a friend,
another thing writing to the public. Farewell.

* * * * *

The letter which, in compliance with your request, I wrote to you
concerning the death of my uncle has raised, it seems, your curiosity
to know what terrors and dangers attended me while I continued at
Misenum; for there, I think, my account broke off:

"Though my shock'd soul recoils, my tongue shall tell."

My uncle having left us, I spent such time as was left on my studies--it
was on their account indeed that I had stopped behind--till it was time
for my bath. After which I went to supper, and then fell into a short
and uneasy sleep. There had been noticed for many days before, a
trembling of the earth, which did not alarm us much, as this is quite an
ordinary occurrence in Campania; but it was so particularly violent that
night that it not only shook but actually overturned, as it would seem,
everything about us.

My mother rushed into my chamber, where she found me rising in order to
awaken her. We sat down in the open court of the house, which occupied a
small space between the buildings and the sea. As I was at that time but
eighteen years of age, I know not whether I should call my behavior, in
this dangerous juncture, courage or folly; but I took up Livy, and
amused myself with turning over that author, and even making extracts
from him, as if I had been perfectly at my leisure. Just then, a friend
of my uncle's, who had lately come to him from Spain, joined us, and
observing me sitting by my mother with a book in my hand, reproved her
for her calmness, and me at the same time for my careless security:
nevertheless I went on with my author.

Though it was now morning, the light was still exceedingly faint and
doubtful; the buildings all around us tottered, and though we stood upon
open ground, yet, as the place was narrow and confined, there was no
remaining without imminent danger: we therefore resolved to quit the
town. A panic-stricken crowd followed us, and--as to a mind distracted
with terror every suggestion seems more prudent than its own--pressed on
us in dense array to drive us forward as we came out. Being at a
convenient distance from the houses, we stood still, in the midst of a
most dangerous and dreadful scene.

The chariots, which we had ordered to be drawn out, were so agitated
backward and forward, though upon the most level ground, that we could
not keep them steady, even by support