warned that it was time to quit his rambling life. This place being
recommended to him, both by its quiet seclusion, and the unsophisticated
manners of its inhabitants, he determined to pass the remnant of his days
here, and, by devoting them to the purposes of piety, charity, and
science, to discharge his duty to his Creator, his species, and himself;
"for the love of knowledge," he added, "has long been my chief source of
selfish enjoyment."

Our tastes and sentiments accorded in so many points, that our acquaintance
ripened by degrees into the closest friendship. We were both
strangers--both unfortunate; and were the only individuals here who had any
knowledge of letters, or of distant parts of the world. These are, indeed,
the main springs of that sympathy, without which there is no love among
men. It is being overwise, to treat with contempt what mankind hold in
respect: and philosophy teaches us not to extinguish our feelings, but to
correct and refine them. My visits to the hermitage were frequently renewed
at first, because they afforded me the relief of variety, whilst his
intimate knowledge of men and things--his remarkable sagacity and good
sense--his air of mingled piety and benignity,--cheated me into
forgetfulness of my situation. As these gradually yielded to the lenitive
power of time, I sought his conversation for the positive pleasure it
afforded, and at last it became the chief source of my happiness. Day after
day, and month after month, glided on in this gentle, unvarying current,
for more than three years; during which period he had occasionally thrown
out dark hints that the time would come when I should be restored to
liberty, and that he had an important secret, which he would one day
communicate. I should have been more tantalized with the expectations that
these remarks were calculated to raise, had I not suspected them to be a
good-natured artifice, to save me from despondency, as they were never made
except when he saw me looking serious and thoughtful.