t at Saint Lazare;
all alone, though in a carriage full of people, that I watched the
moon shine on the Seine flood with its tufted islets, on Rouen with her
spires, and on the shipping in the harbour of Dieppe. When the first
light of the morning called me from troubled slumbers on the deck, I
beheld the dawn at first with pleasure; I watched with pleasure the
green shores of England rising out of rosy haze; I took the salt air
with delight into my nostrils; and then all came back to me; that I was
no longer an artist, no longer myself; that I was leaving all I cared
for, and returning to all that I detested, the slave of debt and
gratitude, a public and a branded failure.

From this picture of my own disgrace and wretchedness, it is not
wonderful if my mind turned with relief to the thought of Pinkerton,
waiting for me, as I knew, with unwearied affection, and regarding me
with a respect that I had never deserved, and might therefore fairly
hope that I should never forfeit. The inequality of our relation struck
me rudely. I must have been stupid, indeed, if I could have considered
the history of that friendship without shame--I, who had given so
little, who had accepted and profited by so much. I had the whole day
before me in London, and I determined (at least in words) to set the
balance somewhat straighter. Seated in the corner of a public place, and
calling for sheet after sheet of paper, I poured forth the expression of
my gratitude, my penitence for the past, my resolutions for the future.
Till now, I told him, my course had been mere selfishness. I had been
selfish to my father and to my friend, taking their help, and denying
them (which was all they asked) the poor gratification of my company and
countenance.

Wonderful are the consolations of literature! As soon as that letter was
written and posted, the consciousness of virtue glowed in my veins like
some rare vintage.

CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH I GO WEST.

I reached my uncle's door next morning in time to sit down with the
family to breakfast. More than three years had intervened almost without
mutation in that stationary household, since I had sat there first, a
young American freshman, bewildered among unfamiliar dainties, Finnan
haddock, kippered salmon, baps and mutton ham, and had wearied my mind
in vain to guess what should be under the tea-cosey. If there were
any change at all, it seemed that I had risen in the family esteem. My
father's dea