ditions in
1823, I select two, which are at once the most definite among them, and
also have a bearing on my later convictions.

1. "I used to wish the Arabian Tales were true: my imagination ran on
unknown influences, on magical powers, and talismans.... I thought life
might be a dream, or I an Angel, and all this world a deception, my
fellow-angels by a playful device concealing themselves from me, and
deceiving me with the semblance of a material world."

Again: "Reading in the Spring of 1816 a sentence from [Dr. Watts's]
'Remnants of Time,' entitled 'the Saints unknown to the world,' to the
effect, that 'there is nothing in their figure or countenance to
distinguish them,' &c., &c., I supposed he spoke of Angels who lived in
the world, as it were disguised."

2. The other remark is this: "I was very superstitious, and for some
time previous to my conversion" [when I was fifteen] "used constantly to
cross myself on going into the dark."

Of course I must have got this practice from some external source or
other; but I can make no sort of conjecture whence; and certainly no one
had ever spoken to me on the subject of the Catholic religion, which I
only knew by name. The French master was an _emigre_ Priest, but he was
simply made a butt, as French masters too commonly were in that day, and
spoke English very imperfectly. There was a Catholic family in the
village, old maiden ladies we used to think; but I knew nothing about
them. I have of late years heard that there were one or two Catholic
boys in the school; but either we were carefully kept from knowing this,
or the knowledge of it made simply no impression on our minds. My
brother will bear witness how free the school was from Catholic ideas.

I had once been into Warwick Street Chapel, with my father, who, I
believe, wanted to hear some piece of music; all that I bore away from
it was the recollection of a pulpit and a preacher, and a boy swinging a
censer.

When I was at Littlemore, I was looking over old copy-books of my school
days, and I found among them my first Latin verse-book; and in the first
page of it there was a device which almost took my breath away with
surprise. I have the book before me now, and have just been showing it
to others. I have written in the first page, in my school-boy hand,
"John. H. Newman, February 11th, 1811, Verse Book;" then follow my first
Verses. Between "Verse" and "Book" I have drawn the figure of a solid
cross upri