38 



HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 



most terrible slaugliters of men that had ever disgraced 

 history; and it seemed as if tliat frightful lavishness of 

 the in^ecoverable good, which is life, had given him a 

 respect for all life, an insurmountable aversion to all 

 destruction. 



"This had in time arrived at such an extreme, that 

 he would have willingly lived upon vegetable food alone. 

 He would have no viands of blood; they excited his 

 horror. A morsel of chicken, or, more often, an Qgg 

 or two, sei-ved for his dinner. And frequently he 

 dined standing, 



"Such a regimen, however, could not strengd^hen 

 him. Nor did he economize his strength, expending it 

 largely in lessons, in conversations, and in the habitual 

 overflow of a too benevolent heart, which li^ed in all 

 things, interested itself in all. Age came, and with 

 it anxieties: family anxieties? no, but from jealous 

 neighbours or unfaithful debtors. The crisis of the 

 American banks dealt a severe blow to his fortune. 

 He came to the extreme resolution, in spite of his ill 

 health and his years, of once more visiting America, in 

 the belief that his personal activity and his industry 

 might re-establish affairs, and secure the fortune of 

 his wife and children. 



"This departure was terrible. It was preceded for 

 me by another blow. I had quitted the mansion and the 

 country; I had entered a boarding-school in the town. 

 Cruel servitude, which deprived me of all that made 

 my life — of air and respiration ! Everj^where, walls ! 

 I should have died, but for the frequent visits of my 

 mother, and the rarer visits of my father, to which 1 



