The world was widening out. The instruction I received grew more
varied. There were a great many lessons out of school. From my drawing
mistress, a pleasant girl, who could draw Fingal in a helmet in
charcoal, I learnt to see how things looked in comparison with one
another, how they hid one another and revealed themselves, in
perspective; from my music mistress, my kind aunt, to recognise the
notes and keys, and to play, first short pieces, then sonatas, alone,
then as duets. But alas! Neither in the arts of sight nor hearing did I
ever prove myself more than mediocre. I never attained, either in
drawing or piano-playing, to more than a soulless accuracy. And I
hardly showed much greater aptitude when, on bright Sunday mornings,
which invited not at all to the delights of dancing, with many another
tiny lad and lass I was marshalled up to dance in the dancing saloon of
Mr. Hoppe, the royal dancer, and learnt to take up the first to the
fifth positions and swing the girls round in the polka mazurka. I
became an ardent, but never a specially good, dancer.