A HUMAN HEART. 277 



must doubtless fall from my grasp and be smashed. After this, I 

 sit for hours motionless, like a statue in marble. External objects 

 make no impression on me; there are images before me, but they 

 are of the rnind of the rnind ! and, when they vanish, then my con- 

 sciousness returns ; and often a fever has burst out over me, my 

 cheeks are flushed, my temples seem on fire, and my forehead is 

 indented, against which it would appear my fingers had been madly 

 pressed. I have a guitar which I then seize. Nothing soothes me 

 like music, and, after forming a few chords, I am lulled into un- 

 speakable peace. It is by this time broad day, and I now provide 

 my very simple, and, to me, most insipid repast. Even after years 

 my palate has not lost its preference of those choice delicacies to 

 which it had long been accustomed. I prefer game to a collation 

 of herbs, and turbot to the poor and plain diet I arn obliged to be 

 contented with. The inconvenience to which I am most exposed is 

 the preparation of these necessary supports. Beyond any, the culi- 

 nary art is t that I can least exercise a knowledge in ; its secrets I 

 never understood, and could least bring myself to study. On this 

 head I have a further difficulty to contend against the means of 

 procuring those necessaries. As I live at a distance from any ha- 

 bitable place, the difficulty is prodigious ; but, in a measure, I have 

 overcome it, by the simple process of curtailing my wants. A trifling 

 modicum of bread and wine ; fruits, vegetables, when in season ; 

 dried substances in meal or rice, when they are not, supply the re- 

 quisites to my physical life. These, I confess, sometimes are nau- 

 seous to me ; I say, sometimes, for there are lapses of days when I 

 partake of no nourishment whatever. 



The irregularity of my former habits, I have carried with me even 

 into this retreat. I have no fixed occupation, no periodical pursuit. 

 Such, my soul could not endure, the thought would be sufficient to 

 give a term to my existence. To be constrained by duties, governed 

 by formal rule, oh, it is not for one of my unfortunate temperament 

 to be guided through such an orbit I My course, like to a comet's 

 as it has been uncertain, burning, rapid, eccentric oh, how could 

 I be chained to axiom ! Folly ! fires ; let me perish my soul be 



annihilated ! After partaking of refreshment, 



I fall asleep. When I awake, it may happen, I am in darkness. I 

 have said, that my abode is lost amid the foliage of trees, conse- 

 quently, the last setting rays of the sun cannot penetrate to it, and 

 my chamber becomes enshrouded in the shades of premature night. 

 I have a dread in darkness ; there is a fearfulness about it, that in- 

 spires me with a degree of inexplicable awe. I have irritable 

 nerves, and a leaf falling to the earth will sometimes sound to me 

 like the approach of footsteps. On these occasions, the pain I suffer 

 is beyond conception. I have lain on my couch, perhaps, for hours, 

 till the throbbing of my heart has become audible to my own ear. 

 This terror, however, leaves me on gaining the open air. I am a 

 being of some extraordinary peculiarities, and when abroad beneath 

 the heavens, inhaling the cool fragrancy of the breeze, my courage 

 rises to heroism, and I seem to have acquired intrepidity withmy 

 situation of greater freedom. I can then return dauntless to my 



M.M. No. 9. 2 N 



