from that time to this, I have never heard of him nor seen him; I know not even his address. With the exception of a few stray gleanings from my brother, who, good easy man! I could plunder more, were I not resolved not to ruin the family stock, I have been thrown on myself; the result is, that though as clever as my fellows, I have narrowly shunned starvation; had my wants been less simple, there would have been no shunning in the case. But a man is not easily starved who drinks water, and eats by the ounce. A more effectual fate might have befallen me, disappointment, wrath, baffled hope, mortified pride, all these which gnawed at my heart, might have consumed it long ago, I might have fretted away as a garment, which the moth eateth, had it not been for that fund of obstinate and iron hardness, which nature,—I beg pardon, there is no nature,—circumstance bestowed upon me. This has borne me up, and will bear me yet through time, and shame, and bodily weakness, and mental fever, until my ambition has won a certain height, and my disdain of human pettiness, rioted in the external sources of fortune, as well as an inward fountain of bitter
