Along the lakes and over the mountains goes the wretched man, still in solitude. He tells himself in moments of sober earnest that he has made a mistake, and has subjected himself to great misery in attempting to obtain alone delights which by their very nature require companionship. Robinson is not a student. He cares nothing for minerals, and knows nothing of botany. Neither the social manners of the people among whom he is wandering, nor the formation of the earth's crust in those parts, are able to give him that excitement which he requires. The verdure of the Alps, the peaks of the mountains, the sun rising through the mists, would give him pleasure if he had with him another soul to whom he could exclaim in the loving intimacy of free intercourse, "By George, Tom, that is jolly! It's all very well talking of Cumberland, but one must come to Switzerland to see that." Every man cannot be a Childe Harold; and even to be a Childe Harold one must begin by a stout determination to be unhappy, and to put up with it. In his own lodgings in London Robinson has lived a good deal alone, and, though he has not liked it, he has put up with it. It has been the business of his life. But he has it not in him to travel alone and to enjoy it. If, indeed, the Foreign Office in Whitehall had entrusted him with a letter or even a teapot, to carry to the Foreign Office at Vienna, he would have executed his mission with manly fidelity, and would have suffered nothing on the journey. The fact that he had a teapot to convey would have been enough for his support. But then work is always so much easier than play. But he goes on wearily, and still makes an effort or two. As he falls down into Italy, looking with listless, unseeing eyes at all the prettinesses of the Ticino, he comes upon another Robinson, and there is a chance for him. But he has unconsciously learned and despised his own littleness, and in that other lonely one he fears to find one as small, or it may be smaller than himself. He gathers his toga round him, in the shape of knapsack and walking-stick, with somewhat of dignity, and looks at his brother with suspicious eye. His brother makes some faint effort at fraternization, such as he had made before, and then Robinson,--our Robinson,--is off. He wants a companion sorely, but he does not want one who shall be so low in the world's reckoning as to want him. So he passes on, and having at last tramped out with weary feet his six weeks of wretched vacation, he returns home rejoicing to think that on the morrow he shall be back amidst the comforts of his desk and stool, and the society of his fellow-labourers.