In the issue of general culture and attainments, we children stood on quite even footing. True, it was always the case that one of us would be picked at random, inexplicably, and without regard to his own preferences to struggle with the inflections of some idiotic language that was long since dead; meanwhile, another, from some fancied artistic tendency that always failed to justify itself, might be told off without warning to hammer out scales and exercises, and to bedew the pointless keys with wet tears of exhaustion or indignation. However, neither would have cared to be the best in areas that were common to both sexes and considered important even for someone whose ambitions did not go beyond cracking whips in circus rings, such as geography, mathematics, or the tiresome activities of kings and queens. Indeed, despite the differences in our individual talents, we were all held at a largely similar dead level-one of ignorance tempered by disobedience.