Daily, as I continued my attendance at the seminary of Mdlle. Reuter, did I find fresh occasions to compare the ideal with the real. What had I known of female character previously¹ to my arrival at Brussels? Precious little. And what was my notion of it? Something vague, slight, gauzy, glittering; now when I came in contact with it I found it to be a palpable substance enough; very hard too sometimes, and often heavy; there was metal in it, both lead and iron.

Let the idealists, the dreamers about earthly angel and human flowers, just look here while I open my portfolio³ and show them a sketch⁴ or two, pencilled after nature. I took these sketches⁵ in the second-class schoolroom of Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment, where about a hundred specimens⁶ of the genus “jeune fille” collected together, offered a fertile variety of subject. A miscellaneous assortment⁷ they were, differing both in caste and country; as I sat on my estrade and glanced over the long range of desks, I had under my eye French, English, Belgians, Austrians, and Prussians. The majority belonged to the class bourgeois⁸; but there were many countesses, there were the daughters of two generals and of several colonels, captains, and government employes; these ladies sat side by side with young females destined⁹ to be demoiselles de magasins, and with some Flamandes, genuine aborigines of the country. In dress all were nearly similar, and in manners there was small difference; exceptions there were to the general rule, but the majority gave the tone to the establishment, and that tone was rough, boisterous¹⁰, masked by a point-blank disregard of all forbearance towards each other or their teachers; an eager pursuit by each individual of her own interest and convenience; and a coarse

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