Childhood and Boyhood 75 



for following a profession, and knowing Samuel Gallon's character as 

 we do' we may feel confident he would have approved his grandson's 

 final disposition of a large portion of it. 



With his return from Boulogne the first period of Francis Galton's 

 life closes ; his childhood is over and his boyhood begins. The letters 

 we have quoted from these early years may appear to the reader to 

 contain little of note. They are indeed just what a healthy normal 

 child would write, but it is that very fact that makes them essentially 

 human documents and gives them their fundamental interest. We 

 rejoice to see that men who have laid their mark on their age are in 

 constitution just such human beings as we ourselves and closely akin to 

 the childworld with which we are all so familiar. Need we attempt to 

 see signs of exceptional ability or to discover foreshadowings of future 

 achievement in the outpourings of healthy childhood ? I do not think 

 we can say more than that Francis Gal ton was a normal child with 

 rather more than average ability, and that possibly only his mother, 

 Violetta, realised instinctively that he was not just like the rest of her 

 children. 



From plans and sketches of the Larches drawn by Violetta 

 Galton and her daughters Bessy and Emma we are able to realise the 

 home of Francis Galton's childhood, which appeared to him so delight- 

 ful, not only from the distance of Boulogne, but from the distance of 

 later life. The house was a spacious one three storied in front and 

 five-windowed across, two tall larches 2 overtopping the roof stood 

 as sentinels right and left. Two wings went out from the rear, 

 that on the left faced a garden with terrace leading to a summer 

 house. This wing had a bay window, and made the house on this 

 side also three storied and five-windowed across. The right-hand wing 

 ran back to the stable and brewhouse, which had once been Priestley's 

 laboratory. At the back of the house was a large yard terminating in 

 poultry-, coach-, and pig-houses, with cow sheds leading directly to the 

 fields, where the boys used to scamper about on their ponies. We see 

 the very spot where "Ringwood" and his fellows were kept, and the 

 archery ground, and wonder which out of the many flower borders 

 was the patch tended by Frank, where his beloved hollyhocks and 



1 See pp. 4348. 



2 Mrs Wheler in her Reminiscences says these trees were among the first larches 

 brought to England. 



102 



