RECOLLECTIONS, 1831-37. 123 



employment and you can do without me. I think of 

 one thing, and if you approve it and if your mother 

 sanctions it I will go immediately. Write to your 

 mother, tell her I am a Protestant, if she does not ob- 

 ject all is settled. Good ! you have a luminous idea. 

 I see that you have more than one string to your bow. 

 I will write her and I have not the least doubt she will 

 accept that proposition, when I will tell her that you 

 suit me. So it was all right no it was not for a 

 sudden idea struck me that perhaps when I would be 

 there among those people, who worshipped a different 

 God from mine, they would drive me away, stone me, 

 make a martyr of me, and I have not the ambition to 

 see my name in a martyrology ; as I have already 

 declined to be a simple saint ! All the time I was 

 reciting that tirade he gravely looked at me then burst 

 with loud laughing. Oh no ! they won't do that, they 

 are not as fanatic as that, you may depend upon it. 

 On the contrary the few Protestants there are more 

 respected than a great many orthodox sectarians ; you 

 may go safely, so I went, but after I had been there 

 a few days they tried to submit me at the diet of 

 spinage on Fridays and Saturdays. I winced at that 

 violation of our convention, signed by both parties, 

 etc., etc. I had a good deal of fun and occasionally I 

 waxed mad, but I soon got over it, especially when 

 the gentleman who had engaged me was present. We 



