property of chapters, I count
very confidently the most precious, and, on the whole, the one
_essential_ part of all my education.

And it is perhaps already time to mark what advantage and mischief, by
the chances of life up to seven years old, had been irrevocably
determined for me.

I will first count my blessings (as a not unwise friend once recommended
me to do, continually; whereas I have a bad trick of always numbering
the thorns in my fingers and not the bones in them).

And for best and truest beginning of all blessings, I had been taught
the perfect meaning of Peace, in thought, act, and word.

I never had heard my father's or mother's voice once raised in any
question with each other; nor seen an angry, or even slightly hurt or
offended, glance in the eyes of either. I had never heard a servant
scolded; nor even suddenly, passionately, or in any severe manner,
blamed. I had never seen a moment's trouble or disorder in any household
matter; nor anything whatever either done in a hurry, or undone in due
time. I had no conception of such a feeling as anxiety; my father's
occasional vexation in the afternoons, when he had only got an order for
twelve butts after expecting one for fifteen, as I have just stated, was
never manifested to _me_; and itself related only to the question
whether his name would be a step higher or lower in the year's list of
sherry exporters; for he never spent more than half his income, and
therefore found himself little incommoded by occasional variations in
the total of it. I had never done any wrong that I knew of--beyond
occasionally delaying the commitment to heart of some improving
sentence, that I might watch a wasp on the window pane, or a bird in the
cherry tree; and I had never seen any grief.

Next to this quite priceless gift of Peace, I had received the perfect
understanding of the natures of Obedience and Faith. I obeyed word, or
lifted finger, of father or mother, simply as a ship her helm; not only
without idea of resistance, but receiving the direction as a part of my
own life and force, a helpful law, as necessary to me in every moral
action as the law of gravity in leaping. And my practice in Faith was
soon complete: nothing ever threatened me that was not inflicted, and
nothing ever told me that was not true.

Peace, obedience, faith; these three for chief good; next to these, the
habit of fixed attention with both eyes and mind--on which I will not
further en