"I remember my mother only in some few situations, one of which was
her pinning a nosegay to my breast, when I was going to say the
catechism in the church, as was customary before Easter. An intimate
friend of hers told me that she once said to her, that the only one
of her five children about whose future life she was anxious was
William; and he, she said, would be remarkable, either for good or
for evil. The cause of this was, that I was of a stiff, moody, and
violent temper; so much so that I remember going once into the
attics of my grandfather's house at Penrith, upon some indignity
having been put upon me, with an intention of destroying myself with
one of the foils, which I knew was kept there. I took the foil in
hand, but my heart failed. Upon another occasion, while I was at my
grandfather's house at Penrith, along with my eldest brother, Richard,
we were whipping tops together in the large drawing-room, on which
the carpet was only laid down upon particular occasions. The walls
were hung round with family pictures, and I said to my brother,
'Dare you strike your whip through that old lady's petticoat?' He
replied, 'No, I won't.' 'Then', said I, 'here goes!' and I struck my
lash through her hooped petticoat; for which, no doubt, though I have
forgotten it, I was properly punished. But, possibly from some want
of judgment in punishments inflicted, I had become perverse and
obstinate in defying chastisement, and rather proud of it than
otherwise."

"Of my earliest days at school I have little to say, but that they
were very happy ones, chiefly because I was left at liberty then,
and in the vacations, to read whatever books I liked. For example, I
read all Fielding's works, _Don Quixote, Gil Bias_, and any part of
Swift that I liked--_Gulliver's Travels_, and the _Tale of the Tub_,
being both much to my taste. It may be, perhaps, as well to mention,