. Stories for the household . paper with a satirical poem about me. This sent so far to me, unpaid, probably by the anonymous author him- The Story of my Life, 759 self. This hateful piece of malice hurt me deeply. I never found outwho was the author; perhaps one of those who afterwards called mefriend and pressed my hand. People have sometimes bad thoughts;well, I have mine too. It is a weakness of my countrymen, that in foreign lauds, duringtheir residence in a large city, they live almost entirely in a circle oftheir own people ; they must dine together, meet in the theatre, and se
. Stories for the household . paper with a satirical poem about me. This sent so far to me, unpaid, probably by the anonymous author him- The Story of my Life, 759 self. This hateful piece of malice hurt me deeply. I never found outwho was the author; perhaps one of those who afterwards called mefriend and pressed my hand. People have sometimes bad thoughts;well, I have mine too. It is a weakness of my countrymen, that in foreign lauds, duringtheir residence in a large city, they live almost entirely in a circle oftheir own people ; they must dine together, meet in the theatre, and seeall the sights in each others company; letters are shown about, newsfrom home is discussed, and at last one hardly knows if one is at homeor abroad. I partook of this weakness, and accordingly determined,when I quitted Paris, to board for a month in Switzerland, in some quietplace, and to associate only with Frenchmen, that I might learn theirlanguage, a knowledge of which I felt to be in the highest degree im-portant to THE LAMPOON. In the little town of Locle, in a valley of the Jura mountains, wheresnow fell in August, and the clouds floated beneath us, I was receivedby the amiable family of a wealthy clockmaker. They would not hearof my paying anything, I lived among them as a relative ; and when thetime came to part, the children shed tears. These little people had be-come my friends, though I did not understand their patois, and theywould shout into my ears, fancying that I must be deaf, to be so a stillness, what a silence was there in nature, up yonder, in theevening! We could just hear the bells sounding from the Frenchfrontier. A short distance from the town stood a solitary house, whiteand cleanly. The visitor descending through two cellars came uponnoisy mill-wheels, turning in a stream which rushed along here, hiddenfrom the world. On my solitary walks I often visited this place; andhere I finished my poem, Agnete and the Man of the Sea, which Ihad
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