I had suffered so long from pain, and weakness,
and depression, and I was so utterly wearied with continual over-work,
and so disgusted too with the government and institutions of the
country, and with some of its inhabitants, that I felt it an infinite
relief to be freed from all further care and concern about business, and
in the first rush of my new wild joy, I took my gun and blew off part of
the top of the chimney of my printing establishment. No child could be
wilder in his delight, when escaping from long confinement in a weary
school, and starting for the longed-for society and pleasures of his
home.
But preparing for a journey of four thousand miles, with wife and
children, was itself work enough for a time. There were a hundred things
to be bought, which you would need in your new and far off home. And
there were a thousand things which you already had, to be packed, and as
many more to be set aside, to be destroyed, or sold, or given away. And
there were a thousand letters and papers to be examined, and a judgment
formed, as to which should be preserved, and which should perish in the
flames. And there were visits to be paid and repaid, and there were
partings, and regrets, and tears. But all was over at length, and we
were on our way to the world beyond the flood.
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