confidence in myself, and to try to win the companionship of the other
children. But a sudden change took place in my schoolmates, who grew
envious of the preference shown me by the teachers. Since they could no
longer ridicule me for the carelessness of my dress, they now began to
reproach me for my vanity, and to call me a coquette, who only thought of
pleasing through appearances. This blow was altogether too hard for me to
bear. I knew that they were wrong: for, with all the care I bestowed on my
dress, it was not half so fine as theirs; as I had but two calico dresses,
which I wore alternately, a week at a time, through the summer. I was
again repelled from them; and at noon, when the rest of the scholars went
home, I remained with my teacher-friend in the schoolroom, assisting him
in correcting the exercises of the pupils. I took the opportunity to tell
him of the curious envy that had taken possession of the girls; upon which
he began to explain to me human nature and its fallacies, drawing
inferences therefrom for personal application. He found a ready listener
in me. My inclination to abstract thought, combined with the unpleasant
experience I had had in life, made me an attentive pupil, and fitted me to
comprehend his reasoning in the broadest sense. For fifteen months, I thus
spent the noon-hour with him in the schoolroom; receiving lessons in and
reasoning upon concrete and abstract matters, that have since proved of
far more psychologic value to me than ten years of reading on the same
subjects could do. A strong attachment grew up between us: he became a
necessity to me, and I revered him like an oracle. But his health failed;
and he left the school at the end of these fifteen months, in a
consumption. Shortly after, he sent to the school for me one morning to
ask me to visit him on his deathbed. I was not permitted to leave the
class until noon; when, just as I was preparing to go, a messenger came to
inform the principal that he had died at eleven. This blow fell so heavily
upon me, that I wished to leave the school at once. I was forced to stay
three weeks longer, until the end of the quarter; when I left the