prodigious genius, close on Lavater, and the precursor of Gall.

Lambert's ideas, suddenly illuminated by this flash of light, assumed
vaster proportions; he disentangled certain truths from his many
acquisitions and brought them into order; then, like a founder, he
cast the model of his work. At the end of six months' indefatigable
labor, Lambert's writings excited the curiosity of our companions, and
became the object of cruel practical jokes which led to a fatal issue.

One day one of the masters, who was bent on seeing the manuscripts,
enlisted the aid of our tyrants, and came to seize, by force, a box
that contained the precious papers. Lambert and I defended it with
incredible courage. The trunk was locked, our aggressors could not
open it, but they tried to smash it in the struggle, a stroke of
malignity at which we shrieked with rage. Some of the boys, with a
sense of justice, or struck perhaps by our heroic defence, advised the
attacking party to leave us in peace, crushing us with insulting
contempt. But suddenly, brought to the spot by the noise of a battle,
Father Haugoult roughly intervened, inquiring as to the cause of the
fight. Our enemies had interrupted us in writing our impositions, and
the class-master came to protect his slaves. The foe, in self-defence,
betrayed the existence of the manuscript. The dreadful Haugoult
insisted on our giving up the box; if we should resist, he would have
it broken open. Lambert gave him the key; the master took out the
papers, glanced through them, and said, as he confiscated them:

"And it is for such rubbish as this that you neglect your lessons!"

Large tears fell from Lambert's eyes, wrung from him as much by a
sense of his offended moral superiority as by the gratuitous insult