These have been many days in my life which have been most tedious. The imaginative man can perhaps fill them up with his own fancies; but what little imagination I have--and it is certainly very small--must be excited by some external objects. Mine is a sort of lazy fancy, which wants stirring up to activity. I can sit by the side of a dashing brook, and see it sparkling and foaming onward, and regard it as a little epitome of life, with its rapids and its shallows; its sunshine and its shade; its quiet lapses and its turbulent activity. I can see in its different aspects the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of existence. I can even watch the root-frequenting trout coming soberly forth into mid-stream, like some money-getting recluse, issuing forth into the current of speculation, to be angled for by man or the devil; and I can endow the old gentleman with all the thoughts and feelings of humanity, wondering what he is calculating now, and asking myself in what stock he is about to embark his capital. But there are some days when there is nothing suggestive in external circumstances; and dull and wearily do the leaden wings of time flap on. Oh, the heavy hours I have passed in an Indian bungalow, hearing the rain drop, drop, drop for ever, without a book to solace the passing hour, without a sight or sound to waken the soul from a lethargy which is not sleep; and I have envied the impassibility of the good Hindoos, who, squatted in the neighbouring sheds, were pleasantly occupied in profound meditations concerning nothing. But of all the weary days I ever spent, the worst was that which succeeded the evening of the camp-meeting; and many circumstances tended to render it so. A sort of dead monotony seemed to have fallen over the whole family of Mr. Stringer. The boys, whose wicked activity and genial love of mischief might have afforded some amusement, were closely cooped up during the whole morning by Mr. McGrubber. Mr. Stringer himself was busy, supplying all deficiencies which a somewhat prolonged absence had left in the ordering and arrangement of his farm. Mrs. Stringer sat all day long embroidering, like a lady of the olden time. Bessy Davenport sat, solemn and demure as a nun, by her side, drawing patterns of collars and cuffs, as if she had been working for her daily bread in a Manchester manufactory. Yet, ever and anon, she looked up at my face with eyes which seemed to say, "Do you recollect, Cousin Richard, that you are going to fight a duel, and may very likely be killed, and leave me whom you love--you know you do--to mourn you all alone?" I asked her to go out and take a walk, but she declined, saying it was too warm. And then again Mr. Wheatley had ridden over to Jerusalem upon some business, promising to be back again that evening or the next day. There were not many books in Mr. Stringer's house, and I had brought none with me except one, wishing to make the world my book rather than my oyster.