ards and stayed there three weeks, which now
appears to me like three months. (Chapter I./6. Plas Edwards, at Towyn,
on the Welsh coast.) I remember a certain shady green road (where I
saw a snake) and a waterfall, with a degree of pleasure, which must be
connected with the pleasure from scenery, though not directly recognised
as such. The sandy plain before the house has left a strong impression,
which is obscurely connected with an indistinct remembrance of
curious insects, probably a Cimex mottled with red, and Zygaena, the
burnet-moth. I was at that time very passionate (when I swore like a
trooper) and quarrelsome. The former passion has I think nearly wholly
but slowly died away. When journeying there by stage coach I remember a
recruiting officer (I think I should know his face to this day) at
tea time, asking the maid-servant for toasted bread and butter. I was
convulsed with laughter and thought it the quaintest and wittiest speech
that ever passed from the mouth of man. Such is wit at 10 1/2 years old.
The memory now flashes across me of the pleasure I had in the evening on
a blowy day walking along the beach by myself and seeing the gulls and
cormorants wending their way home in a wild and irregular course. Such
poetic pleasures, felt so keenly in after years, I should not have
expected so early in life.

1820, July.

Went a riding tour (on old Dobbin) with Erasmus to Pistyll Rhiadr
(Chapter I./7. Pistyll Rhiadr proceeds from Llyn Pen Rhiadr down the
Llyfnant to the Dovey.); of this I recollect little, an indistinct
picture of the fall, but I well remember my astonishment on hearing that
fishes could jump up it.

(Chapter I./8. The autobiographical fragment here comes to an end. The
next letters give some account of Darwin as an Edinburgh student. He
has described ("Life and Letters," I., pages 35-45) his failure to be
interested in the official teaching of the University, his horror at
the operating theatre, and his gradually increasing dislike of medical
study, which finally determined his leaving Edinburgh, and entering
Cambridge with a view to taking Orders.)

LETTER 1. TO R.W. DARWIN. Sunday Morning [Edinburgh, October, 1825].

My dear Father

As I suppose Erasmus (Erasmus Darwin) has given all the particulars of
the journey, I will say no more about it, except that altogether it has
cost me 7 pounds. We got into our lodgings yesterday evening, which
are very comfortable and near the College. Ou