at school he had also become familiar with the works of some
English poets, particularly Goldsmith and Gray, of whose poems he had
learned many by heart. What is more to the purpose, he had become,
without knowing it, a lover of Nature in all her moods, and the same
mental necessities of a solitary life which compel men to an interest
in the transitory phenomena of scenery, had made him also studious of
the movements of his own mind, and the mutual interaction and
dependence of the external and internal universe.

Doubtless his early orphanage was not without its effect in confirming
a character naturally impatient of control, and his mind, left to
itself, clothed itself with an indigenous growth, which grew fairly
and freely, unstinted by the shadow of exotic plantations. It has
become a truism, that remarkable persons have remarkable mothers; but
perhaps this is chiefly true of such as have made themselves
distinguished by their industry, and by the assiduous cultivation of
faculties in themselves of only an average quality. It is rather to be
noted how little is known of the parentage of men of the first
magnitude, how often they seem in some sort foundlings, and how early
an apparently adverse destiny begins the culture of those who are to
encounter and master great intellectual or spiritual experiences.

Of his disposition as a child little is known, but that little is
characteristic. He himself tells us that he was 'stiff, moody, and of
violent temper'. His mother said of him that he was the only one of
her children about whom she felt any anxiety,--for she was sure that
he would be remarkable for good or evil. Once, in resentment at some
fancied injury, he resolved to kill himself, but his heart failed him.
I suspect that few boys of passionate temperament have escaped these
momentary suggestions of despairing helplessness. 'On another
occasion,' he says, 'while I was at my grandfather's house at Penrith,
along with my eldest brother Richard, we were whipping tops together
in the long drawing-room, on which the carpet was only laid down on
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 judgeme