consecrated apart in the dearest thoughts of thousands were familiars
and playmates of my childhood; they supported my youth and bade my
manhood godspeed. But to me, for a long while, the favor of these
gracious giants of mind and character seemed agreeable indeed, but
nothing out of the ordinary; my tacit presumption was that other
children as well as I could if they would walk hand in hand with
Emerson along the village street, seek in the meadows for arrow-heads
with Thoreau, watch Powers thump the brown clay of the "Greek Slave,"
or listen to the voice of Charlotte Cushman, which could sway
assembled thousands, modulate itself to tell stories to the urchin who
leaned, rapt, against her knees. Were human felicity so omnipresent
as a happy child imagines it, what a world would this be!

In time, my misapprehension was corrected, rather, I think, through
the application to it of cold logic than by any rude awakening. I
learned of my riches not by losing them--the giants did not withdraw
their graciousness--but by comparing the lot of others with my own.
And yet, to tell the truth--perhaps I might better leave it untold;
only in these chapters, especially, I will not begin with reserves--to
say truth, then, my world, during my father's lifetime, and afterwards
for I will not say how long, was divided into two natural parts, my
father being one of them, and everybody else the other. Hence I was
led to regard the parties of the latter part, rich or poor, giants or
pygmies, as being, after all, of much the same stature and value. The
brightness (in the boy's estimation) of the paternal figure rendered
distinctions between other brightnesses unimportant. The upshot was,
in short, that I inclined to the opinion that while compassion was
unquestionably due to other children for not having a father like
mine, yet in other respects my condition was not egregiously superior
to theirs. They might not know the Brownings or the Julia Ward Howes;