THE STUDY OF NATURE. 



39 



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looked forward witli a delirious impatience that per- \ 

 haps love has never known. But now that my father j 

 himself was leaving us -heaven, earth, everything 

 seemed undone. With whatever hope of reunion he ' 

 might endeavour to cheer me, an internal voice, dis- 

 tinct and teiTible, such as one hears in great trials, told 

 me that he would return no more. 



" The house was sold, and the plantations laid out 

 by our hands, the trees which belonged to the family, 

 were abandoned. Our animals were plainly inconsolable 

 at my father's departure. The dog-I forget for how 

 many successive days-seated himself on the road which 

 he had taken at his departure, howled, and returned. 

 The most disinherited of all, the cat Moquo, no longer ^ 

 confided in any person, though he still came to regard { 

 with fui-tive glances the empty place. Then he took 

 his resolution, and fled to the woods, from which we ^ 

 could never call him back; he resumed his early life, , 

 miserable and savage. 



"And I, too, I quitted the paternal roof, the hearth 

 of my young years, with a heart for ever wounded. 

 My mother, my sister, my brothers, the sweet friend- 

 ships of infancy, disappeared behind me. I entered 

 upon a life of trial and isolation. At Bayonne, how- 

 ever, where I first resided, the sea of Biarritz spoke to 

 me of my father; the waves which break on its shore, 

 from America to Europe, repeated the story of his death; 

 the snow-white ocean birds seemed to say, ' We have 



seen him.' 



"\\liat remained to me? My climate, my birth- 

 land, my language. But even these I lost. I was 



