AUTOBIOGRAPHY 5 



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I suppose, there is no habit more ruinous to a man's pros- 

 pects of advancement. 



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 completely — 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 

 been cultivated, a hot temper, and that amount of tenacity 

 of purpose 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 

 education than other women of the middle classes in her 

 day, she had an excellent mental capacity. Her most dis- 

 tinguishing 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, 

 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 

 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 difl&culty in concluding that I had not fulfilled my 



