I can remember hearing my father say--"It's bad enough to have Jack
with his nose in a book, and his head in the clouds, on a fine June
day, with the hay all out, and the glass falling: but if Jem had been a
lad of whims and fancies, I think it would have broken my poor old
heart."

I often wonder what made me bother my head with books, and where the
perverse spirit came from that possessed me, and tore me, and drove me
forth into the world. It did not come from my parents. My mother's
family were far from being literary or even enterprising, and my
father's people were a race of small yeomen squires, whose talk was of
dogs and horses and cattle, and the price of hay. We were
north-of-England people, but not of a commercial or adventurous class,
though we were within easy reach of some of the great manufacturing
centres. Quiet country folk we were; old-fashioned, and boastful of our
old-fashionedness, albeit it meant little more than that our manners and
customs were a generation behindhand of the more cultivated folk, who
live nearer to London. We were proud of our name too, which is written
in the earliest registers and records of the parish, honourably
connected with the land we lived on; but which may be searched for in
vain in the lists of great or even learned Englishmen.

It never troubled dear old Jem that there had not been a man of mark
among all the men who had handed on our name from generation to
generation. He had no feverish ambitions, and as to books, I doubt if
he ever opened a volume, if he could avoid it, after he wore out three
horn-books and our mother's patience in learning his letters--not even
the mottle-backed prayer-books which were handed round for family
prayers, and out of which we said the psalms for the day, verse about
with my father. I generally found the place, and Jem put his arm over my