Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: RECOLLECTIONS FRANCIS BOOTT It has occurred to me, very late in life, to put down a few hints of my experiences during a long period. The only one to whom such a species of autobiography could possibly be interesting would be my sole surviving rampollo, F. B. D. For we are all (or should be) interested in our
forebears, especially in those in whom we could trace a similarity to our own natures, and in learning their success or failure in combating with the obstacles that beset them in their life-journeys, ? obstacles whether caused by circumstances and surroundings or by the qualities fostered in them by their ancestors. Dr. Holmes has wittily said, for success in life you must first choose your parents! This savors of fatalism; and indeed it is hard for a logician to avoid such a conclusion when we see everywhere about us such extraordinary differences in qualities and endowments by nature, which can often be traced directly to parents and, through them, to a remoter source. Whatever you may have inherited from remote sources, my dear F., you could not have chosen better parents if you had followed Dr. Holmes’s directions?You might have searched the world in vain for finer natures. I can say the same of your maternal grandmother and great-grandmother,‘? i. e., my wife and mother. My father, Francis Boott, was born in Derby, England. His father (F. B.) was the oldest son of F. B. and brother of a large family of brothers and sisters. Among these Kirk Boott, my great- uncle, was the most distinguished. When about twenty-eight he went to London in search of fortune. After a year there he was advised by his friend, John Wright, of Exeter, to go to Boston, and was assisted by him to do so. His example was followed by his friend, William Pratt, also of Derby, the grandfathe…