A sense of justice is very strong in most children, and they suffer more acutely than is generally supposed, in the consciousness of being unjustly treated. Misjudged as in my childhood I felt myself to be by the iron disciplinarians whose aim it was to crush out all originality, it was a comfort to know that to one person I never appeared wilful or headstrong, and it was perhaps scarce possible to experience a greater satisfaction than was mine in later years, in hearing Fräulchen’s affectionate tribute to “our sunbeam,” as she was fond of calling me:--“She was always a dear good child, only wishing to make everyone happy!” To this very day, in those moments of disappointment and lassitude by which all of us are at times beset, I have but to think of Fräulein Lavater, for the old feeling of peace and calm to come over me, and the physical pain is at once stilled, and the cares and troubles that seemed overpowering shrink into insignificance. More than once, in times gone by, when the burden laid upon my shoulders seemed greater than I could bear, her adroit touch adjusted it and turned it into a feather-weight, and recalling this, I rouse myself again to the struggle, to find as before my strength and courage increase, in proportion to the difficulties of the situation. I was in good truth Fräulchen’s pupil, her spiritual child, and it was as much for her as for myself that I was indignant, when of recent years an absurd report came to my knowledge, of a nervous complaint from which I was said to be suffering! As soon might one have credited _her_, the best-balanced person in the world, with an hysterical or nervous attack, since, like herself, I have always had my nerves under perfect control, and sharing in her somewhat contemptuous feeling for neurasthenia, neurosis, or any other such new-fangled disorder, I should consider it something degrading, of which to be ashamed, to be justly ranged among its victims. I have given, I think, sufficient proof to the contrary, and have shown of what well-tempered steel my nerves are made, by continuing my work uninterruptedly during long years of ill-health, and in spite of severe and almost unremitting pain, of which the doctors only much later discovered the cause. Well may I claim to disdain nerves and all who suffer from them, considering that they only too often serve as a mask, behind which selfishness and hypocrisy are hidden. Fräulein Lavater, at any rate, did not plead nerves if ever her equanimity were disturbed; she would own quite candidly:--“I am so irritable to-day!”