Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/56

 50 bedchamber and study; and a little closet or store-room, which contained only a few plates and dishes. His dress was a threadbare cloak, once black, now of a reddish brown, and always covered with dust. He never used a razor, but when his beard became inconveniently long, he cut it off with a pair of scissors. Their slovenly apartment did not contain such a thing as a looking-glass. In short, he was, what is called in England, "a mere scholar;" he had learning, and nothing else.

I had hitherto learned from the Port Royal Grammar, which Mr. De la Bussiere held in perfect abhorrence. He esteemed the masters who taught with it, and the pupils who learned from it, as ignoramuses alike. The result of my nine years' labor was, that I knew the whole of this grammar by heart. I began then at the age of seventeen  "omne viro soli"  [every man alone] a fine prospect. His plan was altogether different from my former teachers; he explained every rule thoroughly to me, and required me to find twenty examples in some author. His explanations and exercises soon brought into play the stores that memory had laid up; I was astonished to find that I had accumulated such a mass of materials without being able to make use of them until now.

We had no holiday but Sunday. Every Monday morning, Mr. De la Bussiere expected to receive from his pupils a full account of the sermon they had heard on the preceding day.

I made rapid progress. In the second year I translated Du Moulin's French Logic into Latin, and thus became familiar with the terms in Latin. At the end of three years we parted, and I was well satisfied with what I had acquired. Mr. De la Bussiere knew human nature well, and he had the faculty of inciting his pupils to the utmost exertion, and