think, should the study have been long and deep, that he would wonder to
find his desires had lost their poignancy and his objects their charm.
He would descend from the Alp he had climbed to the low level on which
he formerly deemed it a bliss to dwell, with the feeling of one who,
having long drawn in high places an empyreal air, has become unable to
inhale the smoke and the thick vapour he inhaled of yore. His soul once
aroused would stir within him, though he felt it not, and though he grew
not a believer, he would cease to be only the voluptuary.

I meant at one time to have here stated the arguments which had
perplexed me on one side, and those which afterwards convinced me on the
other. I do not do so for many reasons, one of which will suffice;
namely, the evident and palpable circumstance that a dissertation of
that nature would, in a biography like the present, be utterly out of
place and season. Perhaps, however, at a later period of life, I may
collect my own opinions on the subject into a separate work, and
bequeath that work to future generations, upon the same conditions as
the present memoir.

One day I was favoured by a visit from one of the monks at the
neighbouring abbey. After some general conversation he asked me if I
had yet encountered the Hermit of the Well?

"No," said I, and I was going to add, that I had not even heard of him,
"but I now remember that the good people of the house have more than
once spoken to me of him as a rigid and self-mortifying recluse."

"Yes," said the holy friar; "Heaven forbid that I should say aught
against the practice of the saints and pious men to deny unto themselves
the lusts of the flesh, but such penances may be carried too far.