The grief of Oswald was, then, redoubled in traversing Germany in order
to repair to Italy. On account of the war it was necessary to avoid
France and its environs; it was also necessary to keep aloof from the
armies who rendered the roads impracticable. This necessity of occupying
his mind with particulars material to the journey, of adopting, every
day, and almost every instant, some new resolution, was quite
insupportable to Lord Nelville. His health, far from becoming better,
often obliged him to stop, when he felt the strongest desire to hasten
to his journey's end or at least to make a start. He spat blood, and
took scarcely any care of himself; for he believed himself guilty, and
became his own accuser with too great a degree of severity. He no longer
wished for life but as it might become instrumental to the defence of
his country. "Has not our country," said he, "some paternal claims upon
us? But we should have the power to serve it usefully: we must not offer
it such a debilitated existence as I drag along to ask of the sun some
principle of life to enable me to struggle against my miseries. None but
a father would receive me to his bosom, under such circumstances, with
affection increased in proportion as I was abandoned by nature and by
destiny."

Lord Nelville had flattered himself that the continual variety of
external objects would distract his imagination a little from those
ideas by which it was habitually occupied; but that circumstance was far
from producing, at first, this happy effect. After any great misfortune
we must become familiarised anew with everything that surrounds us;
accustom ourselves to the faces that we behold again, to the house in
which we dwell, to the daily habits that we resume; each of these
efforts is a painful shock, and nothing multiplies them like a journey.

The only pleasure of Lord Nelville was to traverse the Tirolese