1825 EARLY LIFE 5 



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 distinguishing characteristic, however, was 

 rapidity of thought. If one ventured to suggest that 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 



Eestless, talkative, untiring to the day of her 

 death, she was at sixty-six " as active and energetic 

 as a young woman." His early devotion to her was 

 remarkable. Describing her to his future wife, he 

 writes : 



As a child my love for her was a passion. I have lain 

 awake for hours crying because I had a morbid fear of her 

 death ; her approbation was my greatest reward, her dis- 

 pleasure my greatest punishment 



I have next to nothing to say about my childhood (he 

 continues in the Autobiography). In later years my 

 mother, looking at me almost reproachfully, would some- 

 times say, " Ah ! you were such a pretty boy ! " whence 

 I had no difficulty in concluding that I had not fulfilled 

 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 of our parish, and who was as a god to us country 

 folk, because he was occasionally visited by the then 



