characteristic, however, was rapidity of thought. If 

 one ventured to suggest she had not taken much time to 

 arrive at any conclusion, she would say, "I cannot help it, 20 

 things flash across me." That peculiarity has been passed 

 on to me in full strength ; it has often stood me in good stead ; 

 it has sometimes played me sad tricks, and it has always been 

 a danger. But, after all, if my time were to come over again, 

 there is nothing I would less willingly part with than my 2 5 

 inheritance of mother wit. 



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

 later years my mother, looking at me almost reproachfully, 

 would sometimes say, "Ah ! you were such a pretty boy !" 

 whence I had no difficulty in concluding that I had not ful-3o 

 filled my early promise in the matter of looks. In fact, I 

 have a distinct recollection of certain curls of which I was 

 vain, and of a conviction that I closely resembled that hand- 

 some, courtly gentleman, Sir Herbert Oakley, who was vicar 



