Of the highest type of liberal mind, he is entirely without social, political, or religious prejudices; for instance, having promised my mother to leave my faith undisturbed, I have known him carry his tolerance so far as to hear me my catechism. This is considerably more, I must own, than I could do were my own son in question. For many years my father has suffered from an incurable disease of the stomach. He scarcely eats at all, and nothing but constant and increasing doses of opium keep him alive. He has told me that, years ago, worn out by the prolonged agony, he took thirty-two grains at once. “It was not as a cure that I took it,” he said, significantly. But, strange to say, this terrific dose of poison, instead of killing him, gave him for some time a respite from his sufferings. When I was ten years old he sent me to a priest’s school in the town to learn Latin, but the result not proving satisfactory he resolved to teach me himself. And with the most untiring patience, the most intense care, my father became my instructor in history, literature, languages, geography--even in music. Yet I must own that I do not think a solitary education like mine half as good for a boy as ordinary school life. Children brought up among relations, servants, and specially chosen friends only, do not get accustomed to the rough-and-tumble that best fits them to face the world. Real life is to them a dosed book, their angles are not rubbed off, and I know that, in my own case, at twenty-five I was still nothing but an awkward, ignorant child. Indulgent as my father was over my work, yet, for a long while, he was unable to make me love the classics. It seemed impossible to me to concentrate my thoughts long enough to learn by heart a few lines of Horace and Virgil; impatient of the beaten track my wayward mind flew off to the entrancing unknown world of the atlas, roving gaily through the labyrinth of islands, capes, and straits of the Pacific and the Indian Archipelago. This was the origin of my love for travel and adventure. My father truly said of me: “He knows every isle of the South Seas, but cannot tell me how many departments there are in France!” Every book of travel in the library was pressed into my service, and I should most certainly have run away to sea if we had lived in a seaport. My son inherits my taste. He chose the navy for his profession long ere he saw the sea. May he do honour to his choice!