In time, all friendship with any schoolfellow at Brynford was impossible. Most of the boys were uncongenial through their incurable loutishness. Few of them were cleanly or orderly, and their ideas of what was right differed from mine. They were vilely irreligious, and to my astonishment acted as though they believed manliness to consist of bare-faced profanity. Most of them snuffled abominably, while as to being tidy and neat, no savages could have shown greater indifference. It would be easier to transform apes into men, than to make such natures gentle. They all appeared to have become acquainted with my antecedents, and their general behaviour towards me was not dissimilar to that which the unconvicted show towards the ‘ticket-of-leave.’ The gentlest retort was followed by expressions which reminded me of my ignoble origin. Often they did not wait to be provoked, but indulged their natural malice as from divine privilege. The effect of it was to drive me within my own shell, and to impress the lesson on me that I was forever banned by having been an inmate of the Workhouse. I was neither grieved nor resentful for this, because I had no dignity or vanity which could be wounded; and, being confined to my own thoughts, I obtained more leisure for observation, and there was less occasion for speech. My cousin, also, was too imperious and exacting to leave me much time for brooding, and, to one of my temperament, moping is disagreeable. When, however, a few of our neighbours’ children condescended, for want of other company, to solicit mine for hunting nests among the furze, or for a battle in the pools, or to explore an abandoned lead-shaft, the restlessness latent in all boys was provoked in me, and I remember several enjoyable Saturday afternoons. Accomplished as my cousin Moses appears to have been in literature, he was too young to know much about human nature. After months of indefatigable tuition, he relaxed in his efforts. He began to affect a disbelief in my advancement, and to indulge in scorn of my progress. My short-comings were now the theme of his discourses, each time we met. My task became heavier and longer, his sarcasms sharper, and his manner more provoking. As I owed a home to him I was debarred from retorting. He did not stoop to the vulgar punishment of birching or caning, but inflicted moral torture by a peculiar gift of language. His cutting words were more painful to bear than any amount of physical castigation; their effect bewildered me and made me more despairing, and I think his unkindness increased as my helpless dependency on him was made more manifest. It frequently happens that as the dependent becomes humbler the tyrant becomes harsher, for the spirit taken from one seems to be converted into force in the other.