though a dozen damsels were setting snares for me. And this will be
shown in the next chapter.






CHAPTER II.

WHICH TREATS OF HOW I LEFT MY NATIVE CAPE, AND SUNDRY OTHER MATTERS.





I HAD no sooner disclosed to my father my musings with Fame, and the
aspirations she had excited in me, than he went right into a
passion, and set me down as extravagant and mad. He had entertained
hopes of making me a schoolmaster, perhaps an inspector of fish, in
which office excellent opportunities for increasing one's fortunes
were offered; but I had been rendered quite useless to the parish
ever since the New York politicians had taken me into their favor.
Anybody, he said, might go out upon and know the world, but few had
the courage and daring to grapple with its difficulties. And then,
the world was so wicked that men of reflection instinctively shrank
from it. Notwithstanding my wild, visionary plans, he yet had hopes
of me. But if I sought distinction in the political world, it would
be well not to forget that it had at this day become a dangerous
quicksand, over which a series of violent storms continually heaved.