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now . Not a leaf , not a stem , not a root was on that beloved bill ; it * bowels were torn out , and strewn in rough and ragged heaps on it * mangled face and breast ' Geologists lay it down , that where metallic ores are to be fou nd * ail is sterility on the surface—there is little , or no vegetation ; it may be so , but a greater certainty is , that that wa * not an article in the creed of the improvers and civilizers when they
set to work here . The site of the cottage as to latitude and longitude , and its bearings by the compass , was as of old * and steering from its south-west gabte j to look for the patch of-garden , a rascally furnace belched his blaze and smoke directly into my face , drove me back ; and , willy-nilly ? my burnt and bleared eyes were turned upon the —cottage ? Cottage ! Whitewashed it was . They'd whitewash a lump of coal that lay in a cart rut there . The walls , to half their
heightt were spattered with mud . By what dexterous process this was effected , and in such weather too , was at first a mystery , but it was soon unravelled ; the artist was then at work , but out of sight for the moment . The shattered windows were mended by filthy rags , and one mass of breakage was stopped up by a discarded , dingy felt hat : and in the place of that smooth , velvety turf , which was , a hillock of cinders reared itself so high , that the cottage grinned forth its wretchedness in a valley at its foot . Between the hillock and the
door , a low rough wall , white-washed—yes to be sure—^ stretched from end to end of the domicile * erected to prevent the cinders from rolling —• into the door ? No , into the pig-stye before the door . It seems 1 had disturbed the mud-spattering artist , for a grunt came upon my ears , and a lean , hungry pig leaned his nose on the wall for support , while he examined me ; and grunted again , not angrily ; it was a sort of congratulation , a ' how d ' ye do ? ' grunt . The bridge and Stone- *
breaker excepted , this was the only thing , animate or inanimate , which held sympathy with me . That pig ! he could not know me ! why , hisgreatgreat-grandmother nmst have been an infant at the breast when J last looked at that door , somewhere in the neighbourhood perhaps , assuredly not there . There was neither cabbage-leaf nor root visible , so I walked into the town , purchased two penny loaves , returned , and gave them to him . This was all the communion I had with the inhabitants
of my native place . I hastened from it . I would not remain to take a whiff of tobacco , till then my never-failing solace in jnisery—the com ^ oa&r of my contentious and afflicting thoughts ; I love to see its curls of light blue smoke rising and circling from the bowl of my pipe ; they are , in . motion—indeed , they always remind me of her—like Taglioni ; she herself , a fleecy cloud ribboned and edged with livelier
tints , as it dances to a bridal of the stars . No , not a whiff could J , or would I take . My lachrymal ducts were scorched , and the one compelled bead of a tear which expanded over each ball of sight , scalded my lids ; my breath was fire , and the pulsations of my heart were the throbs of mingling agony and maledictions . You may laugh a . t this extravagance , if yt «* will , Mr . Reader , I am not asking your sympathy : 1 am writing a tale of confessions and facts ; not spinning apologies for my life and character . I had thought of this home of my childhood through thirty-three years of absence fFom it , with such sacredness of emotion , that I believe I never once alluded to it , even to my intimate friend , 1 tad roamed more thaa a hundred
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S 80 A utobiography ofPeL Payuiee .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1833, page 330, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2614/page/42/
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