'...with the exception of Bible lessons at Sunday school, all my reading was done at home, after the daily task was finished. When not strongly tempted to play I was almost certain to be reading by the summer?s twilight, or by the red embers of the winter fire, my books being chiefly "Wesley?s Journals", "The Armenian Magazine", wherein I found "Maudrell?s Travels from Aleppo to Jerusalem", which I was very much interested by; "An account of the Inquisition in Spain", which filled me with a dislike of Popery; "The Drummer of Tedworth"; "Some account of the Disturbances at Glenluce"; "An account of the apparition of the Laird of Cool", - and other most marvellous narratives which excited my attention, and held me pausing over the ashes until the light was either gone or I was sent to bed. I also got hold of an old superstitious doctoring book, which gave me some unexpected information relative to the human frame, and equally surprised me as to the occult powers of certain herbs and simples, when prepared under supposed planetary aspects. A copy of Cocker?s "Arithmetic" soon after set me to writing figures and casting accounts, in which I made but slow progress; and part of a small volume of "The History of England", which I found in rumaging an old meal ark, gave me the first insight into the chronicles of my native country.'