It was the fitting inauguration of a position and a
sphere of work which was henceforth to be attended, for me, with
perpetual and never-ending strife.
But as to this family and all its members, my earnest unbending
maintenance of my resolve had a most wholesome effect upon them, even to
winning in the end their comprehension and approval, though this was
later and long after I had quitted the situation. It was ten or eleven
years afterwards--that is, four or five years after my departure--that
the mother of these lads expressed her entire approval of the adamantine
perseverance I had exhibited in my convictions.
I entered my new sphere of educational work in July 1807. I was
twenty-five years old, as far as years went, but younger by several
years in regard to the development of my character. I neither felt
myself so old as I was, nor indeed had I any conception or realisation
of my age. I was only conscious of the strength and striving of my life,
the extent of my mental culture, the circumstances of my experience in
the world, and especially of--what shall I call it?--the shiftlessness
and undeveloped state of my culture as far as its helplessness with the
external world was concerned, of my ignorance of life both as to what it
really was, and how it showed in its outer aspect.
Pages:
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137