received was
invaluable. He has confirmed me in the doctrine of the innate goodness
of human nature. Since the period to which I am alluding, I have seen
much of villainy. I have been the victim, as well as the witness of
treachery. I have been oftentimes forced to associate with vice in
every shape; and yet when in misery, when oppressed, when writhing under
tyranny, I have been sometimes tempted to curse my race, the thought of
the kind, the good old man, has come over me like a visitation from
heaven, and my malediction has been changed into a prayer, if not into a
blessing.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A DISASTER BY WATER IS THE FIRST CAUSE OF ALL RALPH'S FUTURE DISASTERS
UPON IT--HE GETS WITH HIS TUTOR OUT OF HIS DEPTH, IN LATITUDE AND
LONGITUDE; AND FINDS HIMSELF RIVALLED BY THE MAN WITH THE PEG.

Of course, Mr R sought and soon gained the friendship of Mrs Cherfeuil
and then he commenced operations systematically. Now he would endeavour
to take her by surprise--now to overcome by entreaty--and then to entrap
by the most complex cross questions. He would be, by turns, tender,
gallant, pathetic, insinuating; but all was of no avail--her secret,
whatever it was, was firmly secured in her own bosom. With well-acted
simplicity she gave my worthy friend the same barren account about me
that was at the service of all interrogators.

What poems did not Mr R and myself write together--how he prophesied my
future greatness, and how fervently he set about to convince anyone of
the mistake, who could not see in me the future glory of the age! The
good man! His amiable _self-deception_ was to him the source of the
purest happiness; and never was happiness more deserved. Even at that
early age, I often could not help smiling at his simplicity, that all
the while he was doing his best to make me one of the vainest and most
egregious coxcombs, by his unfeigned wonder at some puny effort of my
puny muse, and by his injudicious praises; he would lecture me
parentally, by the hour, upon the excellence of humility, and the
absolute necessity of modesty, as a principal ingredient to make a great
character.

However, I had my correction at home, in my wooden-legged preceptor; if
I returned from R's, in my own imagination, like poor Gil Blas, the
eighth wonder of the world, he would soon, in his own refined
phraseology, convince me that I was "no great shakes." Being now nearly
sixteen, I began to make conjectures upon m