16 AUTOBIOGRAPAY AND 



you have guessed all that you have told me, yon will 

 go far, and when you have looked over your grammar 

 for a few days, come and see me at my office, to show 

 me your progress in guessing Latin." I went to see 

 him two or three weeks after, and I found that if he 

 was not a good Latinist he was a good man, and he 

 gave me good advice. He kept me two or three hours, 

 talking politics, theology, literature, etc. 



I will continue my course for a little while longeron 

 the European continent ; then I shall sail for the west- 

 ern hemisphere, my adoptive country, where I have lived 

 happy ! ! for fifty-four years, less a fortnight, when 

 dark clouds suddenly eclipsed forever my sunshine ! 



half of my life my Egeria ! my wife You will 



please excuse the above extemporaneous digression. I 

 could not refrain doing it. It choked me 



I resume the narration of rny studies. I was in pos- 

 session of the instruments, books, to elucidate the 

 meaning of words stuffed in my head. The first night 

 I got that grammar I did not sleep much. I spent 

 most part of it to decline the first declension : penna, 

 pennse or rosa, rosse, etc., and went to bed reciting : 



Nominative rosa ; 



Genitive, rosse ; 

 Dative, rosae ; 

 Accusative, rosam ; 

 Vocative, o rosa ; 

 Ablative, rosa. 



Here I decline rosa ! as a 

 -compliment to our friends, 

 the rose growers 



