(Chapter I./4.

The story is given in the "Life and Letters," I., page 28, the details being slightly different.) At this time I felt very strong friendship for some boys.

It was soon after I began collecting stones, i.e., when 9 or 10, that I distinctly recollect the desire I had of being able to know something about every pebble in front of the hall door--it was my earliest and only geological aspiration at that time.
I was in those days a very great story-teller--for the pure pleasure of exciting attention and surprise.

I stole fruit and hid it for these same motives, and injured trees by barking them for similar ends.

I scarcely ever went out walking without saying I had seen a pheasant or some strange bird (natural history taste); these lies, when not detected, I presume, excited my attention, as I recollect them vividly, not connected with shame, though some I do, but as something which by having produced a great effect on my mind, gave pleasure like a tragedy.