energetically to reproducing the needful costumes and masks in my
grotesque style of painting, the more elegant contents of my
sisters' wardrobes, in the beautifying of which I had often seen
the family occupied, exercised a subtle charm over my
imagination; nay, my heart would beat madly at the very touch of
one of their dresses.

In spite of the fact that, as I already mentioned, our family was
not given to outward manifestations of affection, yet the fact
that I was brought up entirely among feminine surroundings must
necessarily have influenced the development of the sensitive side
of my nature. Perhaps it was precisely because my immediate
circle was generally rough and impetuous, that the opposite
characteristics of womanhood, especially such as were connected
with the imaginary world of the theatre, created a feeling of
such tender longing in me.

Luckily these fantastic humours, merging from the gruesome into
the mawkish, were counteracted and balanced by more serious
influences undergone at school at the hands of my teachers and
schoolfellows. Even there, it was chiefly the weird that aroused
my keenest interest. I can hardly judge whether I had what would
be called a good head for study. I think that, in general, what I
really liked I was soon able to grasp without much effort,
whereas I hardly exerted myself at all in the study of subjects
that were uncongenial. This characteristic was most marked in
regard to arithmetic and, later on, mathematics. In neither of
these subjects did I ever succeed in bringing my mind seriously
to bear upon the tasks that were set me. In the matter of the
Classics, too, I paid only just as much attention as was