He is in a false position from his first step in life, and strays
farther and farther from the true course to the very end of it. His
hopes and aspirations are all directed to one object, trained to flow in
a dark and narrow channel, on which the sunbeams never play, and which
the pure breath of Nature never visits. His brothers and sisters have a
thousand things to talk about and think about which he has no part in.
If he joins in their games, it is still as the _abbatino_: the formal
small-clothes and narrow neckband and three-cornered hat that contrast
so strongly with their gay dresses are ever present to remind him and
them that they have different paths to travel, and have already entered
upon them. It is a dreary process that education of his, and one that
makes your heart ache to look upon. A rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed boy,
with boyish blood in his veins, running through them quick and warm, and
every now and then making them tingle with some boyish longing that will
out, although he is a priest in miniature and a Pope in prospective. I
never could look at it without thinking of the gardener, in the fulness
of his topiary pride, cutting trees and shrubs into towers and walls,
and every shape but that which Nature designed them for.
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