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easy, the speedy and certain end of my deplorable tragedy. But now these
thoughts faded before the new born expectation. I went on my way, not as
before, feeling each hour, each minute, to be an age instinct with
incalculable pain.
As I wandered along the plain, at the foot of the Appennines--through
their vallies, and over their bleak summits, my path led me through a
country which had been trodden by heroes, visited and admired by thousands.
They had, as a tide, receded, leaving me blank and bare in the midst. But
why complain? Did I not hope?--so I schooled myself, even after the
enlivening spirit had really deserted me, and thus I was obliged to call up
all the fortitude I could command, and that was not much, to prevent a
recurrence of that chaotic and intolerable despair, that had succeeded to
the miserable shipwreck, that had consummated every fear, and dashed to
annihilation every joy.
I rose each day with the morning sun, and left my desolate inn. As my feet
strayed through the unpeopled country, my thoughts rambled through the
universe, and I was least miserable when I could, absorbed in reverie,
forget the passage of the hours. Each evening, in spite of weariness, I
detested to enter any dwelling, there to take up my nightly abode--I have
sat, hour after hour, at the door of the cottage I had selected, unable to
lift the latch, and meet face to face blank desertion within. Many nights,
though autumnal mists were spread around, I passed under an ilex--many
times I have supped on arbutus berries and chestnuts, making a fire,
gypsy-like, on the ground--because wild natural scenery reminded me less
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