almost equal to that of
the man whose future happiness or misery depended on its issue. I read, I
devoured compositions of this sort. They took possession of my soul; and the
effects they produced, were frequently discernible in my external appearance and
my health. My curiosity however was not entirely ignoble: village anecdotes and
scandal had no charms for me: my imagination must be excited; and, when that was
not done, my curiosity was dormant.
    The residence of my parents was within the manor of Ferdinando Falkland, a
country squire of considerable opulence. At an early age I attracted the
favourable notice of Mr. Collins, this gentleman's steward, who used to call in
occasionally at my father's. He observed the particulars of my progress with
approbation, and made a favourable report to his master of my industry and
genius.
    In the summer of the year Mr. Falkland visited his estate in our county
after an absence of several months. This was a period of misfortune to me. I was
then eighteen years of age. My father lay dead in our cottage. I had lost my
mother some years before. In this forlorn situation I was surprised with a
message from the squire, ordering me to repair to the mansion-house the morning
after my father's funeral.
    Though I was not a stranger to books, I had no practical acquaintance with
men. I had never had occasion to address a person of this elevated rank, and I
felt no small uneasiness and awe on the present occasion. I found Mr. Falkland a
man of small stature, with an extreme delicacy of form and appearance. In place
of the hard-favoured and inflexible visages I had been accustomed to observe,
every muscle and petty line of his countenance seemed to be in an inconceivable
degree pregnant with meaning. His manner was kind, attentive and humane. His eye
was full of animation, but there was a grave and sad solemnity in his air, which
for want of experience I imagined was the inheritance of the great, and the
instrument by which the distance between them and their inferiors was
maintained. His look bespoke the unquietness of his mind, and frequently
wandered with an expression of disconsolateness and anxiety.
    My reception was as gracious and encouraging as I could possibly desire. Mr.
Falkland questioned me respecting my learning, and my conceptions of men and
things, and listened to my answers with condescension and approbation. This
kindness soon restored to me a considerable part of my self-possession, though I
still felt restrained by the graceful, but unaltered dignity of his carriage.