My new sensations assured me that my stomach had received this corrosive poison.

Whether I should die or live was easily decided.

The sickness which assiduous attendance and powerful prescriptions might remove would, by negligence and solitude, be rendered fatal; but from whom could I expect medical or friendly treatment?
I had indeed a roof over my head.

I should not perish in the public way; but what was my ground for hoping to continue under this roof?
My sickness being suspected, I should be dragged in a cart to the hospital; where I should, indeed, die, but not with the consolation of loneliness and silence.

Dying groans were the only music, and livid corpses were the only spectacle, to which I should there be introduced.
Immured in these dreary meditations, the night passed away.