I cannot help dwelling on this delicious period of my life; when as yet I
had known no sorrow, nor experienced any worldly care. I have since studied
much, both of books and men, and of course have grown too wise to be so
easily pleased; yet with all my wisdom, I must confess I look back with a
secret feeling of regret to the days of happy ignorance before I had begun
to be a philosopher.

* * * * *

It must be evident that I was in a hopeful training for one who was to
descend into the arena of life, and wrestle with the world. The tutor,
also, who superintended my studies in the more advanced stage of my
education, was just fitted to complete the _fata morgana_ which was
forming in my mind. His name was Glencoe. He was a pale, melancholy-looking
man, about forty years of age; a native of Scotland, liberally educated,
and who had devoted himself to the instruction of youth from taste rather
than necessity; for, as he said, he loved the human heart, and delighted to
study it in its earlier impulses. My two elder sisters, having returned
home from a city boarding-school, were likewise placed under his care, to
direct their reading in history and belles-lettres.

We all soon became attached to Glencoe. It is true, we were at first
somewhat prepossessed against him. His meager, pallid countenance, his
broad pronunciation, his inattention to the little forms of society, and an
awkward and embarrassed manner, on first acquaintance, were much against
him; but we soon discovered that under this unpromising exterior existed
the kindest urbanity of temper; the warmest sympathies; the most
enthusiastic benevolence. His mind was ingenious and acute. His reading had
been various, but more abstruse than profound; his memory was stored, on
all subjects, with facts, theories, and quotations, and crowded with crude