'The cottage
is a shocking come-down,' said my mother to the rector, 'but it is
not vulgar; it is at least a place in which a lady can live.' Of
course the university was now out of the question, and at fifteen I
left school. I had read a little Virgil, a little Horace, and a
book or two of Homer. I had also got through the first six books of
Euclid after a fashion, and had advanced as far as quadratic
equations in algebra, but had no mathematical talent whatever. My
mother would not hear of trade as an occupation for me, and she
could not afford to make me a soldier, sailor, doctor, lawyer, or
parson. At last the county member, at the request of her father,
obtained for me a clerkship in the Stamps and Taxes Department.
These were the days before competitive examinations. She was now
able to say that her son was in H. M. Civil Service. I had eighty
pounds a year, and lodged at Clapton with an aunt, my father's
sister.
Although I had been only half-educated, I was fond of reading, and I
had plenty of time for it. I read good books, and read them with
enthusiasm.
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