was naughty he was whipped. It may have been from this unpleasant
discipline that he derived the contempt for self-indulgence, and the
indifference to pain, which distinguished him in after life. On the
other hand, he was allowed to read what he liked, and devoured
Grimm's Tales, The Seven Champions of Christendom, and The Arabian
Nights. He was an imaginative and reflective child, full of the
wonder in which philosophy begins.

The boy felt from the first the romantic beauty of his home.
Dartington Rectory, some two miles from Totnes, is surrounded by
woods which overhang precipitously the clear waters of the River
Dart. Dartington Hall, which stood near the rectory, is one of the
oldest houses in England, originally built before the Conquest, and
completed with great magnificence in the reign of Richard II. The
vast banqueting-room was, in the nineteenth century, a ruin, and
open to the sky. The remains of the old quadrangle were a treasure
to local antiquaries, and the whole place was full of charm for an
imaginative boy. Mr. Champernowne, the owner, was an intimate friend
of the Archdeacon, to whom he left the guardianship of his children,
so that the Froudes were as much at home in their squire's house as
in the parsonage itself. Although most of his brothers and sisters
were too old to be his companions, the group in which his first
years were passed was an unusually spirited and vivacious one.
Newman, who was one of Hurrell's visitors from Oxford, has described
the young girls "blooming and in high spirits," full of gaiety and charm.*

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* Newman's Letters and Correspondence, ii. 73.
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