Ill
BOYHOOD
1843-1848
if The more we live, more brief appear
Our life's returning stages : A day to childhood seems a year, And years like passing ages."
— THOMAS CAMPBELL.
" Oh if, in time of sacred youth,
We learned at home to love and pray, Pray Heaven that early Love and Truth May never wholly pass away."
— THACKERAY.
MY mother took me to Harnish Rectory on July 28, 1843. The aspect of Mr. Kilvert, his tall figure, and red hair encircling a high bald forehead, was not reassuring, nor were any temptations offered by my companions (who were almost entirely of a rich middle class), or by the playground, which was a little gravelled courtyard — the stable-yard, in fact, at the back of the house, The Rectory itself was a small house, pleasantly situated on a hill, near an odd little Wrenian church which stood in a well-kept churchyard. We were met at Harnish by Mrs. Pile, who, as daughter of an Alton farmer, was connected with the happiest period of my mother's life, and while I was a prey to the utmost anguish, talking to her pre-bare: there was no fruit left to gat her.