.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. I
recollect when I was at Mr. Case's inventing a whole fabric to show how
fond I was of speaking the TRUTH! My invention is still so vivid in my
mind, that I could almost fancy it was true, did not memory of former
shame tell me it was false. I have no particularly happy or unhappy
recollections of this time or earlier periods of my life. I remember
well a walk I took with a boy named Ford across some fields to a
farmhouse on the Church Stretton road. I do not remember any mental
pursuits excepting those of collecting stones, etc., gardening, and
about this time often going with my father in his carriage, telling him
of my lessons, and seeing game and other wild birds, which was a great
delight to me. I was born a naturalist.

When I was 9 1/2 years old (July 1818) I went with Erasmus to see
Liverpool: it has left no impressions on my mind, except most trifling
ones--fear of the coach upsetting, a good dinner, and an extremely vague
memory of ships.

In Midsummer of this year I went to Dr. Butler's School. (Chapter I./5.
Darwin entered Dr. Butler's school in Shrewsbury in the summer of 1818,
and remained there till 1825 ("Life and Letters," I., page 30).) I well
recollect the first going there, which oddly enough I cannot of going to
Mr. Case's, the first school of all. I remember the year 1818 well,
not from having first gone to a public school, but from writing those
figures in my school book, accompanied with obscure thoughts, now
fulfilled, whether I should recollect in future life that year.

In September (1818) I was ill with the scarlet fever. I well remember
the wretched feeling of being delirious.

1819, July (10 1/2 years old).

Went to the sea at Plas Edw