 applied
and endured, when the most corrosive aquafortis had been used, and failed to
tarnish the ore, that he admitted it genuine and, still in clouded silence,
stamped it with his deep brand of approval.
    I speak not ignorant of these evils.
    Till the date at which the last chapter closes, M. Paul had not been my
professor - he had not given me lessons, but about that time, accidentally
hearing me one day acknowledge an ignorance of some branch of education (I think
it was arithmetic) which would have disgraced a charity-schoolboy, as he very
truly remarked, he took me in hand, examined me first, found me, I need not say,
abundantly deficient, gave me some books and appointed me some tasks.
    He did this at first with pleasure, indeed with unconcealed exultation,
condescending to say that he believed I was »bonne et pas trop faible« (i.e.
well enough disposed, and not wholly destitute of parts) but, owing he supposed
to adverse circumstances, »as yet in a state of wretchedly imperfect mental
development.«
    The beginning of all efforts has indeed with me been marked by a
preternatural imbecility. I never could, even in forming a common acquaintance,
assert or prove a claim to average quickness. A depressing and difficult passage
has prefaced every new page I have turned in life.
    So long as this passage lasted, M. Paul was very kind, very good, very
forbearing; he saw the sharp pain inflicted, and felt the weighty humiliation
imposed by my own sense of incapacity; and words can hardly do justice to his
tenderness and helpfulness. His own eyes would moisten, when tears of shame and
effort clouded mine; burdened as he was with work, he would steal half his brief
space of recreation to give to me.
    But, strange grief! when that heavy and overcast dawn began at last to yield
to day; when my faculties began to struggle themselves free, and my time of
energy and fulfilment came; when I voluntarily doubled, trebled, quadrupled the
tasks he set, to please him as I thought, his kindness became sternness; the
light changed in his eyes from a beam to a spark; he fretted, he opposed, he
curbed me imperiously; the more I did, the harder I worked, the less he seemed
content. Sarcasms of which the severity amazed and puzzled me, harassed my ears;
then flowed out the bitterest inuendoes against the »pride of intellect.« I was
vaguely threatened with, I know not what doom, if I ever trespassed the limits
