ABSTRACT
In advancing thus far, I have, for the sake of presenting in one view ideas of a particular kind, outrun the course of my narrative, and must now return to bring up some smaller anecdotes of my early years, which, by this method of arranging my materials, have been put somewhat out of their place. Amidst the dreary uniformity of my uncle’s residence, every arrival of a stranger was hailed, like a festival day in a school-boy’s almanack. a It promised some novelty: it was solemnly announced; and with no less effect, than when the pedant, from his eminence apart, ‘and in his own / dimension like himself, makes proclamation of a holiday. b Though I was of a gloomy and saturnine cast, it is not to be understood that my heart did not beat, and my blood did not tingle, like those of my fellow-creatures. There was this difference between me and my uncle, though in the gravity of our dispositions we considerably resembled each other. To judge from appearances at least, he desired no novelty, or none of an extrinsic sort, and shrunk from all disturbance. He was used up as to the views and prospects of life, and cherished hope in his bosom no longer. Not such was the condition of my existence. I hoped for, and I dreamed of, pleasures yet untasted. I was no friend to light laughter and merriment; but my heart was susceptible of attention and curiosity; and the novelties that presented themselves to my senses I was well disposed to investigate. The world to me was yet in its nonage, – had all the freshness and vigour of youth; I / had much to see, much to learn, much to make trial of, and much to taste. I felt like one for whom adventures and great events are reserved, and, as we find it expressed in the common story-books, who is ‘to go out, and seek his fortune’. When the arrival of a stranger was announced, I felt again and again a sort of prophetic anticipation, This may be to me the eventful moment, big with a thousand causes of admiration.
