My life was rather sad at this time: my brother's failure at college was
a source of disappointment and distress to my parents; and I, who
admired him extremely, and believed in him implicitly, was grieved at
his miscarriage and his absence from England; while the darkening
prospects of the theater threw a gloom over us all. My hitherto frequent
interchange of letters with my dear friend H---- S---- had become
interrupted and almost suspended by the prolonged and dangerous illness
of her brother; and I was thrown almost entirely upon myself, and was
finding my life monotonously dreary, when events occurred that changed
its whole tenor almost suddenly, and determined my future career with
less of deliberation than would probably have satisfied either my
parents or myself under less stringent circumstances.
It was in the autumn of 1829, my father being then absent on a
professional tour in Ireland, that my mother, coming in from walking one
day, threw herself into a chair and burst into tears. She had been
evidently much depressed for some time past, and I was alarmed at her
distress, of which I begged her to tell me the cause. "Oh, it has come
at last," she answered; "our property is to be sold.
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