I have longed to look back at my life, and comfort myself with the sight of some good action, just as a frugal man comforts himself with the sight of his little savings laid by in an old drawer.

I can't do this, and I want to do it.

The want takes me like a fit, at uncertain intervals--suddenly, under the most incomprehensible influences.

A glance up at the blue sky--starlight over the houses of this great city, when I look out at the night from my garret window--a child's voice coming suddenly, I don't know where from--the piping of my neighbor's linnet in his little cage--now one trifling thing, now another--wakes up that want in me in a moment.

Rascal as I am, those few simple words your sister spoke to the judge went through and through me like a knife.
Strange, in a man like me, isn't it?
I am amazed at it myself.