32 MY FARM. 



men who carry in their presuming, restless energy the 

 brand of success not always an enviable one, still 

 less frequently a moral one, but always palpable and 

 noisy. Such a man makes capital fight with danger 

 of all sorts ; he knows no yielding to fatigues to any 

 natural obstacles, or to conscience. It is hard to con- 

 ceive of him as dying, without a sharp and nervous 

 protest, which seems conclusive to his own judgment, 

 against the absurd dispensations of Providence. Who 

 does not see faces every day, whose eager, impas- 

 sioned unrest is utterly irreconcilable with the calm 

 long sleep we must all fall to at last ? 



But this story of unsuccessful experiences grows 

 wearisome to me, and, I doubt not, to the reader. One 

 after another the hopes I had built upon my hatful 

 of responses, failed me. June was bursting every day 

 into fuller and more tempting leafiness. The stifling 

 corridors of city hotels, the mouldy smell of country 

 taverns, the dependence upon testy Jehus, who plun- 

 dered and piloted me through all manner of out-of- 

 the-way places, became fatiguing beyond measure. 



And it was precisely at this stage of my inquiry, 

 that I happened accidentally to be passing a day at 

 the Tontine inn, of the charming city of N" h . (I 

 use initials only, in way of respectful courtesy for the 

 home of my adoption.) The old drowsy quietude of 



