human shapes, the human form divine was manifest in each fairest limb and

lineament. The perfect moulding brought with it the idea of colour and

motion; often, half in bitter mockery, half in self-delusion, I clasped

their icy proportions, and, coming between Cupid and his Psyche's lips,

pressed the unconceiving marble.

I endeavoured to read. I visited the libraries of Rome. I selected a

volume, and, choosing some sequestered, shady nook, on the banks of the

Tiber, or opposite the fair temple in the Borghese Gardens, or under the

old pyramid of Cestius, I endeavoured to conceal me from myself, and

immerse myself in the subject traced on the pages before me. As if in the

same soil you plant nightshade and a myrtle tree, they will each

appropriate the mould, moisture, and air administered, for the fostering

their several properties--so did my grief find sustenance, and power of

existence, and growth, in what else had been divine manna, to feed radiant

meditation. Ah! while I streak this paper with the tale of what my so named

occupations were--while I shape the skeleton of my days--my hand

trembles--my heart pants, and my brain refuses to lend expression, or

phrase, or idea, by which to image forth the veil of unutterable woe that

clothed these bare realities. O, worn and beating heart, may I dissect thy

fibres, and tell how in each unmitigable misery, sadness dire, repinings,

and despair, existed? May I record my many ravings--the wild curses I

hurled at torturing nature--and how I have passed days shut out from

light and food--from all except the burning hell alive in my own bosom?

I was presented, meantime, with one other occupation, the one best fitted

609

The Last Man