I succeeded better in natural history, for there we find fewer changes, and we always have standard engravings of apes, kangaroos, zebras, rhinoceroses, etc., etc.  And having many such pictures in my memory, it often happens that at first sight many mortals appeared to me like old acquaintances.

I also did well in mythology, and took a real delight in the mob of gods and goddesses who, so jolly and naked, governed the world.  I do not believe that there was a schoolboy in ancient Rome who knew the principal points of his catechism—­that is, the loves of Venus—­better than I. To tell the plain truth, it seems to me that if we must learn all the heathen gods by heart, we might as well have kept them from the first; and we have not, perhaps, gained so much with our New-Roman Trinity or still less with our Jewish unity.  Perhaps the old mythology was not in reality so immoral as we imagine, and it was, for example, a very decent idea of Homer to give to much-loved Venus a husband.

But I succeeded best in the French class of the Abbe d’Aulnoi, a French emigre, who had written a number of grammars, and wore a red wig, and jumped about very nervously when he lectured on his Art poetique and his Histoire Allemande.  He was the only one in the whole gymnasium who taught German history.  Still, French has its difficulties, and to learn it there must be much quartering of troops, much drumming, much apprendre par coeur, and, above all, no one must be a bete allemande.  There was here, too, many a hard nut to crack; and I can remember as plainly as though it happened but yesterday that I once got into a bad scrape through la religion.  I was asked at least six times in succession, “Henry, what is French for ‘the faith?’” And six times, with an ever increasing inclination to weep, I replied, “It is called le credit.”  And after the seventh question the furious examinator, purple in the face, cried, “It is called la religion”—­and there was a rain of blows and a thunder of laughter from all my schoolmates.  Madame, since that day I never hear the word religion without having my back turn pale with terror, and my cheeks turn red with shame.  And to tell the honest truth, le credit has during my life stood me in the better stead than la religion.  It occurs to me just at this instant that I still owe the landlord of The Lion in Bologna five dollars.  And I pledge you my sacred word of honor that I would willingly owe him five dollars more if I could only be certain that I should never again hear that unlucky word, la religion, as long as I live.