Bade farewell to my "chor," and gave up rioting and revelling, and
wrote to my school friend the chemist's son to come and join me in my
studies. I also wrote a letter to the gentleman who had kindly furnished
me with funds to continue my studies abroad, and in due time I received
the following letter:--

"MY DEAR CHARLES.--I am delighted to hear that you have at length
settled down again to earnest study. I hope you will not get into any
more scrapes, or another time you may not get off scot-free. Duelling is
a very wicked and a very silly practice, and does no credit to either
party; therefore I hope you will never seek a quarrel, but do all you
can to steer clear of pugnacious persons. You have now been more than a
year at the university, and you write so seldom that you leave me in the
dark as to what progress you have made during your stay. I wish you
would write oftener, as I am very much interested to know how you are
getting on. Now for a bit of home news. Your uncle the admiral, shortly
after your departure, took to himself a young and pretty wife. I am
afraid, however, instead of the happy home he contemplated, he sees too
late that he has done a foolish thing. She is a desperate flirt, and
rumours of such a nature are afloat in the town, that I should not be
surprised if before long he sues for a divorce. He has never been the
same man since you left, and looks considerably older. The
disappointment that he felt at your determination to go your own way
instead of his has been indeed a great blow to him. I constantly
remonstrated with him on his views of your conduct towards him, but you
know how obstinate he is. He grumbles that you left his house in a huff
without even taking leave of him, but he has never had the curiosity to
ask what has become of you, and hasn't an idea that I know of your
whereabouts. "I called at your friend's the chemist's yesterday. His son told me that
you had written to him advising him to join you in Jena. He would be
delighted to go, and I do not think his father is averse to sending him. He is a superior lad, and I am not prejudiced enough to advise you to
cut his acquaintance on the mere ground of his having been born in a
humbler sphere of life than yourself. The admiral may have his
prejudices, and to a certain extent I agree with him; that is to say
that one ought rather to seek acquaintances within his own class than
out of it. Still, when we meet a man of superior mind in a class a
little below our own, I see no reason why we should draw the line of
society too tightly. I must now leave off, and hoping that you will
take care of your health, as well as improve in your studies,--I remain,
yours very truly,

                                                     "EDWARD LANGTON." Here was news indeed! My old bachelor uncle--he who when he was merry
used to laugh at the foibles of the fair sex and ridicule married
men--had himself been betrayed into marrying one of those frail beings
he professed to despise. All the experience of his long life had
vanished like smoke before the sunshine of his charmer. He had been
dazzled with her eyes, and had taken a step in the dark, and found
himself, too late, in the quagmire of remorse. Poor old fool! I sincerely pitied him. "This comes," said I to myself,
"of turning nephews out of doors. Had you, instead of trying to bend the
iron resolve of your nephew to your own poor old obstinate will,
assisted him in his very laudable determination to follow science, you
might yet have lived and died a bachelor to your heart's content. But
console yourself, my uncle, St. Anthony was tempted by a fair demon
before you. Now you have learned a lesson, although it has come somewhat
late in life." Although I deeply sympathised with my guardian's mistake, I could not do
otherwise than feel that he fully deserved this punishment for his
treatment of myself. How absurd and arrogant of a man, to persist in
bending another to his own selfish will! Are we free agents, or are we
not? But enough of this. My uncle had sinned, and he was punished. He had
imagined his charmer an angel, and found after all that she was but
mortal like the rest of her sex, a poor, weak woman. He could hardly
ever have been besotted enough to fancy that she had married him for
anything else than his money, but what will not a man do to obtain the
idol of his affections? Perhaps it was not mere blind passion that had induced him to thrust his
neck under the yoke. It might only have been pique. He would show his
nephew that he could live very happily without his companionship, and
this was the way he showed it. I mentally drew a portrait of my aunt. A dashing, reckless girl,
determined to have her own way in everything, running up dressmakers'
bills, driving about in her carriage to spend her days in visiting and
frivolity. Ambitious of pleasing every man but her husband. Dragging her
poor old wooden-legged spouse after her to balls, operas, and concerts,
or else leaving him at home, perhaps poorly, whilst she was enjoying
herself in some crowded assembly, surrounded by a troop of young
gallants, encouraging their attentions and making game of the poor old
fool she had cajoled into marrying her. I imagined her pretty, witty,
vivacious and with a temper. A thorough incapacity for the management of
a household, vain, extravagant, frivolous, heartless, calculating. Such was the mental picture I had drawn of my young aunt. How I could
imagine her of an evening--if she ever stayed at home with her husband
in the evening--yawning over the admiral's long nautical stories,
sighing and pouting when he asked her to bring him his slippers, or
rather his slipper, for he had but one. Turning up her nose as she mixed
his grog for him or lighted his pipe. Shuddering when the old man
caressingly touched her dimpled chin, and pleading fatigue that she
might go to bed early to be alone and dream of some handsome young
lieutenant she had met at Mrs. So-and-So's ball. "Well, well," said I to myself, "I will not triumph too long over your
fall, uncle, lest some day the like may happen to myself, which Heaven
forfend." I tried to imagine myself with a wife like my aunt. I, a scholar, a
searcher after the philosopher's stone, with a gay young wife always out
at parties, a family of neglected children at home, breaking in upon my
studies and smashing my crucibles and retorts, tearing up my valuable
MSS, turning my laboratory into a nursery, and profaning my hours of
study with their crying and squabbling. "No," said I, "it shall not be. I will live single. A scientific man is
wedded to science." After the letter I had received from my friend Langton, the opinion I
had formed of womankind was somewhat of the lowest. I imagined that all
women were alike, and the dread I felt lest I should fall into a trap
myself, induced me to shut myself up more than ever. I built a
laboratory and fitted it up.