the Egypt of antiquity, at a later time, exercised a mysterious
fascination over me. I recognized a picture of it immediately, without
hesitation and astonishment, in an illustrated magazine. I saluted as
old acquaintances two gods with hawk heads that were cut in profile
upon a stone and placed at each end of a strangely depicted Zodiac,
and although I saw the picture for the first time upon an overcast day,
there came to me, and of that I am sure, a sudden impression of great
heat given out by a pitiless sun.

CHAPTER XXVI.

During the winter following the departure of my brother, I passed many
of my leisure hours in his room painting the pictures in the "Voyage to
Polynesia" which he had given me. With great care I first colored the
flowers and the groups of birds. After that I painted the men. When I
came to color the two young Tahitian girls who were standing at the edge
of the sea (the illustrator had been inspired to depict them as nymphs)
I made them white, all white and pink like a pretty little doll--I
thought them very beautiful done so.

It was reserved for me to learn later than their color is different, and
their charms quite otherwise.

My ideas of beauty have changed a great deal since that time, and it
would have astonished me very much if I had then been told what faces
I was to find most charming in the strange course of my later life. But
almost all children are under the dominion of some fancy which dies out
when they become men and women.

The majority of people, during the period of their innocence and youth,
similarly admire the same type; sweet, regular features, and the fresh
pink and white tints. Only at a later time does their estimate of what
constitutes beauty vary, then it accords with the culture of their
spirit, and especially does it follow in the wake of their developing
intelligence.

CHAPTER XXVII.

I do not exactly remember at what period I started my museum which
absorbed so much of my time. Just above my Aunt Bertha's room there was
a tiny garret-chamber that I had taken possession of; the chief charm of
the place was the window that opened to the west, and commanded a view
of the ramparts and its old trees. The reddish spots in the distance,
that broke the uniform green of the meadows, were herds of wandering
oxen and cows. I had persuaded my mother to paper this attic room, and
she had covered its walls with a pinkish chamois paper which is still
the