y.--Six weeks today since I first occupied my present retreat.

"My landlord and landlady are two hideous old people. They look as if
they disliked me, on the rare occasions when we meet. So much the better;
they don't remind me of my deafness by trying to talk, and they keep as
much as possible out of my way. This morning, after breakfast, I altered
the arrangement of my books--and then I made my fourth attempt, in the
last ten days, to read some of my favorite authors. No: my taste has
apparently changed since the time when I could hear. I closed one volume
after another; caring nothing for what used to be deeply interesting to
me.

"Reckless and savage--with a burning head and a cold heart--I went out to
look about me.

"After two hours of walking and thinking, I found that I had wandered to
our county town. The rain began to fall heavily just as I happened to be
passing a bookseller's shop. After some hesitation--for I hate exposing
my deafness to strangers--I asked leave to take shelter, and looked at
the books.

"Among them was a collection of celebrated Trials. I thought of my
grandfather; consulted the index; and, finding his name there, bought the
work. The shopman (as I could guess from his actions and looks) proposed
sending the parcel to me. I insisted on taking it away. The sky had
cleared; and I was eager to read the details of my grandfather's crime.

"Tuesday--Sat up late last night, reading my new book. My favorite poets,
novelists, and historians have failed to interest me. I devoured the
Trials with breathless delight; beginning of course with the murder in
which I felt a family interest. Prepared to find my grandfather a
ruffian, I confess I was surprised by the discovery that he was also a
fool. The officers of justice had no merit in tracing the crime to him;
his own stupidity delivered him into their hands. I read the evidence
twice over, and put myself in his position, and saw the means plainly by
which he might have set discovery at defiance.

"In the Preface to the Trials I found an allusion, in terms of praise, to
a work of the same kind, published in the French language. I wrote to
London at once, and ordered the book."

"Wednesday.--Is there some mysterious influence, in the silent solitude
of my life, that is hardening my nature? Is there something unnatural in
the existence of a man who never hears a sound? Is there a moral sense
that suffers when a bodily sense is lost?

"The