Algernon was so elated with his unexpected emancipation from the
tyrannical control of his father and brother, that he left the stately
old house with as little regret as a prisoner would do who had been
confined for years in some magnificent castle, which had been converted
into a county jail, and, from the force of melancholy associations, had
lost all its original beauty in his eyes. The world was now within his
grasp--its busy scenes all before him: these he expected to find replete
with happiness and decked with flowers.
We will not follow our young adventurer to the academic halls, or trace
his path through foreign lands. It is enough for our purpose that he
acquired little knowledge at college, save the knowledge of evil; and
that he met with many misadventures, and suffered much inconvenience and
mortification, during his journey through the Continent. He soon
discovered that the world was not a paradise; that his uncle was not a
wise man; and that human nature, with some trifling variations, which
were generally more the result of circumstances and education than of
any peculiar virtue in the individual, was much the same at home and
abroad; that men, in order to conform to the usages of society, were
often obliged to appear what they were not, and sacrifice their best
feelings to secure the approbation of persons whom in secret they
despised; that he who would fight the battle of life and come off
victorious, must do it with other weapons than those with which fashion
and pleasure supply their champions.
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