Part 1 (2/2)

Orion sank down in the west Just as he sank into his rest; I closed in solitude his eyes, And watched him till the sun's uprise

CHAPTER I--CHILDHOOD

Now that I have coraphy up to the present year, I soht to publish it Of what use is it, many persons will say, to present to the world what is mainly a record of weaknesses and failures? If I had any triumphs to tell; if I could sho I had risen superior to poverty and suffering; if, in short, I were a hero of any kind whatever, Ithem to do as I have done But mine is the tale of a commonplace life, perplexed by many problems I have never solved; disturbed by noble concessions which are a constant regret

I have decided, however, to let the h I will not take the responsibility of printing it

So; and there are two reasons why they may think so, if there are no others In the first place it has soly that the race to which I belonged is fast passing away, and that the Dissenting ether froo

In the next place, I have observed that thethat other people have been tried as we have been tried is a consolation to us, and that we are relieved by the assurance that our sufferings are not special and peculiar, but common to us with many others Death has always been a terror to ion and philosophy have been altogether unavailing to ate the terror in any way But it has been a comfort to me to reflect that whatever death may be, it is the inheritance of the whole huled out, but shall h what the weakest have had to pass through before me In the worst of maladies, worst at least toeffect which is produced by the visit of a friend who can simply say, ”I have endured all that,” is most marked So it is not impossible that some fehose experience has been like mine may, by my example, be freed fro

I was born, just before the Liverpool and Manchester Railas opened, in a small country town in one of the Midland shi+res It is now se, at the junction of three or four lines of railith hardly a trace left of what it was fifty years ago It then consisted of one long ht-angles Through this street the h it, drawn by four horses, which twice a week travelled to and froreat and unknown city

My father and lish middle class of well-to-do shop-keepers My mother's family came from a little distance, but my father's had lived in those parts for centuries I remember perfectly well how business used to be carried on in those days There was absolutely no coh nobody in the toas in trade got rich, except the banker and the brewer, nearly everybody was tolerably well off, and certainly not pressed with care as their successors are now The draper, who lived a little way above us, was a deacon in our chapel, and every , soon after breakfast, he would start off for his walk of about four hbours about the events of the day At eleven o'clock or thereabouts he would return and would begin work Everybody took an hour for dinner--between one and two--and at that tih Street was ened

My life as a child falls into two portions, sharply divided--week-day and Sunday During the week-day I went to the public school, where I learned little or nothing that did ood The discipline of the school was admirable, and the headmaster was penetrated with awere very imperfect

In Latin we had to learn the Eton Latin Grammar till we knew every word of it by heart, but we did scarcely any retranslation frolish into Latin Much of our ti to write, for example, like copperplate, and, stillthe letters of the alphabet as they are used in printing

But we had two half-holidays in the week, which seem to me now to have been the happiest part of h the town, and on su its banks forI reust, passed half-naked or altogether naked in the solitaryith the deep pool at the bottom in which we dived; I remember, too, the place where we used to swim across the river with our clothes on our heads, because there was no bridge near, and the frequent disaster of a slip of the braces in the middle of the water, so that shi+rt, jacket, and trousers were soaked, and we had to lie on the grass in the broiling sun without a rag on us till everything was dry again

In winter our joys were of a different kind but none the less delightful If it was a frost, we had skating; not like skating on a London pond, but over long reaches, and if the locks had not intervened, we e If there was no ice, we had football, and as still better, we could get up a steeplechase--on foot straight across hedge and ditch

In after-years, when I lived in London, I came to know children ent to school in Gower Street, and travelled backwards and forwards by omnibus--children who had no other recreation than an occasional visit to the Zoological Gardens, or a somewhat sombre walk up to Haretted that they never had any experience of those perfect poetic pleasures which the boy enjoys whose childhood is spent in the country, and whose hoether different

On the Sundays, however, the colooid Calvinistic Independents, and on that day no newspaper nor any book azine was tolerated Every preparation for the Sabbath had been made on the Saturday, to avoid as much as possible any work The meat was cooked beforehand, so that we never had a hot dinner even in the coldest weather; the only thing hot which was per, which cooked itself while ere at chapel, and some potatoes which were prepared after we came home

Not a letter was opened unless it was clearly evident that it was not on business, and for opening these an apology was always offered that it was possible they ht contain some announcement of sickness If on cursory inspection they appeared to be ordinary letters, although they ht be from relations or friends, they were put away

After faan with the Sunday-school at nine o'clock We were taught our Catechism and Bible there till a quarter past ten We were then e old-fashi+oned building dating froh pews The roof was supported by three or four tall wooden pillars which ran froalleries by shorter pillars There was a large oak pulpit on one side against the wall, and down below, i pehere the singers andperforht in front was a long enclosure, called the communion pehich was usually occupied by a nuation

There were three services every Sunday, besides inters, but these I did not as yet attend Each service consisted of a hy the Bible, another hymn, a prayer, the ser of the Bible was unaccompanied with any observations or explanations, and I do not remember that I ever once heard aprayer, as it was called, was a horrible hypocrisy, and it was a sore tax on the preacher to get through it Anything more totally unlike the model recoined It generally began with a confession that ere all sinners, but no individual sins were ever confessed, and then ensued a kind of dialogue with God, verythe speeches which in later years I have heard in the House of Commons from theof Parlia was falser than the long prayer Direct appeal to God can only be justified when it is passionate To co particular to say is an insult, upon which we should never presue We should not venture to take up His time with commonplaces or platitudes; but our hty, who had the universe to govern, had er at a club nobody ever listened to this perforood child on the whole, but I am sure I did not; and if the chapel were now in existence, there ht be traced on the flap of the pehich we sat ns due to these dreary perforenerally consisted of a text, which was afor a discourse, that was pretty much the saan with the fall of man; propounded the sche the blessedness of the saints, and in the evening the doo there should be ”experience”--that is to say, co should be appropriated to their less fortunate brethren

The evening service was theto me of all these I never could keep awake, and knew that to sleep under the Gospel was a sin

The chapel was lighted in winter by immense chandeliers with tiers of candles all round These required perpetual snuffing, and I can see the oldround the chandeliers in the hty pair of snuffers which opened and shut with a loud click

How I envied him because he had semi-secular occupation which prevented that terrible drowsiness! How I envied the pew-opener, as allowed to stand at the vestry door, and could slip into the vestry every now and then, or even into the burial-ground if he heard irreverent boys playing there! The athts was most foul, and this added to my discomfort Oftentimes in winter, when no doors or ere open, I have seen the glass panes strea

On rare occasions I was allowed to go with es to preach As a deacon he was also a lay-preacher, and I had the ride in the gig out and home, and tea at a farm-house