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.

Restless, talkative, untiring to the day of her death, she was at
sixty-six "as active and energetic as a young woman." To her he was
devoted.

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 displeasure my
greatest punishment.

About his childhood, he writes,

I have next to nothing to say. In after 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