AUTOBIOGRAPHY 3 



one time had a high reputation. I am not aware 

 that any portents preceded my arrival in this world, 

 but, in my childhood, I remember hearing a tra- 

 ditional account of the manner in which I lost the 

 chance of an endowment of great practical value. 

 The windows of my mother's room were open, 

 in consequence of the unusual warmth of the 

 weather. For the same reason, probably, a neigh- 

 bouring beehive had swarmed, and the new colony, 

 pitching on the window-sill, was making its way 

 into the room when the horrified nurse shut down 

 the sash. If that well-meaning woman had only 

 abstained from her ill-timed interference, the 

 swarm might have settled on my lips, and I 

 should have been endowed with that mellifluous/, 

 eloquence which, in this country, leads far more 

 surely than worth, capacity, or honest work, to the 

 highest places in Church and State. But the 

 opportunity was lost, and I have been obliged to 

 content myself through life with saying what I 

 mean in the plainest of plain language, than which, 

 I suppose, there is no habit more ruinous to a 

 man's prospects 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, 



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