respected. What perversion of ideas! What confusion in the heart,
the brain, in all my little being, intelligent and moral!- let any
one, I say, if possible, imagine all this, for I am incapable of
giving the least idea of what passed in my mind at that period.

  My reason was not sufficiently established to enable me to put
myself in the place of others, and judge how much appearances
condemned me, I only beheld the rigor of a dreadful chastisement,
inflicted for a crime I had not committed; yet I can truly affirm, the
smart I suffered, though violent, was inconsiderable to what I felt
from indignation, rage, and despair. My cousin, who was almost in
similar circumstances, having been punished for an involuntary
fault, as guilty of a premeditated crime, became furious by my
example. Both in the same bed, we embraced each other with
convulsive transport; we were almost suffocated; and when our young
hearts found sufficient relief to breathe out our indignation, we
sat up in the bed, and with all our force, repeated a hundred times,
Carnifex! Carnifex! Carnifex! Executioner, tormentor.

  Even while I write this I feel my pulse quicken, and should I live a
hundred thousand years, the agitation of that moment would still be
fresh in my memory. The first instance of violence and oppression is
so deeply engraven on my soul, that every relative idea renews my
emotion: the sentiment of indignation, which in its origin had
reference only to myself, has acquired such strength, and is at
present so completely detached from personal motives, that my heart is
as much inflamed at the sight or relation of any act of injustice
(whatever may be the object, or wheresoever it may be perpetrated)
as if I was the immediate sufferer. When I read the history of a
merciless tyrant, or the dark and the subtle machination of a
knavish designing priest, I could on the instant set off to stab the
miscreants, though I was certain to perish in the attempt.

  I have frequently fatigued myself by running after and stoning a
cock, a cow, a dog, or any animal I saw tormenting another, only
because it was conscious of possessing superior strength. This may
be natural to me, and I am inclined to believe it is, though the
lively impression of the first injustice I became the victim of was
too long and too powerfully remembered not to have added
considerable force to it.

  This occurrence terminated my infantine serenity; from that moment I
ceased to enjoy a pure unadulterated happiness, and on a retrospection
of the pleasures of my childhood, I yet feel they ended here. We
continued at Bossey some months after this event, but were like our
first parents in the Garden of Eden after they had lost their
innocence; in appearance our situation was the same, in effect it
was totally different.

  Affection, respect, intimacy, confidence, no longer attached the
pupils to their guides; we beheld them no longer as divinities, who
could read the secrets of our hearts; we were less ashamed of
committing faults, more afraid of being accused of them: we learned to
dissemble, to rebel, to lie: all the vices common to our years began
to corrupt our happy innocence, mingle with our sports, and embitter
our amusements. The country itself, losing those sweet and simple
charms which captivate the heart, appeared a gloomy desert, or covered
with a veil that concealed its beauties. We cultivated our little
gardens no more: our flowers were neglected. We no longer scratched
away the mold, and broke out into exclamations of delight, on
discovering that the grain we had sown began to shoot. We were
disgusted with our situation; our preceptors were weary of us. In a
word, my uncle wrote for our return, and we left Mr. and Miss
Lambercier without feeling any regret at the separation.

  Near thirty years passed away from my leaving Bossey, without once
recalling the place to my mind with any degree of satisfaction; but
after having passed the prime of life, as I decline into old age
(while more recent occurrences are wearing out apace) I feel these
remembrances revive and imprint themselves on my heart, with a force
and charm that every day acquires fresh strength; as if, feeling
life flee from me, I endeavored to catch it again by its commencement.
The most trifling incidents of those happy days delight me, for no
other reason than being of those days, I recall every circumstance
of time, place, and persons; I see the maid or footman busy in the
chamber, a swallow entering the window, a fly settling on my hand
while repeating my lesson. I see the whole economy of the apartment;
on the right hand Mr. Lambercier's closet, with a print representing
all the popes, a barometer, a large almanac, the windows of the
house (which stood in a hollow at the bottom of the garden) shaded
by raspberry shrubs, whose shoots sometimes found entrance; I am
sensible the reader has no occasion to know all this, but I feel a
kind of necessity for relating it. Why am I not permitted to recount
all the little anecdotes of that thrice happy age, at the recollection
of whose joys I even tremble with delight? Five or six particularly-
let us compromise the matter- I will give up five, but then I must
have one, and only one, provided I may draw it out to its utmost
length, in order to prolong my satisfaction.

  If I only sought yours, I should choose that of Miss Lambercier's
backside, which, by an unlucky fall at the bottom of the meadow, was
exposed to the view of the King of Sardinia, who happened to be
passing by; but that of the walnut tree on the terrace is more amusing
to me, since here I was an actor, whereas, in the above-mentioned
scene I was only a spectator, and I must confess I see nothing that
should occasion risibility in an accident, which, however laughable in
itself, alarmed me for a person I loved as a mother, or perhaps
something more.

  Ye curious readers, whose expectations are already on the stretch