Wonderful are the consolations of literature! As soon
as that letter was written and posted the consciousness
of virtue glowed in my veins like some rare vintage.
CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH I GO WEST
I REACHED my uncle's door next morning in time to sit
down with the family to breakfast. More than three
years had intervened--almost without mutation in that
stationary household--since I had sat there first, a
young American freshman, bewildered among unfamiliar
dainties (Finnan haddock, kippered salmon, baps, and
mutton-ham), and had wearied my mind in vain to guess
what should be under the tea-cosy. If there were any
change at all, it seemed that I had risen in the family
esteem. My father's death once fittingly referred to,
with a ceremonial lengthening of Scots upper lips and
wagging of the female head, the party launched at once
(God help me!) into the more cheerful topic of my own
successes. They had been so pleased to hear such good
accounts of me; I was quite a great man now; where was
that beautiful statue of the Genius of Something or
other?" You haven't it here? Not here? Really?" asks
the sprightliest of my cousins, shaking curls at me; as
though it were likely I had brought it in a cab, or
kept it concealed about my person like a birthday
surprise.
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