Yellow, now, with age, and flexible, but not unclean, with much use,
except that the lower corners of the pages at 8th of 1st Kings, and 32d
Deuteronomy, are worn somewhat thin and dark, the learning of these two
chapters having cost me much pains. My mother's list of the chapters
with which, thus learned, she established my soul in life, has just
fallen out of it. I will take what indulgence the incurious reader can
give me, for printing the list thus accidentally occurrent:

Exodus, chapters 15th and 20th.
2 Samuel, " 1st, from 17th verse to end.
1 Kings, " 8th.
Psalms, " 23d, 32d, 90th, 91st, 103d, 112th, 119th, 139th.
Proverbs, " 2d, 3d, 8th, 12th.
Isaiah, " 58th.
Matthew, " 5th, 6th, 7th.
Acts, " 26th.
1 Corinthians, " 13th, 15th.
James, " 4th.
Revelation, " 5th, 6th.

And, truly, though I have picked up the elements of a little further
knowledge--in mathematics, meteorology, and the like, in after
life,--and owe not a little to the teaching of many people, this
maternal installation of my mind in that property of chapters, I count
very confidently the most precious, and, on the whole, the one
_essential_ part of all my education.

And it is perhaps already time to mark what advantage and mischief, by
the chances of life up to seven years old, had been irrevocably
determined for me.