They were all blank.
"Undoubtedly that is an advantage.

But then, it hardly seems to me to be a treatise." "No: but it will be when you have written it." "I ?" "Certainly, you intend to train Tristram in accordance with nature.
On what do we base our knowledge of nature?
On experiment and observation.

For many reasons your experiments with the child must be limited; but you can observe him daily--hourly, if you like.
In this volume you shall record your observations from day to day, _nulla dies sine linea_.

It is the first present I make to him, as his godfather: and in doing so I set you down to write the most valuable book in the world, a complete History of a Human Creature." Captain Barker took the volume.
"But I shall never live to finish it." "We hope not.

The beauty, however, of this history will be that at any point in its progress we may consult it for Tristram's good, and learn all that, up to that point, God has given us eyes to see.
It may be that in deciding to make him a gardener we have been mistaken.