"Why is it 'a very different matter'?" asked Lubotshka.

"Never mind: that is all right; you do not understand me," and I
went upstairs to my room, telling St. Jerome that I was going to
work, but in reality purposing to occupy the hour and a half
before confession time in writing down a list of my daily tasks
and duties which should last me all my life, together with a
statement of my life's aim, and the rules by which I meant
unswervingly to be guided.

v

MY RULES

I TOOK some sheets of paper, and tried, first of all, to make a
list of my tasks and duties for the coming year. The paper needed
ruling, but, as I could not find the ruler, I had to use a Latin
dictionary instead. The result was that, when I had drawn the pen
along the edge of the dictionary and removed the latter, I found
that, in place of a line, I had only made an oblong smudge on the
paper, since the, dictionary was not long enough to reach across
it, and the pen had slipped round the soft, yielding corner of
the book. Thereupon I took another piece of paper, and, by
carefully manipulating the dictionary, contrived to rule what at
least RESEMBLED lines. Dividing my duties into three sections--
my duties to myself, my duties to my neighbour, and my duties to
God--I started to indite a list of the first of those sections,
but they seemed to me so numerous, and therefore requiring to be
divided into so many species and subdivisions, that I thought I
had better first of all write down the heading of "Rules of My