CHAPTER II. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



[My father's autobiographical recollections, given in the present 

 chapter, were written for his children, — and written without any 

 thought that they would ever be published. To many this may seem 

 an impossibility ; but those who knew my father will understand how 

 it was not only possible, but natural. The autobiography bears the 

 heading, ' Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Charac- 

 ter,' and end with the following note : — " Aug. 3, 1876. This sketch 

 of my life was begun about May 28th at Hopedene,* and since then I 

 have written for nearly an hour on most afternoons." It will easily 

 be understood that, in a narrative of a personal and intimate kind 

 written for his wife and children, passages should occur which must 

 here be omitted ; and I have not thought it necessary to indicate 

 where such omissions are made. It has been found necessary to 

 make a few corrections of obvious verbal slips, but the number of 

 such alterations has been kept down to the minimum. — F. D.] 



A German Editor having written to me for an account of 

 the development of my mind and character with some sketch 

 of my autobiography, I have thought that the attempt would 

 amuse me, and might possibly interest my children or their 

 children. I know that it would have interested me greatly to 

 have read even so short and dull a sketch of the mind of my 

 grandfather, written by himself, and what he thought and 

 did, and how he worked. I have attempted to write the fol- 

 lowing account of myself, as if I were a dead man in another 

 world looking back at my own life. Nor have I found this 



* Mr. Ilensleigh Wedgwood's house in Surrey. 



