she became a determined and calculating little person who lacked
nothing but a certain fixedness to be a complete character.

A strange coldness of the heart now emanated from her and this was
strengthened by precipitate and often unkindly judgment, supported in
its turn by a desire to catch her own reflection in all things and to
adopt witty points of view.

Nor was this all. She acquired a desire to learn, which at first
stimulated and amused Niebeldingk, but which had long grown to be
something of a nuisance.

He himself was held, and rightly held, to be a man of intellect, less
by virtue of rapid perception and flexible thought, than by virtue of
a coolly observant vision of the world, incapable of being confused--a
certain healthy cynicism which, though it never lost an element of
good nature, might yet abash and even chill the souls of men.

His actual knowledge, however, had remained mere wretched patchwork,
his logic came to an end wherever bold reliance upon the intuitive
process was needed to supply missing links in the ratiocinative chain.

And so it came to pass that Alice, whom at first he had regarded as
his scholar, his handiwork, his creature, had developed annoyingly
beyond him.... Involuntarily and innocently she delivered the keenest
thrusts. He had, actually, to be on guard.... In the irresponsible
delight of intellectual crudity she solved the deepest problems of
humanity; she repeated, full of faith, the judgments of the ephemeral
rapid writer, instead of venturing upon the sources of knowledge. Yet
even so she impressed him by her faculty of adaptation and her shining