My painful timidity made the classes somewhat of a trial to me; I felt ill beforehand at the thought of having to answer questions in public as it were, I hated to have to play the piano before people, and as for an examination, I should never have been able to pass even a very easy one! I have been the same my whole life long, and I laughed heartily one day at the perspicacity of one of our Ministers, who after accompanying me on a visit to some school, told me with a smile, when the inspection, speech-making, and prize-giving were all happily over, that he believed there had been only one person who felt intimidated in the whole assembly, and that was myself! It was quite true; I was afraid to put any questions to the children lest they should answer wrong, and was much too anxious on their behalf, to pay any attention to what they did say. On such occasions I always remember my own troubles with those wretched chronological tables, with which my poor memory was to be burdened! And then the horrors of arithmetic! The cells, whose function it should be to deal with numbers and calculations, must be altogether lacking in my brain! Perhaps if such dreary subjects could have been taught me in verse, I might have learnt something, for it is hard for me to forget any little tag of verse I have ever heard, and I remember every one of those that formed a summary of the chapters in our first simple little books of history. If only they had thought of teaching me dates in rhyme, I should not be so shockingly ignorant as I have remained to this day! It was I suppose, because of my intense love of poetry, and that I felt so perfectly in my native element there, that my shyness always left me directly I had to read aloud or recite. I felt sure of myself then, and threw myself with passion into the verses I declaimed. We learned long poems by heart, “The Prisoner of Chillon,” Schiller’s “Lay of the Bell,” whatever we liked, and in whatever language we preferred, and recited them every Sunday to our parents, to our own great delight. My mother declaimed so admirably herself, that she was by no means easy to please, she insisted on good elocution, and showed us how by modulation of the voice to give the right expression to the words. We were all apt pupils, I fancy; what delicious drollery poor little Otto put into Bürger’s poem, “Emperor and Abbot,” when he was only five years old!