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CHAPTER IV.
I RETURNED to my family estate in the autumn of the year 2092. My heart had
long been with them; and I felt sick with the hope and delight of seeing
them again. The district which contained them appeared the abode of every
kindly spirit. Happiness, love and peace, walked the forest paths, and
tempered the atmosphere. After all the agitation and sorrow I had endured
in Greece, I sought Windsor, as the storm-driven bird does the nest in
which it may fold its wings in tranquillity.
How unwise had the wanderers been, who had deserted its shelter, entangled
themselves in the web of society, and entered on what men of the world call
"life,"--that labyrinth of evil, that scheme of mutual torture. To live,
according to this sense of the word, we must not only observe and learn, we
must also feel; we must not be mere spectators of action, we must act; we
must not describe, but be subjects of description. Deep sorrow must have
been the inmate of our bosoms; fraud must have lain in wait for us; the
artful must have deceived us; sickening doubt and false hope must have
chequered our days; hilarity and joy, that lap the soul in ecstasy, must at
times have possessed us. Who that knows what "life" is, would pine for this
feverish species of existence? I have lived. I have spent days and nights
of festivity; I have joined in ambitious hopes, and exulted in victory:
now,--shut the door on the world, and build high the wall that is to
separate me from the troubled scene enacted within its precincts. Let us
live for each other and for happiness; let us seek peace in our dear home,
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