as for a plaything.  This period naturally comes to an end when the child, to its astonishment, undergoes the experience that things occur which are quite as unwelcome to its parents as a beating is to itself, and with this period disappears a great part of the mystic spell which surrounds the sacred head of the father:  indeed not until it is past does real human independence begin.  My eyes were opened on this subject by a fearful thunderstorm, which was accompanied by a cloud burst and hail.

It was a sultry afternoon, one of those which scorch up the earth and roast all its creatures.  We children sat around on our benches, lazy and depressed, with our catechisms or primers.  Susanna herself nodded sleepily, and indulgently allowed to pass unnoticed the jokes and teasing, by means of which we tried to keep ourselves awake.  Not even the flies were buzzing, except the very small ones which are always lively, when all of a sudden the first thunderclap sounded and reverberated, crashing and roaring, among the worm-eaten rafters of the old, dilapidated house.  In the most desperate combination, such as only occurs during storms in the north, a clatter of hail stones now followed, which in less than a minute demolished all the window-panes on the windy side, and immediately after this, indeed in the midst of it, came a downpour of rain which seemed to be the prelude of a new deluge.  We children, starting up terrified, ran about screaming and clamoring.  Susanna herself lost her head, and her maid succeeded in closing the shutters only when there was nothing more to be saved; and there needed only the Egyptian darkness added to the flood which had already overtaken us, to heighten the general terror and increase the prevailing confusion.  In the pauses between one thunderclap and the next Susanna did indeed collect herself somewhat and tried to calm and comfort her charges, who according to their age were either hanging on to her apron or crouching by themselves with closed eyes in the corners of the room.  But suddenly a bluish flame of lightning flashed once more through the cracks of the shutters and the words died on her lips, while the maid, almost as frightened as the youngest child, howled and screamed out, “The good God is angry!” When it was dark again in the room she added with pedagogical moroseness, “You’re all of you good for nothing, anyhow!” These words, no matter how odious the mouth from which they fell, made a deep impression on me; they forced me to look upward, above myself and above everything which surrounded me, and kindled in me the spark of religious emotion.