Invention Consists In The Capacity

For A Moment My Soul Was Elevated From Its Debasing And Miserable Fears To Which These Sights Were The Monuments And The Remembrances. For An Instant I Dared To Shake Off My Chains, And Look Around Me With A Free And Lofty Spirit; But The Iron Had Eaten Into My Flesh, And I Sank Again, Trembling And Hopeless, Into My Miserable Self.

How Mutable Are Our Feelings, And How Strange Is That Clinging Love We Have Of Life Even In The Excess Of Misery!

She Was No Longer That Happy Creature Who In Earlier Youth Wandered With Me On The Banks Of The Lake And Talked With Ecstasy Of Our Future Prospects. The First Of Those Sorrows Which Are Sent To Wean Us From The Earth Had Visited Her, And Its Dimming Influence Quenched Her Dearest Smiles.

I Required Kindness And Sympathy, But I Did Not Believe Myself Utterly Unworthy Of It.

And Now, Once Again, I Bid My Hideous Progeny Go Forth And Prosper. I Have An Affection For It, For It Was The Offspring Of Happy Days, When Death And Grief Were But Words, Which Found No True Echo In My Heart.