II. HERNE-HILL ALMOND BLOSSOMS 43

in that property of chapters I count very confidently the most precious, and, on the whole, the one essential part of all my education.¹

And it is perhaps already time to mark what advantage and mischief, by the chances of life up to seven years old, had been irrevocably determined for me.

I will first count my blessings (as a not unwise friend² once recommended me to do, continually; whereas I have a bad trick of always numbering the thorns in my fingers and not the bones in them).

And for best and truest beginning of all blessings, I had been taught the perfect meaning of Peace, in thought, act, and word.

I never had heard my father’s or mother’s voice once raised in any question with each other; nor seen an angry, or even slightly hurt or offended, glance in the eyes of either. I had never heard a servant scolded; nor even suddenly, passionately, or in any severe manner, blamed. I had never seen a moment’s trouble or disorder in any household matter; nor anything whatever either done in a hurry, or undone in due time.³ I had no conception of such a feeling as anxiety; my father’s occasional vexation in the afternoons, when he had only got an order for twelve butts after expecting one for fifteen, as I have just stated, was never manifested to me; and itself related only to the question whether his name would be a step higher or lower in the year’s list of sherry exporters; for the never spent more than half his income, and therefore found himself little incommoded by occasional variations in the total of it. I had never done any wrong that I knew of-beyond occasionally delaying the commitment to heart of some

¹ [See, again, Vol. XXVIII. p. 102, for a passage (not repeated in Præterita) in further illustration.]

² [In his copy of Fors, Ruskin here made the following marginal note:-

“Mr. S. C. Hall! when I saw the ferns shake with Home at Séance.” For the séances in question, see Vol. XVIII. p. xxxi.]

³ [Compare the account of the quietude in Scott’s house, in Fors, Letter 33 (Vol. XXVII. p. 612).]

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