ruled the day, and a few scarecrow national papers fed their reading
public on stories of the Zummalacarregu type.

So the public helped itself.

In those days shorthand was unknown in our country; four or five
quick-fingered young men occupied a bench in the gallery of the House,
and "skeletonized" the speeches they heard. At the end of a sitting they
pieced their fragments together: in one would be found what was missing
in the other: thus they made the speeches complete. They wrote the
result out themselves four times, and then each one provided for the
copying forty times, of his own copy. The journals of Parliament, thus
written, were preserved by the patriots, who were members at that
time,--and are probably still in preservation.

The man of to-day, who sighs after the happy days of old, will not
understand how dangerous an enterprise, was the attempt made by certain
young men "in the glorious age of noble freedom," to make the public
familiar, through their handwriting, with the speeches delivered in
Parliament.

These writings had a regenerating influence upon me.

An entirely new world opened out before me: new ideas, new impulses
arose within my mind and heart. The name of that world which opened out
before me was "home." It was marvellous to listen for the first time to
the full meaning of "home." Till then I had had no idea of "home:" now
every day I passed my nights with it:--the lines, which I wrote down
night after night, were imprinted upon those white pages, that are left
vacant in the mind of a child. Nor was I the only one impressed.

There is still deeply engraved on my memory that kindling influence, by
which the spirit of the youth of that age was transformed through the
writing of those pages.

One month later I had no more dreams of becoming Privy-Councillor:--then
I knew not how I could ever approach my cousin Melanie.

All at once the school authorities discovered where the parliamentary
speeches were reproduced. It was done by the school children, that
hundred-handed typesetting machine.

The danger had already spread far; finding no ordinary outlet, it had
found its way through twelve-year-old children: hands of children
supplied the deficiency of the press.

Great was the apprehension.

The writing of some (among them mine) was recognized. We were accused
before the school tribunal.

I was in that frame of mind that I could not fear. The elder boys they
tried to frighten with