I was not free to indulge, no not one, honest
sally of the soul. Attended with these disadvantages, I was to procure
myself a subsistence, a subsistence to be acquired with infinite
precautions, and to be consumed without the hope of enjoyment.
This, even this, I was determined to endure; to put my shoulder to the
burthen, and support it with unshrinking firmness. Let it not however be
supposed that I endured it without repining and abhorrence. My time was
divided between the terrors of an animal that skulks from its pursuers,
the obstinacy of unshrinking firmness, and that elastic revulsion that
from time to time seems to shrivel the very hearts of the miserable. If
at some moments I fiercely defied all the rigours of my fate, at others,
and those of frequent recurrence, I sunk into helpless despondence. I
looked forward without hope through the series of my existence, tears of
anguish rushed from my eyes, my courage became extinct, and I cursed the
conscious life that was reproduced with every returning day.
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