the light of a Pariah, and put on insufferably superior airs when they
saw me. So, like Veronica, I amused myself, and passed days on the
sea-shore, or in the fields and woods, mother keeping me in long
enough to make a square of patchwork each day and to hear her read
a Psalm--a duty which I bore with patience, by guessing when the
"Selahs" would come in, and counting them. But wherever I was, or
whatever I did, no feeling of beauty ever stole into my mind. I never
turned my face up to the sky to watch the passing of a cloud, or mused
before the undulating space of sea, or looked down upon the earth with
the curiosity of thought, or spiritual aspiration. I was moved and
governed by my sensations, which continually changed, and passed
away--to come again, and deposit vague ideas which ignorantly haunted
me. The literal images of all things which I saw were impressed on my
shapeless mind, to be reproduced afterward by faculties then latent.
But what satisfaction was that? Doubtless the ideal faculty was
active in Veronica from the beginning; in me it was developed by the
experience of years. No remembrance of any ideal condition comes with
the remembrance of my childish days, and I conclude that my mind, if I
had any, existed in so rudimental a state that it had little influence
upon my character.






CHAPTER IV.


One afternoon in the following July, tired of walking in the mown