ruminated, in the bitterness of my soul, upon the different means of
escaping from the load of existence. What had I to do with life? I had
seen enough to make me regard it with detestation. Why should I wait the
lingering process of legal despotism, and not dare so much as to die,
but when and how its instruments decreed? Still some inexplicable
suggestion withheld my hand. I clung with desperate fondness to this
shadow of existence, its mysterious attractions, and its hopeless
prospects.




CHAPTER XII.


Such were the reflections that haunted the first days of my
imprisonment, in consequence of which they were spent in perpetual
anguish. But, after a time, nature, wearied with distress, would no
longer stoop to the burthen; thought, which is incessantly varying,
introduced a series of reflections totally different.

My fortitude revived. I had always been accustomed to cheerfulness, good
humour, and serenity; and this habit now returned to visit me at the
bottom of my dungeon. No sooner did my contemplations take this turn,
than I saw the reasonableness and possibility of tranquillity and peace;
and my mind whispered to me the propriety of showing, in this forlorn
condition, that I was superior to all my persecutors. Blessed state of
innocence and self-approbation! The sunshine of conscious integrity
pierced through all the barriers of my cell, and spoke ten thousand
times more joy to my heart, than the accumulated splendours of nature