g,
and a bound. We play, we talk, we study, we discuss questions of all
sorts infinitely. I take nothing for granted. I question everything, of
course in the privacy of my room or the room of my friends. I do not
care to be expelled. And in the midst of this charming life bad news
comes to me. My father is dead. He has left a large estate in Illinois.
I must go there. At least my grandmother thinks it is best. And so my
school days end. Yet I am only eighteen!

CHAPTER II

I am eighteen and the year is 1833. All of Europe is in a ferment, is
bubbling over in places. Napoleon has been hearsed for twelve years in
St. Helena. But the principles of the French Revolution are working.
Charles is king of France, but by the will of the nation first and by
the grace of God afterward. There is no republic there; but the
sovereignty of the people, the prime principle of the French Revolution,
has founded the right of Charles to rule.... And what of England? Fox
had rejoiced at the fall of the Bastille. Coleridge, Wordsworth, and
Southey had sung of liberty, exulting in the emancipation of peoples
from tyranny. Then they had changed. Liberalism had come under the heel
again. Revolution was feared and denounced. Liberal principles were
crushed.... But not for long. We students read Shelley and Byron. They
were now gone from earth, eleven and nine years respectively. They had
not altered their faith, dying in the heyday of youthful power. Would
they have changed at any age to which they might have lived? We believed
they would not have done so. But what of England? It is 1833 and the
reform bill is a year old. The rotten boroughs are abolished. There is a
semblance of democratic representation in Parliament. The Duke of
Wellington has suffered a decline in popularity. Italy is rising, for
Mazzini has come upon the scene. Germany is fighting the influence of
Metternich. We students are flapping our young wings. A great day is
dawning for the world. And I am off to America!

What is stirring there? I am bound for the Middle West of that great
land. What is it like? Shall I ever return? What will my life be? These
are my reflections as I prepare to sail.

I take passage on the _Columbia and Caledonia_. She is built of wood and
is 200 feet long from taffrail to fore edge of stem. Her beam is 34-1/2
feet. She has a gross tonnage of 520 tons. She can sail in favorable
weather at a speed of 12 knots an hour. I laughed at all thi