]
I said I should like to tell you some things, such as people commonly
never tell, about my early recollections. Should you like to hear them?
Should we _like_ to hear them?--said the schoolmistress;--no, but we
should _love_ to.
[The voice was a sweet one, naturally, and had something very pleasant in
its tone, just then.--The four-story brick house, which had gone out like
a transparency when the light behind it is quenched, glimmered again for a
moment; parlor, books, busts, flower-pots, bird-cages, all complete,--and
the figures as before.]
We are waiting with eagerness, Sir,--said the divinity-student.
[The transparency went out as if a flash of black lightning had struck
it.]
If you want to hear my confessions, the next thing--I said--is to know
whether I can trust you with them. It is only fair to say that there are a
great many people in the world that laugh at such things. _I_ think they
are fools, but perhaps you don't all agree with me.
Here are children of tender age talked to as if they were capable of
understanding Calvin's "Institutes," and nobody has honesty or sense
enough to tell the plain truth about the little wretches: that they are as
superstitious as naked savages, and such miserable spiritual cowards--that
is, if they have any imagination--that they will believe anything which is
taught them, and a great deal more which they teach themselves.
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