Martin Faber-The Story of a Criminal by William Gilmore Simms

There was at the school to which I went, a boy about twelve, the same age with myself. His name was William Harding--he was the only child of a widow lady, living a retired life--of blameless character, and a disposition the most amiable and shrinking. This disposition was inherited by her son, in the most extravagant degree. He had been the child of affliction. His father had been murdered in a night affray in a neighbouring city, and his body had been brought home to the house and presence of his lady, when she was far advanced in pregnancy. The sudden and terrible character of the shock brought on the pains of labour. Her life was saved with difficulty, and, seemingly by miraculous interposition, the life of her infant was also preserved. But he was the creature of the deepest sensibility. His nervous organization was peculiarly susceptible. He was affected by circumstances the most trifling and casual--trembled and shrunk from every unwonted breeze--withered beneath reproach, and pined under neglect. So marked a character, presenting too, as it did, a contrast, so strikingly with my own, attracted my attention, at an early period of our school association. His dependence, his weakness, his terrors-- all made him an object of a consideration which no other character would have provoked. I loved him--strange to say--and with a feeling of singular power. I fought his battles--I never permitted him to be imposed upon:and he--could he do less?--he assisted me in my lessons, he worked my sums, he helped my understanding in its deficiencies, he reproved my improprieties--and I--I bore with and submitted patiently on most occasions to his reproofs. William Harding was a genius, and one of the first order; but his nervous susceptibilities left him perfectly hopeless and helpless. Collision with the world of man would have destroyed him; and, as it was, the excess of the imaginative quality which seemed to keep even pace with his sensibilities, left him continually struggling--and as continually to the injury and overthrow of the latter--with the calm suggestions of his judgment. He was a creature to be loved and pitied; and without entertaining, at this period, a single sentiment savoring of either of these, for any other existing being, I both loved and pitied him.

One day, to the surprize of all, William Harding appeared in his class, perfectly ignorant of his lesson. The master did not punish him with stripes, but, as the school was about to be dismissed, commanding the trembling boy before him, he hung about his neck a badge made of card, on which was conspicuously printed, the word 'idler.' --With this badge he was required to return home, re-appearing at school with it the ensuing afternoon.