tle, concerning our master, Mr.
Wilson. At the last examination I had, in compliance with the request
of one of the clergymen, read aloud a metrical composition of my own,
sent in by way of essay on the given subject, _Patriotism_, and after
this he had shown me a great increase of favour. Perhaps he recognized
in me some germ of a literary faculty--I cannot tell: it has never
come to much if he did, and he must be greatly disappointed in me,
seeing I labour not in living words, but in dead stones. I am certain,
though, that whether I build good or bad houses, I should have built
worse had I not had the insight he gave me into literature and the
nature of literary utterance. I read Virgil and Horace with him, and
scanned every doubtful line we came across. I sometimes think now,
that what certain successful men want to make them real artists, is
simply a knowledge of the literature--which is the essence of the
possible art--of the country.

My brother Tom had left the school, and gone to the county town, to
receive some final preparation for the University; consequently, so
far as the school was concerned, I was no longer in the position of a
younger brother. Also Mr. Wilson had discovered that I had some
faculty for imparting what knowledge I possessed, and had begun to
make use of me in teaching the others. A good deal was done in this
way in the Scotch schools. Not that there was the least attempt at
system in it: the master, at any moment, would choose the one he
thought fit, and set him to teach a class, while he attended to
individuals, or taught another class himself. Nothing can be better
for the verification of knowledge, or for the discovery of ignorance,
than the attempt to teach. In my case it led to other and unforeseen
results as well.

The increasing trust the master reposed in me, and the increasing
favour which openly accompanied it, so stimulated the growth of my
natural vanity, that at length it appeared in the form of presumption,
and, I have little doubt, although I was unaware of it at the time,
influenced my whole behaviour to my school-fellows. Hence arose the
complaint that I was a favourite with the master, and the accusation
that I used underhand means to recommend myself to him, of which I am
not yet aware that I was ever guilty. My presumption I confess, and
wonder that the master did not take earlier measures to check it. When
teaching a class, I would not unfrequently, if Mr. Wilson had