"Without them I had spent days interwoven with gold and silk.

My future was secure: it was they who gave me a distaste for my position.

I believed in them; I was the dupe of their hollow declamation; they taught me thoughtless contempt, and they gave me the sickly ambition to play the silly part of a man of fine sentiments.

I despised the mud.

Where am I now ?" He had formed the project of going to Holland and of embarking thence for America.