I have kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bashful man. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobody ever did suppose it, but I am naturally a bashful man. This isthe secret which I have never breathed until now.I might greatly move the reader by some account of the innumerable places I have not been to, theinnumerable people I have not called upon or received, the innumerable social evasions I have beenguilty of, solely because I am by original constitution and character a bashful man. But I will leavethe reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me.That object is to give a plain account of my travels and discoveries in the Holly-Tree Inn; in whichplace of good entertainment for man and beast I was once snowed up.It happened in the memorable year when I parted for ever from Angela Leath, whom I was shortlyto have married, on making the discovery that she preferred my bosom friend. From our schooldays I had freely admitted Edwin, in my own mind, to be far superior to myself; and, though I wasgrievously wounded at heart, I felt the preference to be natural, and tried to forgive them both. Itwas under these circumstances that I resolved to go to America-on my way to the Devil.Communicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to Edwin, but resolving to write each of theman affecting letter conveying my blessing and forgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore shouldcarry to the post when I myself should be bound for the New World, far beyond recall, -I say, locking up my grief in my own breast, and consoling myself as I could with the prospect of beinggenerous, I quietly left all I held dear, and started on the desolate journey I have mentioned.The dead winter-time was in full dreariness when I left my chambers for ever, at five o'clock in themorning. I had shaved by candle-light, of course, and was miserably cold, and experienced thatgeneral all-pervading sensation of getting up to be hanged which I have usually found inseparablefrom untimely rising under such circumstances.How well I remember the forlorn aspect of Fleet Street when I came out of the Temple! The streetlamps flickering in the gusty north-east wind, as if the very gas were contorted with cold; the whitetopped houses; the bleak, star-lighted sky; the market people and other early stragglers, trotting tocirculate their almost frozen blood; the hospitable light and warmth of the few coffee-shops andpublic-houses that were open for such customers; the hard, dry, frosty rime with which the air wascharged (the wind had already beaten it into every crevice), and which lashed my face like a steelwhip.It wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of the year. The Post-office packet for theUnited States was to depart from Liverpool, weather permitting, on the first of the ensuing month, and I had the intervening time on my hands. I had taken this into consideration, and had resolvedto make a visit to a certain spot (which I need not name) on the farther borders of Yorksh