CHAPTER XXVII.
[Written three years after the foregoing, and dated at Montpellier.] I imagined that I had forever laid aside the pen; and that I should take up my abode in this part of the world, was of all events the least probable.

My destiny I believed to be accomplished, and I looked forward to a speedy termination of my life with the fullest confidence.
Surely I had reason to be weary of existence, to be impatient of every tie which held me from the grave.

I experienced this impatience in its fullest extent.

I was not only enamoured of death, but conceived, from the condition of my frame, that to shun it was impossible, even though I had ardently desired it; yet here am I, a thousand leagues from my native soil, in full possession of life and of health, and not destitute of happiness.
Such is man.

Time will obliterate the deepest impressions.