From this time Susanna's education was carried on by her parents, and I
was obliged to acquire my learning from the clerk, a good-natured old
man, who himself knew very little more than how to play the violin,
which he did with passion, and a sympathetic if uncultivated taste.

When the clerk had gained my father's permission for me to learn the
violin--and I, like him, preferred this kind of entertainment to
learning lessons--three whole years, in other words, the time until I
was sixteen years of age, were divided between violin-playing and
idleness.

Perhaps if my mind, during this period of my life, had been properly
kept under the daily discipline of work, much in me might have been
developed differently. At it was, the whole of my imaginary life was
unfortunately put into my own power, and I laid the foundation of
fancies which afterwards gained the mastery over my life, to a ruinous
extent. Some strongly impressionable natures require that the dividing
line drawn in every one's consciousness between fancy and reality, shall
be constantly and thoroughly maintained, lest it be obliterated at
certain points, and the real and the imaginary become confused.

Although we no longer had the same abundant opportunities for meeting as
before, Susanna and I were, notwithstanding, constant and confidential
playmates throughout our childhood.

When she had anything to confide to me, she generally watched by the
gate that crossed the road by the parsonage lands, at the time when I
went to or came from the clerk's.