met by
accident, in a neglected corner of the house of one of my neighbours, with a
general dictionary of four of the northern languages. This incident gave a
direction to my thoughts. In my youth I had not been inattentive to languages. I
determined to attempt, at least for my own use, an etymological analysis of the
English language. I easily perceived that this pursuit had one advantage to a
person in my situation, and that a small number of books, consulted with this
view, would afford employment for a considerable time. I procured other
dictionaries. In my incidental reading, I noted the manner in which words were
used, and applied these remarks to the illustration of my general enquiry. I was
unintermitted in my assiduity, and my collections promised to accumulate. Thus I
was provided with sources both of industry and recreation, the more completely
to divert my thoughts from the recollection of my past misfortunes.
    In this state, so grateful to my feelings, week after week glided away
without interruption and alarm. The situation in which I was now placed, had
some resemblance to that in which I had spent my earlier years, with the
advantage of a more attractive society, and a riper judgment. I began to look
back upon the intervening period as upon a distempered and tormenting dream; or
rather perhaps my feelings were like those of a man recovered from an interval
of raging delirium, from ideas of horror, confusion, flight, persecution, agony
and despair! When I recollected what I had undergone, it was not without
satisfaction as the recollection of a thing that was past; every day augmented
my hope that it was never to return. Surely the dark and terrific menaces of Mr.
Falkland were rather the perturbed suggestions of his angry mind, than the final
result of a deliberate and digested system! How happy should I feel beyond the
ordinary lot of man, if, after the terrors I had undergone, I should now find
myself unexpectedly restored to the immunities of a human being!
    While I was thus soothing my mind with fond imaginations, it happened that a
few bricklayers and their labourers came over from a distance of five or six
miles, to work upon some additions to one of the better sort of houses in the
town which had changed its tenant. No incident could be more trivial than this,
had it not been for a strange coincidence of time between this circumstance and
a change which introduced itself into my situation. This first manifested itself
in a sort of shyness with which I was treated first by one person and then
another of my new-formed acquaintance