,
could have felt much doubt but that a few more years would bring Geneva
also into the whirlpool of political change.
In the same year--1833--that M. Rossi had left Geneva, Henri Frederic
Amiel, at twelve years old, was left orphaned of both his parents. They
had died comparatively young--his mother was only just over thirty, and
his father cannot have been much older. On the death of the mother the
little family was broken up, the boy passing into the care of one
relative, his two sisters into that of another. Certain notes in M.
Scherer's possession throw a little light here and there upon a
childhood and youth which must necessarily have been a little bare and
forlorn. They show us a sensitive, impressionable boy, of health rather
delicate than robust, already disposed to a more or less melancholy and
dreamy view of life, and showing a deep interest in those religious
problems and ideas in which the air of Geneva has been steeped since the
days of Calvin. The religious teaching which a Genevese lad undergoes
prior to his admission to full church membership, made a deep impression
on him, and certain mystical elements of character, which remained
strong in him to the end, showed themselves very early. At the college
or public school of Geneva, and at the academie, he would seem to have
done only moderately as far as prizes and honors were concerned.
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