I even now blush at the falsehoods I uttered; my heart sickens: I will leave this complication of what I hope I may in a manner call innocent deceit to be imagined by the reader.

The remembrance haunts me like a crime--I know that if I were to endeavour to relate it my tale would at length remain unfinished.[48] I was led to London, and had to endure for some weeks cold looks, cold words and colder consolations: but I escaped; they tried to bind me with fetters that they thought silken, yet which weighed on me like iron, although I broke them more easily than a girth formed of a single straw and fled to freedom.
The few weeks that I spent in London were the most miserable of my life: a great city is a frightful habitation to one sorrowing.

The sunset and the gentle moon, the blessed motion of the leaves and the murmuring of waters are all sweet physicians to a distempered mind.
The soul is expanded and drinks in quiet, a lulling medecine--to me it was as the sight of the lovely water snakes to the bewitched mariner--in loving and blessing Nature I unawares, called down a blessing on my own soul.

But in a city all is closed shut like a prison, a wiry prison from which you can peep at the sky only.

I can not describe to you what were [_sic_] the frantic nature of my sensations while I resided there; I was often on the verge of madness.
Nay, when I look back on many of my wild thoughts, thoughts with which actions sometimes endeavoured to keep pace; when I tossed my hands high calling down the cope of heaven to fall on me and bury me; when I tore my hair and throwing it to the winds cried, "Ye are free, go seek my father!" And then, like the unfortunate Constance, catching at them again and tying them up, that nought might find him if I might not.