of the matter made not the slightest impression upon her; in fact his argument was so fruitless that, as soon as he finished, she said with a reposeful air of superiority:  “My dear Schultz, you understand this question thoroughly; but whether or not I have a right to secure a divorce is a question which no human being in the whole world can answer so well as I myself.”  With that she closed the conversation.

She was similarly skeptical of every kind of authority, and had no confidence whatever in the ability of the three university faculties.  For example, since patriarchal conditions were her ideal, she questioned whether mankind derived any material advantages from jurisprudence.  It settled everything, as she thought, by favoritism or personal advantage, or at least in a mechanical way.  Riches, property, especially landed property, accompanied if possible by the airs of a legation attache—­that was something that unlocked the world and the hearts of men, that was real power.  Everything else was comedy, illusion, a soap-bubble, that threatened to burst any moment.  And then nothing was left.  One can readily understand why my mother, with such views, insisted upon taking me out of the barefoot school, and did not consider an interim, with no regular school instruction, any special misfortune.  The evil in it was that it violated the rule.  As for the rest, the little bit of learning lost could be made up at any time.  And if not, then not....

It is a pretty saying that every child has its angel, and one does not need to be very credulous to believe it.  For the little tots this angel is a fairy, enveloped in a long white lily veil, which stands smiling at the foot of a cradle and either wards off danger or helps out of it when it is really at hand.  That is the fairy for the little ones.  But when one has outgrown the cradle or crib, and has begun to sleep in a regular bed, in other words, when one has become a robust boy, one still needs his angel just the same, indeed the need is all the greater.  But instead of the lily angel it needs to be a sort of archangel, a strong, manly angel, with shield and spear, otherwise his strength will not suffice for his growing tasks.

As a matter of fact, I was not wild and venturesome, and all my escapades that were attributed to me as of such a nature were always undertaken after a wise estimate of my strength.  Nevertheless I have, with respect to that period, a feeling that I was constantly being rescued, a feeling in which I can hardly be in error.  When I left home at the age of twelve, the age at which, as a usual thing, real dangers begin, there was doubtless a sudden change in my case, for it now seems to me as though my angel had had a vacation from that time on.  All dangers ceased entirely or shrank into such insignificance that they left no impression upon me.  In view of the fact that the two periods were so close together, there must have been this difference, otherwise I should not have retained such entirely different feelings about them.