mmense tracks of country, I exhausted my exuberant spirits, without
obtaining much experience. I every where saw industry the fore-runner
and not the consequence, of luxury; but this country, everything being
on an ample scale, did not afford those picturesque views, which a
certain degree of cultivation is necessary gradually to produce. The eye
wandered without an object to fix upon over immeasureable plains, and
lakes that seemed replenished by the ocean, whilst eternal forests
of small clustering trees, obstructed the circulation of air, and
embarrassed the path, without gratifying the eye of taste. No cottage
smiling in the waste, no travellers hailed us, to give life to silent
nature; or, if perchance we saw the print of a footstep in our path, it
was a dreadful warning to turn aside; and the head ached as if assailed
by the scalping knife. The Indians who hovered on the skirts of the
European settlements had only learned of their neighbours to plunder,
and they stole their guns from them to do it with more safety.

"From the woods and back settlements, I returned to the towns, and
learned to eat and drink most valiantly; but without entering into
commerce (and I detested commerce) I found I could not live there; and,
growing heartily weary of the land of liberty and vulgar aristocracy,
seated on her bags of dollars, I resolved once more to visit Europe. I
wrote to a distant relation in England, with whom I had been educated,
mentioning the vessel in which I intended to sail. Arriving in London,
my senses were intoxicated. I ran from street to street, from theater
to theater, and the women of the town (again I must beg pardon for my
habitual frankness) appeared to me like angels.

"A week was spent in this thoughtless manner, when, returning very late
to the hotel in which I had lodged ever since my arrival, I was knocked
down in a private street, and hurried, in a state of insensibility, into
a coach, which brought me hither, and I only recovered my senses to
be treated like one who had lost them. My keepers are deaf to my
remonstrances and enquiries, yet assure me that my confinement shall not
last long. Still I cannot guess, though I weary myself with conjectures,
why I am confined, or in what part of England this house is situated. I
imagine sometimes that I hear the sea roar, and wished myself again on
the Atlantic, till I had a glimpse of you."*

A few moments were only allowed to Maria to comment on this n