ters or in small
ungilt ones, so you have an eye to read it? For Gneschen, eager to
learn, the very act of looking thereon was a blessedness that gilded
all: his existence was a bright, soft element of Joy; out of which, as
in Prospero's Island, wonder after wonder bodied itself forth, to teach
by charming.

"Nevertheless, I were but a vain dreamer to say, that even then my
felicity was perfect. I had, once for all, come down from Heaven into
the Earth. Among the rainbow colors that glowed on my horizon, lay even
in childhood a dark ring of Care, as yet no thicker than a thread, and
often quite overshone; yet always it reappeared, nay ever waxing broader
and broader; till in after-years it almost overshadowed my whole canopy,
and threatened to engulf me in final night. It was the ring of Necessity
whereby we are all begirt; happy he for whom a kind heavenly Sun
brightens it into a ring of Duty, and plays round it with beautiful
prismatic diffractions; yet ever, as basis and as bourn for our whole
being, it is there.

"For the first few years of our terrestrial Apprenticeship, we have not
much work to do; but, boarded and lodged gratis, are set down mostly
to look about us over the workshop, and see others work, till we have
understood the tools a little, and can handle this and that. If good
Passivity alone, and not good Passivity and good Activity together, were
the thing wanted, then was my early position favorable beyond the most.
In all that respects openness of Sense, affectionate Temper, ingenuous
Curiosity, and the fostering of these, what more could I have wished?
On the other side, however, things went not so well. My Active Power
(_Thatkraft_) was unfavorably hemmed in; of which misfortune how many
traces yet abide with me! In an orderly house, where the litter of
children's sports is hateful enough, your training is too stoical;
rather to bear and forbear than to make and do. I was forbid much:
wishes in any measure bold I had to renounce; everywhere a strait bond
of Obedience inflexibly held me down. Thus already Freewill often came
in painful collision with Necessity; so that my tears flowed, and at
seasons the Child itself might taste that root of bitterness, wherewith
the whole fruitage of our life is mingled and tempered.

"In which habituation to Obedience, truly, it was beyond measure safer
to err by excess than by defect. Obedience is our universal duty and
destiny; wherein whoso will not bend must