XVIII.
The world was widening out. The instruction I received grew more varied. There were a great many lessons out of school. From my drawing mistress, a pleasant girl, who could draw Fingal in a helmet in charcoal, I learnt to see how things looked in comparison with one another, how they hid one another and revealed themselves, in perspective; from my music mistress, my kind aunt, to recognise the notes and keys, and to play, first short pieces, then sonatas, alone, then as duets. But alas! Neither in the arts of sight nor hearing did I ever prove myself more than mediocre. I never attained, either in drawing or piano-playing, to more than a soulless accuracy. And I hardly showed much greater aptitude when, on bright Sunday mornings, which invited not at all to the delights of dancing, with many another tiny lad and lass I was marshalled up to dance in the dancing saloon of Mr. Hoppe, the royal dancer, and learnt to take up the first to the fifth positions and swing the girls round in the polka mazurka. I became an ardent, but never a specially good, dancer.