05Aug1858, Out of the Schoolroom

HAGLEY, August 5th, 1858.
—This day month I shall be seventeen, and shall come out of the schoolroom ! Oh dear, my old journal : " I'm 13 years old, I wish I was only 12." " Fourteen years." " I have lived fifteen years." " The beginning of ' mortal woe ' with me at sixteen." I recall perfectly each of the days on which I wrote those words, as well as if I had written them yesterday. Oh, the deep sadness of the flying years !