Clive, who, wherever he went, had the reputation of being a most unlucky boy, did not probably carry from school any great stock of acquired knowledge. He was impatient of control, and his application, in which, however, he was never deficient, was not directed to his books. This may have deceived those who measure a boy's talents by his progress in Latin and Greek. When in after-life he wrote to his father an account of his first successes, the remark of the old gentleman, who had probably been often fretted by his son's boyish waywardness, and neglect of his studies, was, "After all, the booby has sense." He had, however, laid such a foundation at school, as enabled him, after his arrival at Madras, to employ to advantage the short leisure then accidentally afforded him, in that self-education, which, after all, is of all educations the most important. He seems at that later period to have revived his acquirements, when he felt that it was become necessary to apply them to practice in the concerns of life, and to have improved himself in some branches of useful knowledge in which he felt his deficiencies. Perhaps his progress in them was not the slower, that his proud mind felt that it was no longer watched by a master. But whatever may have been his book-learning, his character, even in the apparently thoughtless course of his schoolboy sports, was probably undergoing a training that had the strongest influence on his future success; and though to the common eye he seemed to be but indulging the youthful passion of excelling and leading his contemporaries in the trivial and passing pursuits that then formed the object of their common ambition, he was really, though unconsciously, by strengthening his active habits of firmness, perseverance, and self-possession, preparing himself for the more arduous undertakings that distinguished his future life. Though Clive in his boyhood was idle, and impatient of control, he was, notwithstanding, an affectionate son and a kind brother; and he appears, from his earliest communications with his family after he quitted England, to have had a mind imbued with good principles and feelings. He always retained a deep sense of religion: at no period of his life did he ever indulge in or sanction light or irreverent conversation on religious subjects. Like many other eminent men, he seems to have owed much to his mother,--a woman remarkable for her virtues and talents, and who is reported to have shown much tact and good sense in soothing and managing the hasty, and occasionally violent, temper of her husband.