The result of all these deliberations was that I temporized: I would
not, I could not, give up the rides and rambles that took up most of
my time, but I would try to overcome my disinclination to serious
reading. There were plenty of books in the house-it was always a
puzzle to me how we came to have so many. I was familiar with their
appearance on the shelves-they had been before me since I first opened
my eyes---their shape, size, colour, even their titles, and that was
all I knew about them. A general Natural History and two little works
by James Ronnie on the habits and faculties of birds was all the
literature suited to my wants in the entire collection of three or
four hundred volumes. For the rest, I had read a few story-books and
novels: but we had no novels; when one came into the house it would be
read and lent to our next neighbour five or six miles away, and he in
turn would lend to another, twenty miles further on, and so on until
it disappeared in space.
I made a beginning with Rollin's _Ancient History_ in two huge quarto
volumes; I fancy it was the large clear type and numerous plates which
illustrated it that determined my choice. Rollin, the good old priest,
opened a new wonderful world to me, and instead of the tedious task I
had feared the reading would prove, it was as delightful as it had
formerly been to listen to my brother's endless histories of imaginary
heroes and their wars and adventures.
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