Passy, of my dear dead father and mother and Madame Seraskier.

For the first term or two they were ever in my thoughts, and I was
always trying to draw their profiles on desks and slates and copybooks,
till at last all resemblance seemed to fade out of them; and then I drew
M. le Major till his side face became quite demoralized and impossible,
and ceased to be like anything in life. Then I fell back on others: le
Pere Francois, with his eternal _bonnet de colon_ and sabots stuffed
with straw; the dog Medor, the rocking-horse, and all the rest of the
menagerie; the diligence that brought me away from Paris; the heavily
jack-booted couriers in shiny hats and pigtails, and white breeches, and
short-tailed blue coats covered with silver buttons, who used to ride
through Passy, on their way to and fro between the Tuileries and St.
Cloud, on little, neighing, gray stallions with bells round their necks
and tucked-up tails, and beautiful heads like the horses' heads in the
Elgin Marbles.

In my sketches they always looked and walked and trotted the same way:
to the left, or westward as it would be on the map. M. le Major, Madame
Seraskier, Medor, the diligences and couriers, were all bound westward
by common consent--all going to London, I suppose, to look after me, who
was so dotingly fond of them.

Some of the boys used to admire these sketches and preserve them--some
of the bigger boys would value my idealized (!) profiles of Madame
Seraskier, with eyelashes quite an inch in length, and an eye three
times the size of her mouth; and thus I made myself an artistic
reputation for a while. But it did not last long, for my vein was
limited; and soon another boy came to the school, who surpassed me in
variety and interest of subject, and could draw profiles looking either