We returned to college to be present at the academy-day, and the distribution of the prizes. Kenelm had been assured that, but for his illness, one of these prizes would have fallen to his share. I comforted him as well as I could, quoting--"satis est potuisse videri." In the spring of the following year, I took my younger son to Stoneyhurst, in the hope that the brothers would find present pleasure in each others' company, and hereafter talk over together the scenes of their boyhood. I observed that Kenelm's spirits appeared depressed: I questioned him; he assured me he had nothing to complain of: I interrogated the master: he spoke of Kenelm with great regard, and knew not that any cause of uneasiness existed for him. I passed three days with my sons, during which time Kenelm's cheerfulness returned, or seemed to return; and I left them together. Towards the end of this year, I finally resolved to put in execution my long-projected, long-delayed, continental plan. I advised the brothers of my purpose, who were, of course, delighted with the news. A kind and much-esteemed friend, who wished to see Stoneyhurst college, brought them back with him into Lincolnshire at the end of March following. In the month that intervened between the return of my sons and our arrival in Paris, the expectation of the journey, the preparation for the journey, and the journey itself, so far occupied the mind of Kenelm, that I had not remarked in him any extraordinary want of gaiety: I perceived only that he was more serious, that his manner was less frank, and even his carriage less easy than heretofore. At Paris, the first discovery I made respecting him was that he was become short-sighted. As we were viewing the statues of the Louvre, he exclaimed, "I see nothing but blocks of marble;" and he went off immediately to Chevalier's, the optician, to buy himself a lorgnette. I sympathized with him, knowing by experience that a short sight deprives us of a great part of the pleasure of existence, besides being an incalculable disadvantage in society. He imputed his short-sightedness to his having imprudently given himself up to study, before his health was fully re-established after the measles, in the hope of gaining, at the next academy-day, the medal which he had lost by his illness; that he had read a great deal by the flaring gas lights with which the college is illuminated. Something remained behind, a reserve, a sadness even, which I entreated him to account for. He gave me his full confidence; and I learned, with very great sorrow, that, for the last eighteen months of his stay in college, his mind had been a prey to scruples. This "pious awe, and fear to have offended," carried to excess through inexperience and a want of due apprehension that it is by the will only that we offend,--had destroyed his gaiety, retarded his improvement, and doubtlessly much injured his health.