Lancashire," a fourth a Geographical Dictionary. These were, I believe,
almost all the books (not concerned with the legal profession) that my
father ever purchased. His bookcase did not contain a single volume by
the most popular English poets of his own time, nor even so much as a
novel by Sir Walter Scott. I have no recollection of ever having seen
him read a book, but he took in the "Times" newspaper, and I clearly
remember that he read the leading articles, which it was the fashion at
that time to look upon as models of style. This absence of interest in
literature was accompanied by that complete and absolute indifference to
the fine arts which was so common in the middle classes and the country
aristocracy of those days. I mention these deficiencies to explain the
extreme dulness of my poor father's existence during his widowhood, a
dulness that a lover of books must have a difficulty in imagining. A man
living alone with servants (for his son's childhood was spent
elsewhere), who took hardly any interest in a profession that had become
little more than nominal for him, who had not even the stimulus of a
desire to accumulate wealth (almost the only recognized object in the
place where he lived), a man who had no intellectual pursuits whatever,
and whose youth was too far behind him for any joyous physical activity,
was condemned to seek such amusements as the customs of the place
afforded, and these all led to drinking. He and his friends drank when
they were together to make society merrier, and when they happened to be
alone they drank to make solitude endurable. Had they drunk light wines
like French peasants, or beer like Germans, they might have lasted
longer, but their favorite drink was brandy in hot strong grogs,
accompanied by unlimited tobacco. They dined in the middle of the day,
and had the spirit decanters and the tobacco-box on the table instead of
dessert, frequently drinking through the whole afternoon and a long
evening afterwards. In the morning they slaked alcoholic thirst with
copious draughts of ale. My father went on steadily with this kind of