These insipidities test the education of home and family, and they presage definitely what is to come.

The roots of character, good or bad, are shown for this short space, and they remain unchanged, though most people learn from their fellows the decent and useful art of covering them over with a little dust, in the shape of accepted phrases and routine customs and a silence which is not oblivion.
After a time the character of Jean Jacques was absolutely broken down.
He says little of the blows with which his offences were punished by his master, but he says enough to enable us to discern that they were terrible to him.

This cowardice, if we choose to give the name to an overmastering physical horror, at length brought his apprentice days to an end.

He was now in his sixteenth year.

He was dragged by his comrades into sports for which he had little inclination, though he admits that once engaged in them he displayed an impetuosity that carried him beyond the others.