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 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.

I have next to nothing to say about my childhood.  In later years my mother, looking at me almost reproachfully, would sometimes 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 handsome, 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 Prince George of Cambridge. [4] I remember turning my pinafore wrong side forwards in order to represent a surplice, and preaching to my mother’s maids in the kitchen as nearly as possible in Sir Herbert’s manner one Sunday morning when the rest of the family were at church.  That is the earliest indication I can call to mind of the strong clerical affinities which my friend Mr. Herbert Spencer [5] has always ascribed to me, though I fancy they have for the most part remained in a latent state.

My regular school training was of the briefest, perhaps fortunately, for though my way of life has made me acquainted with all sorts and conditions of men, from the highest to the lowest, I deliberately affirm that the society I fell into at school was the worst I have ever known.  We boys were average lads, with much the same inherent capacity for good and evil as any others; but the people who were set over us cared about as much for our intellectual and moral welfare as if they were baby-farmers.  We were left to the operation of the struggle for existence among ourselves, and bullying was the least of the ill practices current among us.  Almost the only cheerful reminiscence in connection with the place which arises in my mind is that of a battle I had with one of my classmates, who had bullied me until I could stand it no longer.  I was a very slight lad, but there was a wild-cat element in me which, when roused, made up for lack of weight, and I licked my adversary effectually.  However, one of my first experiences of the extremely rough-and-ready nature of justice, as exhibited by the course of things