130 CRUSOE'S ISLAND. 



that I should suffer the evils of solitude, but that an 

 intruder might seek to share it with me. It was the 

 ideal existence which I had hoped and prayed for all 

 the life of my youth; in my early manhood I was 

 permitted to realize it, and I did indeed find it equal 

 to my expectations. 



Thus my days passed pleasantly. In the morning 

 the twittering of my wrens awoke me ; the songs of 

 my mocking birds were my matins ; the greetings of 

 my parrots saluted me when I returned weary from 

 the hunt ; and a boundless prospect of forest and sea 

 lay before me when, at evening time, I smoked the 

 pipe of perfect peace on my veranda. 



Truly I was content, and my only trouble was 

 that others, one-time friends I wot of, could not share 

 this solitude and this happiness. Thinking of them, I 

 would sometimes breathe a sigh, and gaze abstractedly 

 out over the forest and sea for hours, until the trade 

 winds blew strongly and darkness shut out the pros- 

 pect from my sight. At that time, if at all, did doubts 

 assail me, and my fancies group themselves about the 

 north star, on the horizon, crouched above the sea. 



Darkness and solitude are provocative of reflec- 

 tion, and when we grope in the dark chambers of the 

 past it is the sad spirit that seizes us ! Yes, the gray 

 ghost found me now and then, as it found the lonely 

 Crusoe ; but, like him, " I gave hearty Thanks, that 

 God had been pleased to discover to me, even that it 

 was possible I might be more happy in this solitary 

 Condition than I should have been in Society, and in 

 all the Pleasures of the World." 



