About this time, my father, who was a
good violinist, took me under his tuition. He made me practice
on the violin about an hour and a half a day. I continued this
for a long time. But the result was failure. I hated the
violin, and would never play unless compelled to do so. I
suppose the secret was that I had no 'ear.'
"It was different with subjects more to my mind. Looking over my
father's books one day, I came upon Gregory's 'Handbook of
Inorganic Chemistry,' and began reading it. I was fascinated
with the book, and studied it morning, noon, and night--in fact,
every time when I could snatch a few minutes. I really believe
that at one time I could have repeated the whole of the book from
memory. Now I found the value of arithmetic, and set to work in
earnest on proportion, vulgar and decimal fractions, and, in
fact, everything in school work that I could turn to account in
the science of chemistry. The result of this sudden application
was that I was seized with an illness. For some months I had
incessant headache; my hair became dried up, then turned grey,
and finally came off. Weighing myself shortly after my recovery,
at the age of fifteen, I found that I just balanced fifty-six
pounds. I took up mensuration, then astronomy, working at them
slowly, but giving the bulk of my spare time to chemistry.
"In the year 1869, when I was sixteen years old, I came across
Cuthbert Bede's book, entitled 'Photographic Pleasures.
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