such and presages of ‘geologic genius’ are concerned, I cannot deny he was a very muddy child and forever falling into things and requiring a great scrub. More than that is perhaps beyond me to say. Our house sits square on the slope of a field, and Sam used to wriggle out of the window above his bed when work wanted doing, and me clamouring up and down the house for help. As far as that went, I consider he displayed a love of nature, and would sneak past us and into the woods at the bottom. Once I recall we found him sleeping at the foot of a low stream which used to spring up now and then when the rains came. Hespent all night wriggling under the stars – it was a thick, close evening – and he woke in a perfectly vicious temper at the interruption of a dream, but the sun coming up already, he was forced to retire to his bed; and, recollecting properly, that affair had less to do with presages and more with an untimely matter that doesn’t pertain. I never recall in him a great affection for schooling; but again, that could lie in the awkward circumstance for a young boy, of learning under the eyes of his father and grandfather; enough, I believe, to turn any child from his books, and set him loose among the trees. If a mother may have her say, I always reckoned my son more than anything distinguished for a brave heart. That, Mr Jenkyns, is my son.
A curious account from a curious mother. Anne seemed a jealous creature, close with her son and husband – the two often blent in her accounts, a single example of masculine pig-headedness and vital force, indifferent to circumstance and particularity, though Sam occasionally distinguished himself for his faith and attachment to her. Perhaps she envied Edward’s power over their son; for the father directed Sam’s schooling from an early age and appears to have impressed the young boy with considerable awe – at least at first. A handful of brisk notes fluttered to the desk and stuck in the thick, close summer air, unrelieved by the window opened over the garden.
I read over these old school reports, surprised into a familiar tingle of apprehension, as if I myself, at the age of eight or ten, stood open to my father’s evaluation – so closely had I identified my task of discovery with Samuel himself and his fortunes. “The boy possesses’, I read, in Edward’s quaint, left-handed script, the letters sloping against the grain, ‘a keen memory, and the capacity to Improve, upon Application. I believe that much of the haste and Confusion in his work, lies not [only] in a native indolence – a restless Desire to turn his thoughts to everything BUT the task at hand, an Eye drawn to the slightest sign of life without the window, from blue-jay to Maid, a Temper as happy to destroy as toconstruct – but also in a natural lightness of the Intellect, which steps as easily from First Causes to Conclusions, where a more muddling Mind might plod over the intervening Arguments. Yet for all that he is a careless child and often o’erleaps himself.’
In a later report, Edward offers a more particular account of his son’s studies.
Acquaintance with the Grammar, including prosody, of both the Greek & Latin tongues: middling to indifferent. Knowledge of Caesar’s commentaries, Sallust, selected parts of Ovid’s Metamorphoses: extensive, owing to a natural inclination. Interest in and facility for Virgil, Horace, Catullus: dull and dull and dull, the boy shies from Poetry like a kitten from the Bath. Aptitude for the Orations of Cicero (contained in the volume in Usum delphini): considerable; he takes naturally to Speeches, and from an early age has always cast about him for an Audience; most of these he has gotten by heart and will recite ’em to all and any who dare approach him in the Vein. In general, the boy takes well to what strikes him, and not at all to what don’t; but moreover, I discern a kind of Pernicious Element in him, which, even where his interest
A curious account from a curious mother. Anne seemed a jealous creature, close with her son and husband – the two often blent in her accounts, a single example of masculine pig-headedness and vital force, indifferent to circumstance and particularity, though Sam occasionally distinguished himself for his faith and attachment to her. Perhaps she envied Edward’s power over their son; for the father directed Sam’s schooling from an early age and appears to have impressed the young boy with considerable awe – at least at first. A handful of brisk notes fluttered to the desk and stuck in the thick, close summer air, unrelieved by the window opened over the garden.
I read over these old school reports, surprised into a familiar tingle of apprehension, as if I myself, at the age of eight or ten, stood open to my father’s evaluation – so closely had I identified my task of discovery with Samuel himself and his fortunes. “The boy possesses’, I read, in Edward’s quaint, left-handed script, the letters sloping against the grain, ‘a keen memory, and the capacity to Improve, upon Application. I believe that much of the haste and Confusion in his work, lies not [only] in a native indolence – a restless Desire to turn his thoughts to everything BUT the task at hand, an Eye drawn to the slightest sign of life without the window, from blue-jay to Maid, a Temper as happy to destroy as toconstruct – but also in a natural lightness of the Intellect, which steps as easily from First Causes to Conclusions, where a more muddling Mind might plod over the intervening Arguments. Yet for all that he is a careless child and often o’erleaps himself.’
In a later report, Edward offers a more particular account of his son’s studies.
Acquaintance with the Grammar, including prosody, of both the Greek & Latin tongues: middling to indifferent. Knowledge of Caesar’s commentaries, Sallust, selected parts of Ovid’s Metamorphoses: extensive, owing to a natural inclination. Interest in and facility for Virgil, Horace, Catullus: dull and dull and dull, the boy shies from Poetry like a kitten from the Bath. Aptitude for the Orations of Cicero (contained in the volume in Usum delphini): considerable; he takes naturally to Speeches, and from an early age has always cast about him for an Audience; most of these he has gotten by heart and will recite ’em to all and any who dare approach him in the Vein. In general, the boy takes well to what strikes him, and not at all to what don’t; but moreover, I discern a kind of Pernicious Element in him, which, even where his interest
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