HERTFORD: MY HOME LIFE 71 



But even these rapturous delights were not so enduring, 

 and certainly not so educational, as those derived from making 

 as well as possessing toys and playthings, and the year or 

 two I spent with my brother in these pleasant occupations 

 were certainly the most interesting and perhaps the most 

 permanently useful of my whole early boyhood. They en- 

 abled me to appreciate the pleasure and utility of doing for 

 one's self everything that one is able to do, and this has been 

 a constant source of healthy and enjoyable occupation during 

 my whole life. It led, I have no doubt, to my brother being 

 apprenticed to a carpenter and builder, where he became a 

 first-rate workman ; and from him later on I learnt to use 

 the simpler tools. During my whole life I have kept a few 

 such tools by me, and have always taken a pleasure in doing 

 the various little repairs continually needed in a house and 

 garden. I therefore look with compassion on the present 

 generation of children and schoolboys who, from their earliest 

 years, are overloaded with toys, so elaborately constructed 

 and so highly finished that the very idea of making any toys 

 for themselves seems absurd. And these purchased toys do 

 not give anything like the enduring pleasure derived from 

 the process of making and improving as well as afterwards 

 using; while it leads to the great majority of men growing 

 up without any idea of doing the simplest mechanical work 

 required in their own homes. 



It was during our residence at this house near the 

 Cross that, I think, my father enjoyed his life more than any- 

 where else at Hertford. Not only had he a small piece of 

 garden and the fine grape-vine already mentioned, but there 

 was a roomy brew-house with a large copper, which enabled 

 him to brew a barrel of beer as well as make elder-wine and 

 grape-wine, bottle gooseberries, and other such work as he 

 took great pleasure in doing. When here also, I think, he 

 hired a small garden about half a mile off, where he could 

 grow vegetables and small fruit, and where he spent a few 

 hours of every fine day. And these various occupations were 

 an additional source of interest and instruction to us boys. 



