the descendant of puritans for nothing; but the discovery of it is another matter. Attendance at school and the continuous reading of romance were partly responsible for that; physical development clinched the affair, I was in all respects mature at thirteen, though my courage (to use the word in Chaucer's sense) was not equal to my ability. I had more than usual diffidence against me, more than usual reserve; and self-consciousness, from which I have only lately escaped, grew upon me hand in hand with experience. But being now become a day-scholar at the Grammar School, and thrown whether I would or not among other boys of my own age, I sank my recondite self deeply under the folds of my quickened senses. I became aware of a world which was not his world at all. I watched, I heard, I judged, I studied intently my comrades; and while in secret I shared their own hardy lives, I was more than content to appear a cipher among them. I had no friends and made none. All my comradeship with my school-mates took place in my head, for however salient in mood or inclination I may have been I was a laggard in action. In company I was lower than the least of them; in my solitude, at their head I captured the universe. Daily, to and fro, for two or three years I journeyed between my home and this school, with a couple of two-mile walks and a couple of train journeys to be got through in all weathers and all conditions of light. I saw little or nothing of my school-fellows out of hours, and lived all my play-time, if you can so call it, intensely alone with the people of my imagination--to whose number I could now add gleanings from the Grammar School.