them; and pressed me, with something marvellously like sincerity, to be
sure to come and see her directly she returned to London. I soon
discharged the duties of my remaining farewells, and in less than half an
hour, was more than a mile distant from Garrett Park and its inhabitants.
I can't say that for one, who, like me, is fond of being made a great
deal of, that there is any thing very delightful in those visits into the
country. It may be all well enough for married people, who, from the mere
fact of being married, are always entitled to certain consideration, put-
-par exemple--into a bed-room, a little larger than a dog kennel, and
accommodated with a looking-glass, that does not distort one's features
like a paralytic stroke. But we single men suffer a plurality of evils
and hard-ships, in entrusting ourselves to the casualties of rural
hospitality. We are thrust up into any attic repository--exposed to the
mercy of rats, and the incursions of swallows. Our lavations are
performed in a cracked basin, and we are so far removed from human
assistance, that our very bells sink into silence before they reach half
way down the stairs. But two days before I left Garrett Park, I myself
saw an enormous mouse run away with my almond paste, without any possible
means of resisting the aggression. Oh! the hardships of a single man are
beyond conception; and what is worse, the very misfortune of being single
deprives one of all sympathy. "A single man can do this, and a single man
ought to do that, and a single man may be put here, and a single man may
be sent there," are maxims that I have been in the habit of hearing
constantly inculcated and never disputed during my whole life; and so,
from our fare and treatment being coarse in all matters, they have at
last grown to be all matters in course.