126 MY LIFE 



pleasant people, and on Sundays we were often asked out to 

 tea, which I should have enjoyed more than I did had it not 

 been for my excessive shyness, which was at this time aggra- 

 vated by the fact that I was growing very rapidly, and my 

 clothes, besides being rather shabby, were somewhat too small 

 for me. Another drawback was that our residence at any 

 place was too short to become really at home with these 

 passing friends. I was therefore left mostly to the compan- 

 ionship of our own temporary pupil, and he, like the majority 

 of the young men I met at this period of my life, was by no 

 means an edifying acquaintance. Sporting newspapers, which 

 were then far grosser than they are now, were, so far as I 

 remember, his chief reading, and he had a stock of songs and 

 recitations of the lowest and most vicious type, with which he 

 used occasionally to entertain me and any chance acquaint- 

 ances. There was one paper which I used very frequently to 

 see about this time, and which I think must have been taken at 

 most of the country inns we frequented. It was called, if I 

 remember rightly, The Satirist, and was full of the very gross- 

 est anecdotes of well-known public characters, trials for the 

 most disgraceful offences reported in all their details, and full 

 accounts of prize-fights, which were then very common. It 

 was a paper of a character totally unknown now, and as it no 

 doubt reflected the ideas and pandered to the tastes of a very 

 considerable portion of the public in all classes of society, it 

 is not very surprising that most of the young men of the 

 middle classes that came across my path should have been 

 rather disreputable in conversation, though, perhaps, not 

 always so in character. 



But, notwithstanding that I was continually thrown into 

 such society from the time I left school, I do not think it 

 produced the least bad effect upon my character or habits in 

 after-life. This was partly owing to natural disposition, 

 which was reflective and imaginative, but more perhaps to the 

 quiet and order of my home, where I never heard a rude word 

 or an offensive expression. The effect of this was intensified 

 by my extreme shyness, which made it impossible for me to 

 use words or discuss subjects which were altogether foreign 



