
totally absorbed in thought. I repeated them till my mind glowed with
enthusiasm. I had my different employments fitted for the solitude of the night
in which I could give full scope to the impulses of my mind, and the uproar of
the day in which my chief object was to be insensible to the disorder with which
I was surrounded.
    By degrees I quitted my own story, and employed myself with imaginary
adventures. I figured to myself every situation in which I could be placed, and
conceived the conduct to be observed in each. Thus scenes of insult and danger,
of tenderness and oppression became familiar to me. In fancy I often passed the
awful hour of dissolving nature. In some of my reveries I boiled with impetuous
indignation, and in others patiently collected the whole force of my mind for
some fearful encounter. I cultivated the powers of oratory suited to these
different states, and improved more in eloquence in the solitude of my dungeon,
than perhaps I should have done in the busiest and most crowded scenes. At
length I proceeded to as regular a disposition of my time as the man in his
study who passes from mathematics to poetry, and from poetry to the law of
nations in the different parts of each single day; and I as seldom infringed
upon my plan. Nor were my subjects of disquisition less numerous than his. I
went over, by the assistance of memory only, a considerable part of Euclid
during my confinement, and revived day after day the series of facts and
incidents in some of the most celebrated historians. I became myself a poet; and
while I described the sentiments cherished by the view of natural objects,
recorded the characters and passions of men, and partook with a burning zeal in
the generosity of their determinations, I eluded the squalid solitude of my
dungeon, and wandered in idea through all the varieties of human society. I
easily found expedients, such as the mind seems always to require, and which
books and pens supply to the man at large, to record from time to time the
progress that had been made.
    While I was thus employed I reflected with exultation upon the degree in
which man is independent of the smiles and frowns of fortune. I was beyond her
reach, for I could fall no lower. To an ordinary eye I might seem destitute and
miserable, but in reality I wanted for nothing. My fare was coarse; but I was in
health. My dungeon was noisome; but I felt no inconvenience. I was shut up from
the usual means of exercise and air; but I found the method of exercising myself
even to
