CHAPTER IV


FROM LOUIS LEVERETT, IN PARIS, TO HARVARD TREMONT, IN BOSTON.

September 25th.

My dear Harvard--I have carried out my plan, of which I gave you a hint
in my last, and I only regret that I should not have done it before. It
is human nature, after all, that is the most interesting thing in the
world, and it only reveals itself to the truly earnest seeker. There is
a want of earnestness in that life of hotels and railroad trains, which
so many of our countrymen are content to lead in this strange Old World,
and I was distressed to find how far I, myself; had been led along the
dusty, beaten track. I had, however, constantly wanted to turn aside
into more unfrequented ways; to plunge beneath the surface and see what I
should discover. But the opportunity had always been missing; somehow, I
never meet those opportunities that we hear about and read about--the
things that happen to people in novels and biographies. And yet I am
always on the watch to take advantage of any opening that may present
itself; I am always looking out for experiences, for sensations--I might
almost say for adventures.

The great thing is to _live_, you know--to feel, to be conscious of one's
possibilities; not to pass through life mechanically and insensibly, like
a letter through the post-office. There are times, my dear Harvard, when
I feel as if I were really capable of everything--capable _de tout_, as
they say here--of the greatest excesses as well as the greatest heroism.
Oh, to be able to say that one has lived--_qu'on a vecu_, as they say