?When about fourteen years old a comrade lent me a few stray numbers of the "London Journal", a highly spiced periodical which I read with great gusto. It was full of adventures, of mild, romantic stories depicting duels and battles, deeds of daring, hairbreadth escapes by land and sea, the heroes being banditti, pirates, robbers and outlaws. This stirred my blood and excited the youthful imagination. When my father caught me reading it he gently chided me for wasting my time on such rubbishy stuff. Wretched garbage no doubt it was, yet, after all, perhaps the time given to it was not wholly wasted. No useful information, indeed, was gained, but I was acquiring facility in reading and laying hold of the golden key which would open to me the rich treasures of a great literature.?