What she herself could not do to improve my mind the good priest did; he applied himself to teach me sciences; to read other languages than my own, both dead and living; to argue by rule; to write my native language with accuracy; to calculate arithmetically; and to do all, in short, that he himself could do, which was more, perhaps, than my after fate required. It was some years, of course, ere I gained much facility in everything, but ere four years had passed after my cousin's marriage I had become quite a different being. The formidable obstacles that await us at the entrance of every science had given way, and during the following year, which was the fourteenth of my age, I made greater progress than I had done in any other. I had now acquired a taste for the poetry which had descended to us from other days; and from that high and ennobling source I drank long, deep draughts of pure and unmingled delight. I found, too, that there were works of infinite value, full of fancy and of wit, full of instruction and amusement, in other languages besides either French, or Greek, or Latin; and, almost unaided--for my good preceptor knew little of that tongue himself--I made myself a tolerable master of the Italian language, and felt like one who has suddenly discovered a treasure when the works of Dante and Boccaccio, and the newer poems of Tasso, fell into my hands. Nevertheless, I did not in any degree neglect the usual exercises of which I had formerly been fond. There were always a number of old military retainers about the house, who were willing and eager to teach me everything that could be taught in the profession to which they had devoted themselves. I did not, it is true, follow any study with great regularity, but I followed all and each with eagerness, and zeal, and devotion.