Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea (Google Books ⧉, Amazon ⧉, Bookshop ⧉)

Middlemarch

All this was true of him at ten years of age; he had then read through 'Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea,' which was neither milk for babes, nor any chalky mixture meant to pass for milk, and it had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid.