I had as schoolroom a little room leading out of my mother’s, so that she could be present at all my lessons, in the next room, even when she was too ill to leave her bed. Few mothers I think can have taken their duties more seriously. Our religious instruction, as I said, she always gave us herself, assisted by my father. Her old clerical friend, Pastor Dilthey, came and stayed with us at Monrepos just a few weeks before my confirmation, to prepare me for it, but the real work of preparation had been accomplished by my mother beforehand. The examination that precedes the ceremony took place in Monrepos, in our own woods, in the presence of more than a hundred people, members of our family on both sides and many friends, and among the latter that most constant of friends, the Empress Augusta, who never missed an opportunity of showing her affection and regard. Never shall I forget that solemn moment of my life, and my dear little Otto’s touching words, which he wrote for me in the little volume of the “Imitation” he gave me in remembrance of the day. For some time before the confirmation, in order that I might give my whole thoughts to preparing for so serious an event, my music-lessons had been stopped; I had not been allowed to practise at all, so that it was with renewed energy that I returned to it afterwards. The riding-lessons which I now had from one of my uncle’s equerries, a most excellent riding-master, gave me less pleasure. This exercise, like dancing, seemed dull to me, from lack of intellectual stimulus. But I should never have done if I tried to enumerate all those who contributed to my education, and from whom at some time or other I have learnt. It was not always from one’s regular professors that the most useful lessons came. We are forever learning, for Life itself is a school from which there is no playing truant, and whose teaching only stops at the grave. As for educational systems and theories, Nature, the greatest teacher of all, often laughs these to scorn. The best of them is but a bed of Procrustes, to fit which human limbs are ruthlessly lopped or stretched. Wiser were we to leave to Nature’s self the task of fashioning each individual in youth. She has not made all on one pattern, and diversity, not uniformity, is her aim. CHAPTER XVI MARIE