lity. Nothing in the world was
then farther from my heart: no, my humiliation had another source--my
sorrowing penetrated into a deeper soil. I awoke to the conviction that
my position was such, that even the temporary countenance they gave me
by their society, was to be deemed my greatest honour, as its withdrawal
should be my deepest disgrace--that these poor heartless brainless fools
for whom I taxed my time, my intellect, and my means, were in the light
of patrons to me. Let any man who has felt what it is to live among
those on whose capacity he has looked down, while he has been obliged
to pay homage to their rank--whose society he has frequented, not for
pleasure nor enjoyment--not for the charm of social intercourse, or the
interchange of friendly feeling, but for the mere vulgar object that he
might seem to others to be in a position to which he had no claim---to
be intimate, when he was only endured--to be on terms of ease, when he
was barely admitted; let him sympathise with me. Now, I awoke to the
full knowledge of my state, and saw myself at last in a true light. 'My
own doing!' repeated I to myself. Would it had been so many a day since,
ere I lost self-respect--ere I had felt the humiliation I now feel."

"'You are under arrest, sir,' said the sergeant, as with a party of
soldiers he stood prepared to accompany me to the quarters. "'Under
arrest! By whose orders?'

"'The colonel's orders,' said the man briefly, and in a voice that
showed I was to expect little compassion from one of a class who had
long regarded me as an upstart, giving himself airs unbecoming his
condition.

"My imprisonment, of which I dared not ask the reason, gave me time
to meditate on my fortunes, and think over the vicisicitudes of my
life,--to reflect on the errors which had rendered abortive every chance
of success in whatever career I adopted; but, more than all, to consider
how poor were all my hopes of happiness in the road I had chosen,
while I dedicated to the amusement of others, the qualities which,
if cultivated for myself, might be made sources of contentment and
pleasure. If I seem prolix in all this--if I dwell on these memories, it
is, first, because few men may not reap, a lesson from considering them;
and again, because on them hinged my whole future life.

"There, do you see that little drawing yonder? it is a sketch, a mere
sketch I made from recollection, of the room I was confined in. That's
the St. Lawrence