m voyages of discovery in the South Seas, by
which my brain was dimly filled with splendour; some geography
and astronomy, both of them sincerely enjoyed; much theology,
which I desired to appreciate but could never get my teeth into
(if I may venture to say so), and over which my eye and tongue
learned to slip without penetrating, so that I would read, and
read aloud, and with great propriety of emphasis, page after page
without having formed an idea or retained an expression. There
was, for instance, a writer on prophecy called Jukes, of whose
works each of my parents was inordinately fond, and I was early
set to read Jukes aloud to them. I did it glibly, like a machine,
but the sight of Jukes' volumes became an abomination to me, and
I never formed the outline of a notion what they were about.
Later on, a publication called _The Penny Cyclopaedia_ became my
daily, and for a long time almost my sole study; to the subject
of this remarkable work I may presently return.

It is difficult to keep anything like chronological order in
recording fragments of early recollection, and in speaking of my
reading I have been led too far ahead. My memory does not,
practically, begin till we returned from certain visits, made
with a zoological purpose, to the shores of Devon and Dorset, and
settled, early in my fifth year, in a house at Islington, in the
north of London. Our circumstances were now more easy; my Father
had regular and well-paid literary work; and the house was larger
and more comfortable than ever before, though still very simple
and restricted. My memories, some of which are exactly dated by
certain facts, now become clear and almost abundant. What I do
not remember, except from having it very often repeated to me,
is what may be considered the only 'clever' thing that I said
during an otherwise unillustrious childhood. It was not
startlingly 'clever', but it may pass. A lady--when I was just
four--rather injudiciously showed me a large print of a human
skeleton, saying, 'There! you don't know what that is, do you?'
Upon which, immediately and very archly, I replied, 'Isn't it a
man with the meat off?' This was thought wonderful, and, as it is
supposed that I had never had the phenomenon explained to me, it
certainly displays some quickness in seizing an analogy. I had
often watched my Father, while he soaked the flesh off the bones
of fishes and small mammals. If I venture to repeat this trifle,
it is only to po