The war imbued my tin soldiers with quite a new interest. It was
impossible to have boxes enough of them. You could set them out in
companies and battalions; they opened their ranks to attack, stormed,
were wounded, and fell. Sometimes they lay down fatigued and slept on
the field of battle. But a new box that came one day made the old ones
lose all value for me. For the soldiers in the new box were proper
soldiers, with chests and backs, round to the touch, heavy to hold. In
comparison with them, the older ones, profile soldiers, so small that
you could only look at them sideways, sank into utter insignificance. A
step had been taken from the abstract to the concrete. It was no longer
any pleasure to me to play with the smaller soldiers. I said: "They
amused me last year, when I was little." There was a similar change, a
similar picture of historic progress, when the hobby-horse on which I
had spent so many happy hours, and on which I had ridden through rooms
and passages, was put in the corner in favour of the new rocking-horse
which, long coveted and desired, was carried in through the door, and
stood in the room, rocking slightly, as though ready for the boldest
ride, the moment its rider flung himself into the saddle.
I mounted it and oh, happiness! I began to ride, and rode on with
passionate delight till I nearly went over the horse's head. "When I
was a little boy the hobby-horse amused me, but it does not now." Every
time I climbed a fresh rung of the ladder, no matter how low an one,
the same feeling possessed me, and the same train of thought. Mother
often joked about it, up to the time when I was a full grown man. If I
quickly outgrew my fancies, if I had quite done with anything or
anybody that had absorbed me a little while before, she would say, with
a smile: "Last year, when I was a little boy, the hobby-horse amused
me."
Still, progress was not always smooth. When I was small I had pretty
blouses, one especially, grey, with brown worsted lace upon it, that I
was fond of wearing; now I had plain, flat blouses with a leather belt
round the waist. Later on, I was ambitious to have a jacket, like big
boys, and when this wish had been gratified there awoke in me, as
happens in life, a more lofty ambition still, that to wear a frock
coat. In the fulness of time an old frock coat of my father's was
altered to fit me. I looked thin and lank in it, but the dress was
honourable. Then it occurred to me that everybody would see I was
wearing a frock coat for the first time. I did not dare to go out into
the streets with it on, but went out of my way round the ramparts for
fear of meeting anyone.
When I was a little boy I did not, of course, trouble much about my
appearance. I did not remember that my portrait had been drawn several
times. But when I was nine years old, Aunt Sarah--at that time
everybody was either uncle or aunt--determined that we brothers should
have our portraits taken in daguerreotype for Father's birthday. The
event made a profound impression, because I had to stand perfectly
still while the picture was being taken, and because the
daguerreotypist, a German, whose name was Schätzig, rolled his _r_s and
hissed his _s_s. The whole affair was a great secret, which was not to
be betrayed. The present was to be a surprise, and I was compelled to
promise perfect silence. I kept my promise for one day. But next day,
at the dinner-table, I accidentally burst out: "Now! quite shtill! _as
the man said_." "What man?" "Ah! that was the secret!"
The visit to Schätzig in itself I had reason to remember a long time.
Some one or another had said that I had a slender neck, and that it was
pretty. Just as we were going in, my aunt said: "You will catch cold
inside," and in spite of my protests tied a little silk handkerchief
round my neck. That handkerchief spoilt all my pleasure in being
immortalised. And it is round my neck on the old picture to this day.