One of the most remarkable epochs of a man’s life is when he first begins to think. Philosophers suppose—at least many have supposed—that what is called thinking, goes on from birth, or very nearly so; but either this is a mistake, or they and I are talking of different things. What I mean by thinking is not the process of putting two or three ideas together, which commences with a child as soon as it has two or three ideas to put, but an operation of the mind, in which all the mind’s servants are called upon to bear a part—where imagination comes to aid reason, and memory and observation bring the materials, and judgment measures the work. We all must have felt, in looking back upon our past life, that there has been a certain period at which flood-gates, as it were, have been opened suddenly, and a torrent of thought has flowed in upon us. The period itself will generally be somewhat indefinite to remembrance; for we none of us mark this new thing at the time that it occurs. We feel—we know—we enjoy; but we do not sit down to chronicle the moment when the new world of thought burst upon our sight. All any man can say, is, “About such and such a time, I began to think”—he generally adds, “deeply”—to contrast that period, with the period of _impression_ gone before, which he confounds with _thought_. In fact it may be very difficult—for I do not wish to dogmatize—to say where thought exactly begins, and mere reception of idea, in either a simplex or a complex form, ends. It may be that thought is as a mighty stream, beginning in a very minute rill; but there certainly is one place where the river suddenly swells tremendously. I cannot say that I thought much, if at all, on any subject till I was more than ten years old. In conversing with Father Bonneville, who tried hard to teach me to think without appearing to do so, my answers were more pictures of my impressions than of my thoughts; but about twelve years old, thought began to come upon me fast and strong. I can remember quite well many a time, on the Tuesday and Thursday evenings, in the spring time of the year, sitting by that little lake, or wandering by the banks of the river, and falling into deep and even sombre reveries, in the course of which I tried every thing that I had learned or knew, by faculties which seemed to have sprung up suddenly within me. The world seemed full of wonders that I had never seen before, and I began to take interest in things which before had been to me flat and unprofitable enough. It was not alone the aspect of nature, the lake, the stream, the wood, the field, the rock, the mountain, the blue sky, the passing cloud, the rising and setting sun, the wandering moon, or the bright eyes of the twinkling stars, nor the flowers and shrubs, nor the birds of the bough and sky, nor the beasts of the field and plain, that gave me matter for thought, but man came in for his share, and man’s doings—and I am afraid woman’s, too.