Silence! the worst is yet to come. At dinner all things changed--soup, before too hot to drink, came to my lips cool as if the north wind had caressed it; number was at an end; I ranked no longer like a human being; I was a huge _ought_--a walking cypher--a vile round O. I had neither beginning nor end. Go where I would--top, bottom, sides, 'twas all the same. Bouilli avoided me--vegetables declined growing under my eyes--fowls fled from me. I might as well have longed for ice-cream in Iceland--dessert in a desert. I had no turn--I was the _last man_. Nevertheless, dinner was a necessary evil. READER.--And tea? Was excluded from the calendar. Night came, but no rest--all things had forgotten their office. The sheets huddled in undisturbed selfishness, like knotted cables, in one corner of the bed; the blankets, doubtless disgusted at their conduct, sought refuge at the foot; and the flock, like most other flocks, without a directing hand, was scattered in disjointed heaps. READER.--Did not you complain? I did--_imprimis_--to boots--boots scratched his head; ditto waiter--waiter shook his; the chambermaid, strange to say, was suddenly deaf. READER.--And the landlord? Did nothing all day; but when I spoke, was in a hurry, "going to his ledger," Had I had as many months as hydra, that would have stopped them all. READER.--You were to be _pitied_. I was. I rose one morning with the sun--it scorched my face, but shone not. Nature was in her spring-time to all others, though winter to me. I wandered beside the banks of the rapid Rhine, I saw nothing but the thick slime that clogged them, and wondered how I could have thought them beautiful; the pebbles seemed crushed upon the beach, the stream but added to their lifelessness by heaping on them its dull green slime; the lark, indeed, was singing--Juliet was right--its notes were nothing but "harsh discords and unpleasing sharps"--a rainbow threw its varied arch across the heavens--sadness had robbed it of its charm--it seemed a visionary cheat--a beautiful delusion. READER.--I feel with you. I thank you. I went next day. READER.--What then? The glorious sun shed life and joy around--the clear water rushed bounding on in glad delight to the sweet music of the scented wind--the pebbly beach welcomed its chaste cool kiss, and smiled in freshness as it rolled again back to its pristine bed. The buds on which I stepped, elastic with high hope, sprung from the ground my foot had pressed them to--the lark-- READER.--You can say nothing new about that.