صفحة 221 من 483

"I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections

inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only

increased with knowledge. Oh, that I had for ever remained in my

native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger,

thirst, and heat!

"Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind

when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I wished

sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned

that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain,

and that was death-a state which I feared yet did not understand.

I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners

and amiable qualities of my cottagers, but I was shut out from

intercourse with them, except through means which I obtained by

stealth, when I was unseen and unknown, and which rather

increased than satisfied the desire I had of becoming one among

my fellows. The gentle words of Agatha and the animated smiles of

the charming Arabian were not for me. The mild exhortations of

the old man and the lively conversation of the loved Felix were

not for me. Miserable, unhappy wretch!