CHAPTER XIV 1857 1T00K my B.A. degree hk 1857. The period of my education was supposed to be at an end, so far as my father's responsibility went and his pocket was concerned. And what was the result ? My mother possessed a hand-bag of silks of various colours and shades, all cut to lengths, not a single skein among them intact; and the various strands, according to their colours and tints, were enclosed, except at the ends, in paper envelopes commonly called thread-papers. When she wanted a bit of silk, she pulled out one of the threads from its encasement. If it were long enough to serve her purpose, well and good, she threaded it, and with her needle worked it into the pattern on which she was engaged. If it were too long, the scissors remedied that, but if too short, trouble ensued, a knot had to be made, and when employed, to be concealed or disguised somehow or other, converted into a flower-seed or an insect. Now, at the end of my educational period, my head singularly resembled my mother's bag of silks. I had acquired a good deal of information of various sorts and colours, but all were in short lengths. I was bad in Latin, ignorant in Greek, was no more than a child in mathematics, had a smattering of colloquial French and German, but no systematic knowledge of the literature of either nation. I was passionately fond of music, but had not been taught fingering on any instrument; I loved art, but was uninstructed in the use of pigments, and in perspective. My memory had been undeveloped ; and, if anyone should care to read my Reminiscences, he will find that it is like my, head, a collection, nay, a very jumble of scraps. What was to become of me ? Of what earthly use was I in any profession ? in diny course of life ? I had to discover that 256
