rapidly, as the ideas of prudence and danger by turns reigned in
my bosom. I risked much in being obliged to keep in line with the
current of life flowing so noisily the other way, the thought of which
spurred me onward; and I had far to go, and not very great endurance to
fall back upon,--a reflection which counselled a cautious expenditure of
effort. I was anon anxious to fly over the hard lumps of earth and
pricking straw-blades,--anon, eager to move gently, with deliberate hand
upon the brake. I suffered much at my elbows, which were crushed as my
body passed over them, (a pulverizing process,) and which, as I had
clasped my arms across my breast, were most palpably in the way. It
seemed as if they would be unhinged. My feet, too, demonstrated to me
the causes of the circular motion of a penholder or a ruler when started
down a desk-lid, and had the same influence upon my course as the
pin-point has upon the whole pin when in motion. My head and upper
members inclined to swing in a circle about my feet. I spent much labor
upon this defaulting portion of AEsop's body of sovereign independencies,
which threatened the greatest difficulties. My neck, also, in the narrow
space between the band of my low woollen shirt and my hair-roots, was
harassed at every turn by the needle-bed of short grass that I passed
over; and the loose stones, stubble, and gravel, that had irritated the
skin, worked their way beneath the garment. I was quite a child's
rattle, full of pebbles. I could have endured all this for a long while,
however, the spirit then actuating me being one of those unreflecting
forces which would (as a last resort) have carried me down the same
slope in a Regulus-cask. But after travelling quite a distance, I began
to revolve, not any complete remedy for these manifold ills, but some
amelioration of the exaggerated violence of their sway. I tore one
sleeve from my undershirt and wound that around my neck. I held my arms
straight down my side and flat against my body. Nothing short of
amputation could have crushed the rebellion in my lower members, and so
(with the power to amputate not abandoned) I nursed them into insolence
with a compromise.

A psychological history of the uneven progress of that billowy retreat
would be as far beyond my reach as of the ten minutes of outset trial. I
thought only vaguely of my home, of my regiment, of my moments of danger
in past life. I listened during that night till my sense o