HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 



most terrible slaughters of men that had ever disgraced 

 history; and it seemed as if that frightful lavishness of 

 the irrecoverable 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 egg 

 or two, served for his dinner. And frequently he 

 dined standing. 



"Such a regimen, however, could not strengthen t 

 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 lived 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 ! Everywhere, walls ! 

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

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



