I drank in joy with life; my steps were light; my eyes, clear from the love that animated them, sought the heavens, and with my long hair loosened to the winds I gave my body and my mind to sympathy and delight.

But now my walk was slow--My eyes were seldom raised and often filled with tears; no song; no smiles; no careless motion that might bespeak a mind intent on what surrounded it--I was gathered up into myself--a selfish solitary creature ever pondering on my regrets and faded hopes.
Mine was an idle, useless life; it was so; but say not to the lily laid prostrate by the storm arise, and bloom as before.

My heart was bleeding from its death's wound; I could live no otherwise--Often amid apparent calm I was visited by despair and melancholy; gloom that nought could dissipate or overcome; a hatred of life; a carelessness of beauty; all these would by fits hold me nearly annihilated by their powers.

Never for one moment when most placid did I cease to pray for death.

I could be found in no state of mind which I would not willingly have exchanged for nothingness.