("Life and Letters," Volume I., page 27 et seq.)) I remember how very much
I was afraid of meeting the dogs in Barker Street, and how at school I
could not get up my courage to fight. I was very timid by nature. I
remember I took great delight at school in fishing for newts in the quarry
pool. I had thus young formed a strong taste for collecting, chiefly
seals, franks, etc., but also pebbles and minerals--one which was given me
by some boy decided this taste. I believe shortly after this, or before, I
had smattered in botany, and certainly when at Mr. Case's School I was very
fond of gardening, and invented some great falsehoods about being able to
colour crocuses as I liked. (Chapter I./4. The story is given in the
"Life and Letters," I., page 28, the details being slightly different.) At
this time I felt very strong friendship for some boys. It was soon after I
began collecting stones, i.e., when 9 or 10, that I distinctly recollect
the desire I had of being able to know something about every pebble in
front of the hall door--it was my earliest and only geological aspiration
at that time. I was in those days a very great story-teller--for the pure
pleasure of exciting attention and surprise. I stole fruit and hid it for
these same motives, and injured trees by barking them for similar ends. I
scarcely ever went out walking without saying I had seen a pheasant or some
strange bird (natural history taste); these lies, when not detected, I
presume, excited my attention, as I recollect them vividly, not connected
with shame, though some I do, but as something which by having produced a
great effect on my mind, gave pleasure like a tragedy. I recollect when I
was at Mr. Case's inventing a whole fabric to show how fond I was of
speaking the TRUTH! My invention is still so vivid in my mind, that I
could almost fancy it was true, did not memory of former shame tell me it
was false. I have no particularly happy or unhappy recollections of this
time or earlier periods of my life. I remember well a walk I took with a
boy named Ford across some fields to a farmhouse on the Church Stretton
road. I do not remember any mental pursuits excepting those of collecting