Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/123

Rh He was taken home in September, but such was the effect of the unwholesome position of his father's house, of its overcrowding, and of mistakes in his diet, that he had glandular swellings ending in suppuration. His brain was strong and active, and at school would blaze away for a few days until he was completely exhausted, when he would stay at home and lie on the sofa three or four days till the nervous energy was recruited. (These alternating periods of vivacity and exhaustion continued throughout his life.) He thus records an incident of his childhood, as an example of the influence which a passing observation of a sensible servant may exercise on the mind of an earnest, thoughtful child:

About this time one of my mother's servants from whom I received sincere sympathy, observing my feeble condition, said, "O laddie, you should never marry." Young as I was, I understood her meaning, and her remark made an indelible impression on me.

The train of thought which, late in life, Combe gave to the world in his essay upon "Religion and Science" was started by an incident of his early childhood. When six or seven years old he was given a lump of candy. The nurse-girl asked him to share it with his brothers and sisters, which he did. The girl then assured him that God would reward him for it. When he asked her "How?" she told him God would send him everything that was good. Should he get more candy? he inquired. Yes the girl told him, if he was a good boy. Would the piece he had left grow bigger? "Yes," was the reply, "God always rewards the kind-hearted." So the remaining piece was carefully wrapped in paper and put in a drawer and left all night. The next morning he examined it with eager curiosity, but no change could be discovered in it, and he had the bitterness to find that he had been benevolent at his own expense. His faith in the reward of virtue received a shock, and it was a long time before he learned the true nature of Divine rewards for good deeds.

While still a child, he saw a man and woman walking near the verge of the highest part of Salisbury Crags. Soon an alarm was given that the man had pushed the woman over the precipice and she was killed. The man fled down the northeast slope of the hill and never was discovered. Combe says his imagination was haunted by the recollection of this scene; and he was terrified to go to sleep lest he should see the murdered woman's ghost. The belief in ghosts was universal in his juvenile circle, and a sore superstition it was, for he held "every belief to be as true as the most indubitable facts." Another striking event of his early boyhood awakened in him a sense of the mistakes of Government. Two sons of a poor widow, whom his father had helped, poured forth their gratitude in every form of kindness to his father's children. One of them had been to Greenland in a whale-ship and he delighted young George with accounts of the perils and excitements of whale-fishing. Paid spies of the press-gang gave