* * * * *

The young forget quickly, but they feel keenly. The event which I had
just witnessed threw a shade over me, which, in the want of any vigorous
occupation, began to affect my health. I abjured the sports of the
field, for which, indeed, I had never felt much liking. I rambled
through the woods in a kind of dreamy idleness of mind, which took but
little note of any thing, time included. As mendicants sell tapes and
matches to escape the imputation of mendicancy, I carried a pencil and
portfolio, and seemed to be sketching venerable oaks and patches of the
picturesque, while my mind was wandering from Line to Pole. But in this
earth no one can be singular with impunity. The gentlemen were
"convinced" that my meditations were heavy with unpaid college bills;
and the ladies, from high to low, from "Tilburina, mad in white satin,"
to her "confidant, mad in white linen," were all of opinion that some
one among their peerless selves had destroyed the "five wits of young Mr
Marston." I could have fallen on them with a two-handed sword; but as
the massacre of the sex was not then in my power, I had only to escape.

There were higher matters to move me. Clouds were gathering on the
world; the times were fitful; the air was thick with rumours from
abroad; the sleep of the Continent was breaking up, and Europe lay in
the anxious and strange expectancy in which some great city might see
the signs of a coming earthquake, without the power of ascertaining at
what moment, or from what quarter, its foundations were to be flung up
in sight of the sun.--We were then in the first stage of the French
Revolution!

I resolved to linger and be libelled no more; and being ushered, by