No Fire Could
Have Dried Them Ere I Had To Start; And To Pack Them In Their
Present Condition Was
To spread ruin among my other possessions.
With a heavy heart I said farewell to them as they lay a
Pulp in
the middle of a pool upon the floor of Mitchell's kitchen. I
wonder if they are dry by now. Mitchell hired a man to carry my
baggage to the station, which was hard by, accompanied me thither
himself, and recommended me to the particular attention of the
officials. No one could have been kinder. Those who are out of
pocket may go safely to Reunion House, where they will get decent
meals and find an honest and obliging landlord. I owed him this
word of thanks, before I enter fairly on the second {1} and far
less agreeable chapter of my emigrant experience.
CHAPTER II - COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK - A FRAGMENT - 1871
Very much as a painter half closes his eyes so that some salient
unity may disengage itself from among the crowd of details, and
what he sees may thus form itself into a whole; very much on the
same principle, I may say, I allow a considerable lapse of time to
intervene between any of my little journeyings and the attempt to
chronicle them. I cannot describe a thing that is before me at the
moment, or that has been before me only a very little while before;
I must allow my recollections to get thoroughly strained free from
all chaff till nothing be except the pure gold; allow my memory to
choose out what is truly memorable by a process of natural
selection; and I piously believe that in this way I ensure the
Survival of the Fittest.
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