and said a few words to me which I can never forget: 'You give yourself a great deal of trouble to no purpose, my dear: you cannot change the nature of things: a little northern town, unconnected with the world, uncivilized by arts or letters, must remain what it is. If you are doomed to live here, submit cheerfully; but leave it if you can: these are your only alternatives.' This was evidently so rational, that I felt a greater respect for her than for myself: with tastes like enough to my own, she knew how to resign herself beneath the lot which I found insupportable: with a love of poetry, she could judge better the stubbornness of man. I sought to know more of her, but in vain: her thoughts wandered beyond her home, but her life was devoted to it. I even believe that she dreaded lest her intercourse with me should revive her natural superiority; for what could she have done with it there? CHAPTER III. "I might have passed my life in this deplorable situation had I not lost my father. A sudden accident deprived me of my protector, my friend--the only being who had understood me in that peopled desert. My despair was uncontrollable. I found myself without one support. I had no relation save my step-mother, with whom I was no more intimate now than on the day I met her first. She soon renewed the suit of Mr. Maclinson; and though she had no authority to command my marrying him, received no one else at her house, and plainly told me that she should countenance no other match. Not that she much loved her kinsman; but she thought me presumptuous in refusing him, and made his case her own, rather for the defence of mediocrity than from family pride. Every day my state grew more odious. I felt myself attacked by that home-sick yearning which renders exile more terrible than death. Imagination is displeased by each surrounding object--the country, climate, language, and customs: life as a whole, life in detail, each moment, each circumstance, has its sting; for one's own land inspires a thousand pleasures that we guess not till they are lost. ---- "'la favella, i ecstumi, L'aria, i tronchi, il terren, le mura, il sassi.' "'Tongue, manners, air, trees, earth, walls, every stone.'