absorbing passion, and
was indulged in to the neglect of other lessons and other
pleasures.

My Father, as the spring advanced, used to come up to the
Boxroom, as my retreat was called, and hunt me out into the
sunshine. But I soon crept back to my mania. It gave him much
trouble, and Miss Marks, who thought it sheer idleness, was
vociferous in objection. She would gladly have torn up all my
writings and paintings, and have set me to a useful task. My
Father, with his strong natural individualism, could not take
this view. He was interested in this strange freak of mine, and
he could not wholly condemn it. But he must have thought is a
little crazy, and it is evident to me now that it led to the
revolution in domestic policy by which he began to encourage any
acquaintance with other young people as much as he had previously
discouraged it. He saw that I could not be allowed to spend my
whole time in a little stuffy room making solemn and ridiculous
imitations of Papers read before the Linnaean Society. He was
grieved, moreover, at the badness of my pictures, for I had no
native skill; and he tried to teach me his own system of
miniature-painting as applied to natural history. I was forced,
in deep depression of spirits, to turn from my grotesque
monographs, and paint under my Father's eye, and, from a finished
drawing of his, a gorgeous tropic bird in flight. Aided by my
habit of imitation, I did at length produce some thing which
might have shown promise, if it had not been wrung from me, touch
by touch, pigment by pigment, under the orders of a task-master.

All this had its absurd side, but I seem to perceive that it had
also its value. It is, surely, a mistake to look too near at hand
for the benefits of education. What is actually taught in early
childhood is often that part of training which makes least
impression on the character, and is of the least permanent
importance. My labours failed to make me a zoologist, and the
multitude of my designs and my descriptions have left me
helplessly ignorant of the anatomy of a sea-anemone. Yet I cannot
look upon the mental discipline as useless. It taught me to
concentrate my attention, to define the nature of distinctions,
to see accurately, and to name what I saw. Moreover, it gave me
the habit of going on with any piece of work I had in hand, not
flagging because the interest or picturesqueness of the theme had
declined, but pushing forth towards a definite goal, w