Digitised Manuscripts and Books

yet, and I confess it with shame and remorse, I often behaved outrageously by sulking when she scolded me, however much I deserved it.

Most children whose conditions of life were similar to those in which I was placed, have much the same kind of existence and much the same experiences. The surroundings may vary and, according to the nature, the qualities and defects of the child, his future will be differently affected by his early training. Trite as the statement is, too much stress cannot be laid on the fact that the idiosyncracies of a child should be studied by those who are interested in his future welfare. When we arrive at maturity we are apt to ignore how intensely acute are the feelings of a child – its feelings of joy and pain – especially when he is of an emotional and sensitive disposition. We all look back with the same fondness to the hours we spent in the arms of our Mothers, and with those, be it brothers, sisters or playmates who initiated us into our first amusements, or with our masters who guided our first steps and kindled our first thoughts. We also look back with the same regret to the poor return we made for the care and affection lavished on us, but at the sametime we are too apt to forget that the effect which our early tuition has made on our character is permanent.

As soon as I was able to read I devoured books with insatiable voracity; fairy-tales first, then romances and novels. Hoffman’s tales and others of a similar kind increased the nervousness and dreaminess of my disposition, which lasted until I was well on in my teens. I fully believed that a narrow white passage which led from the nursery to the schoolroom was tenanted by fairies, and that the ghosts of the dead hovered over their graves in the churchyard, past which I never drove without deep dread. The sweep, a tall, spare, middle-aged man, always covered with soot and who continued many years in the performance of his duties, inspired me with indescribable fear. When I heard him rumbling in the chimney I shuddered all over, and when I met him out of doors I fled to the other side of the street. He was a supernatural being in my timid young eyes, for he was as black from head to foot as if he had emerged directly from the infernal regions, and his eyes gleamed horribly. No wonder I recoiled from this ghostly apparition for I was warned that if I misbehaved myself, the sweep would come and take me away. A strange sensation of awe crept over me too when the lamplighter lit the sparse oil lamps in the street, and the melancholy voice of the watchman chaunted the hour. Then I turned with a sense of relief from the window where I had long watched, and hurried to my Mother’s room, there to nestle at her feet while she worked at some tapestry chairs. I still have a settee made by her hands, in the designing of which she consulted me.

Soon after my Mother had taught me to spell I was handed over to my Sisters’ French governess, and the family tutor, Dr. Creuznach, a native of Frankfort. He was an undersized, squat, very plain man, but as gentle as a dove, and having the knack of inspiring his pupils with a taste for the classical knowledge which he himself possessed in an eminent degree. He also instructed us in the first principles