Thus was I
sojourning in the midst of a chaos of confusion. I looked back on
my by-past life with pain, as one looks back on a perilous
journey, in which he has attained his end, without gaining any
advantage either to himself or others; and I looked forward, as on
a darksome waste, full of repulsive and terrific shapes, pitfalls,
and precipices, to which there was no definite bourn, and from
which I turned with disgust. With my riches, my unhappiness was
increased tenfold; and here, with another great acquisition of
property, for which I had pleaed, and which I had gained in a
dream, my miseries and difficulties were increasing. My principal
feeling, about this time, was an insatiable longing for something
that I cannot describe or denominate properly, unless I say it was
for utter oblivion that I longed. I desired to sleep; but it was for a
deeper and longer sleep than that in which the senses were
nightly steeped. I longed to be at rest and quiet, and close my
eyes on the past and the future alike, as far as this frail life was
concerned. But what had been formerly and finally settled in the
councils above, I presumed not to call in question.
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