Dr. Eggleston’s early life was full of vicissitude, but he has himself disclaimed credit for being what is called “a self-made man.” It is true that he had his own way to make, in great measure, but he began with all the benefits of good ancestry, and he was, in his own phrase, “born into an intellectual atmosphere.” Joseph Cary Eggleston, who died when Edward was only nine years old, provided in his will for the exchange of his law library for books of general interest, that his children might have good literature about them in their formative years--a direction that was followed faithfully by his widow. The boy Edward grew up with the ideal of a scholarly father before him, and with an ambition to know books and to read other languages than his own. He learned also the mystery of type-setting, and contributed items to the Vevay _Reveille_, duly “set up.” Dr. Eggleston records that in his primary schooling, conducted by his mother, he proved himself a dull scholar, but that some kind of climacteric was passed in his tenth year, and that thenceforward he was the pride of his teachers. Manual training was hardly dreamed of in those days, but Joseph Eggleston had an appreciation of its value and left what Edward has described as “a solemn injunction that his sons should be sent to the country every summer and taught manual labor on a farm.” This injunction was carefully obeyed, so that Edward Eggleston had an actual experience of farming and a contact with farm folk that was a part of his preparation for the writing of the tales that gave him his first fame. Judge Miles Eggleston, Joseph’s brother, was more distinctly an Indianian than any other member of the family by reason of his long residence in the State and his public services. Guilford Eggleston, Joseph Eggleston’s cousin, was identified with the family life at Vevay. He was a man of many accomplishments, and left a deep impression on Edward Eggleston, who has spoken of his brilliant talk as a perpetual inspiration: “He incessantly stimulated my love for literature, guided my choice of books, taught me to make a commonplace book of my reading, and by his conversation and example made me feel that to lead an intellectual life was the most laudable pursuit of a human being.” The direction thus given to the boyish impulse, and the atmosphere of his home, were of great importance to Edward, for of systematic schooling he was to know little. He was never but once in his life able to spend three consecutive months in school, and after he reached his tenth year the sum of his schooling was only eighteen months.