by a certain name--one generally derived from some object in the
animal or vegetable world, and pointing to a resemblance which was
not often patent to any eye but the master's own. He had given the
name of Peachy, for instance to William Wilson, because, like the
kangaroo, he sought his object in a succession of awkward, yet not
the less availing leaps--gulping his knowledge and pocketing his
conquered marble after a like fashion. Mappy, the name which thus
belonged to a certain flaxen haired, soft eyed girl, corresponds
to the English bunny. Sheltie is the small Scotch mountain pony,
active and strong. Peery means pegtop. But not above a quarter of
the children had pet names. To gain one was to reach the highest
honour of the school; the withdrawal of it was the severest of
punishments, and the restoring of it the sign of perfect reconciliation.
The master permitted no one else to use it, and was seldom known
to forget himself so far as to utter it while its owner was in
disgrace. The hope of gaining such a name, or the fear of losing
it, was in the pupil the strongest ally of the master, the most
powerful enforcement of his influences. It was a scheme of government
by aspiration. But it owed all its operative power to the character
of the man who had adopted rather than invented it--for the scheme
had been suggested by a certain passage in the book of the Revelation.

Without having read a word of Swedenborg, he was a believer in the
absolute correspondence of the inward and outward; and, thus long
before the younger Darwin arose, had suspected a close relationship
--remote identity, indeed, in nature and history, between the
animal and human worlds. But photographs from a good many different
points would be necessary to afford anything like a complete notion
of the character of this country schoolmaster.