and procured me a pair of new boots.

Irritated against Captain Capi, we passed through Beilitz without
stopping, went immediately to Biala, the first town in Poland, and from
thence sent Capi a challenge to fight me, with sword or pistol, but
received no answer; and his non-appearance has ever confirmed him in my
opinion a rascal.

And here suffer me to take a retrospective view of what was my then
situation. By the orders of Capi I was sent prisoner as a contemptible
common deserter, and was unable to call him to account. In Poland,
indeed, I had that power, but was despised as a vagabond because of my
poverty. What, alas! are the advantages which the love of honour,
science, courage, or desire of fame can bestow, wanting the means that
should introduce us to, and bid us walk erect in the presence of our
equals? Youth depressed by poverty, is robbed of the society of those
who best can afford example and instruction. I had lived familiar with
the great, men of genius had formed and enlightened me; I had been
enumerated among the favourites of a court; and now was I a stranger,
unknown, unesteemed, nay, condemned, obliged to endure the extremes of
cold, hunger, and thirst; to wander many a weary mile, suffering both in
body and mind, while every step led me farther from her whom most I
loved, and dearest; yet had I no fixed plan, no certain knowledge in what
these my labours and sufferings should end.

I was too proud to discover myself; and, indeed, to whom could I discover
myself in a strange land? My name might have availed me in Austria, but
in Austria, where this name was known, would I not remain; rather than
seek my fortune there, I was determined to shun whatever might tend to
render me suspicious in the eyes of my country. How liable was a temper
so ardent as mine, in the midst of difficulties, fatigues, and
disappointments, hard to endure, to betray me into all those errors of
which rash youth, unaccustomed to hardship, impatient of contrariety, are
so often guilty! But I had taken my resolution, and my faithful Schell,
to whom hunger or ease, contempt or fame, for my sake, were become
indifferent, did whatever I desired.

Once more to my journal.

Feb. 1.--We proceeded four miles from Biala to Oswintzen, I having
determined to ask aid from my sister, who had married Waldow, and lived
much at her case on a fine estate at Hanmer, in Brandenburg, between
Lansberg, on the Warta and Meseritsch, a fr