It is astonishing how very far-reaching in their effects are the tastes and habits that we acquire in early life! The sort of existence that I am leading here at Pré Charmoy, near Autun, in this year 1886, bears a wonderfully close resemblance to my existence at Hollins in 1850. I am living, as I was then, on a pretty estate with woods, meadows, pastures, and a beautiful stream, with hills visible from it in all directions. There is a fish-pond too, about a mile from the house, and I am even now trying catamaran experiments on this pond, as I did on the other in Lancashire. My occupations are exactly the same, and to complete the resemblance it so happens that just now I am reading Latin. The chief difference is that writing has become lucrative and professional, whereas in those earlier days it was a study only.
It is very difficult for me to believe that thirty-six years separate me from a time so like the present in many ways--like and yet unlike,--for I was then in Lancashire and am now in France; but this is a fact that I only realize when I think about it. The real exile for me would be to live in a large town.
Interest in the Middle Ages.--Indifference to the Greeks and Romans.-- Love for Sir Walter Scott's writings.--Interest in heraldry and illuminations.--Passion for hawking.--Old books in the school library at Burnley.--Mr. Edward Alexander of Halifax.--Attempts in literary composition.--Contributions to the "Historic Times."--"Rome in 1849."--"Observations on Heraldry."
The last chapter ended by saying that my occupations in early life were the same as they are at present, but I now remember one or two points of difference. In those days I lived, mentally, a great deal in the Middle Ages. This was owing to the influence of Sir Walter Scott, certainly of all authors the one who has most influenced me, and it was also due in some measure to a romantic interest in the history of my own family, and of the other families in the north of England with which mine had been connected in the past. For the Greeks and Romans I cared very little; they seemed too remote from my own country and race, and the English present, in which my lot was cast, seemed too dull and un-picturesque, too prosaic and commonplace. My imagination being saturated with Scott, I had naturally the same taste as my master. I soon learned all about heraldry, and in my leisure time drew and colored all the coats of arms that had been borne by the Hamertons in their numerous alliances, as well as the arms of other families from which our own was descended. I wrote black-letter characters on parchment and made pedigrees, and became so much of a mediaevalist that there was considerable risk of my stopping short in the amateur practice of such arts as wood-carving, illumination, and painting on glass. The same taste for the Middle Ages led me to imitate our forefathers in more active pursuits; amongst others I had such a passion for hawking that at one time I became incapable of opening my lips about anything else. My guardian said it was "hawk, hawk, hawking from morning till night." Not that I ever possessed a living falcon of any species whatever. My uncle resigned to me a corner of the outbuildings, on the ground-floor of which was a loose-box for my horse, and above it a room that I set apart for the falcons when they should arrive; but in spite of many promises from gamekeepers and naturalists and others, no birds ever came! The hoods and jesses were ready, very prettily adorned with red morocco leather and gold thread; the mews were ready too, with partitions in trellis-work of my own making,--everything was ready except the peregrines!