up my home and took the whole world in exchange, fluttering the
wings of my spirit as if I would have flown from one star to another
through the universe. I waved my hand towards the dusky village,
bade it a joyous farewell, and turned away to follow any path but
that which might lead me back. Never was Childe Harold's sentiment
adopted in a spirit more unlike his own.

Naturally enough, I thought of Don Quixote. Recollecting how the
knight and Sancho had watched for auguries when they took the road
to Toboso, I began, between jest and earnest, to feel a similar
anxiety. It was gratified, and by a more poetical phenomenon than
the braying of the dappled ass or the neigh of Rosinante. The sun,
then just above the horizon, shone faintly through the fog, and
formed a species of rainbow in the west, bestriding my intended road
like a gigantic portal. I had never known before that a bow could
be generated between the sunshine and the morning mist. It had no
brilliancy, no perceptible hues, but was a mere unpainted framework,
as white and ghostlike as the lunar rainbow, which is deemed ominous
of evil. But, with a light heart, to which all omens were
propitious, I advanced beneath the misty archway of futurity.

I had determined not to enter on my profession within a hundred
miles of home, and then to cover myself with a fictitious name. The
first precaution was reasonable enough, as otherwise Parson
Thumpcushion might have put an untimely catastrophe to my story; but
as nobody would be much affected by my disgrace, and all was to be
suffered in my own person, I know not why I cared about a name. For
a week or two I travelled almost at random, seeking hardly any
guidance except the whirling of a leaf at, some turn of the road, or
the green bough that beckoned me, or the naked branch that pointed