acquainted with one of those faces and forms which, in a youth of twenty,
to see, admire, and love, is one and the same thing. My attentions were
favourably received. I soon became desperately in love; and, in spite of
the advice of my father and entreaties of my mother, who had formed other
schemes for me nearer home, I was married on the anniversary of my
twenty-first year.

It was not until the first trance of bliss was over, that I began to
think seriously on the course of life I was to pursue. From the time
that my mind had run on love and matrimony, I had lost all relish for
serious study; and long before that time, I had felt a sentiment bordering
on contempt for the pursuits of my father. Besides, he had already taken
my two younger brothers into the counting-house with him. I therefore
prevailed on my indulgent parent, with the aid of my mother's intercession,
to purchase for me a neat country-seat near Huntingdon, which presented a
beautiful view of the Sound, and where, surrounded by the scenes of my
childhood, I promised myself to realise, with my Susanna, that life of
tranquil felicity which fancy, warmed by love, so vividly depicts.

If we did not meet with all that we had expected, it was because we had
expected too much. The happiest life, like the purest atmosphere, has
its clouds as well as its sunshine; and what is worse, we never fully
know the value of the one, until we have felt the inconvenience of the
other. In the cultivation of my farm--in educating our children, a son
and two daughters, in reading, music, painting--and in occasional visits
to our friends in New-York and Philadelphia, seventeen years glided
swiftly and imperceptibly away; at the end of which time death, in
depriving me of an excellent wife, made a wreck of my hopes and enjoyments.
For the purpose of seeking that relief to my feelings which change of
place only could afford, I determined to make a sea voyage; and, as one