rs to my ears, I buried my head in the leaves of my couch, I would
have dived to the centre to lose hearing of that hideous moan.

But another task must be mine--again I visited the detested beach--
again I vainly looked far and wide--again I raised my unanswered cry,
lifting up the only voice that could ever again force the mute air to
syllable the human thought.

What a pitiable, forlorn, disconsolate being I was! My very aspect and garb
told the tale of my despair. My hair was matted and wild--my limbs soiled
with salt ooze; while at sea, I had thrown off those of my garments that
encumbered me, and the rain drenched the thin summer-clothing I had
retained--my feet were bare, and the stunted reeds and broken shells made
them bleed--the while, I hurried to and fro, now looking earnestly on
some distant rock which, islanded in the sands, bore for a moment a
deceptive appearance--now with flashing eyes reproaching the murderous
ocean for its unutterable cruelty.

For a moment I compared myself to that monarch of the waste--Robinson
Crusoe. We had been both thrown companionless--he on the shore of a
desolate island: I on that of a desolate world. I was rich in the so called
goods of life. If I turned my steps from the near barren scene, and entered
any of the earth's million cities, I should find their wealth stored up for
my accommodation--clothes, food, books, and a choice of dwelling beyond
the command of the princes of former times--every climate was subject to
my selection, while he was obliged to toil in the acquirement of every
necessary, and was the inhabitant of a tropical island, against whose heats
and storms he could obtain small shelter.--Viewing the question thus, who
would not have preferred the Sybarite enjoyments I could command, the
philosophic leisure, and ample intellectual resources, to his life of
labour and peril? Yet he was far happier than I: for he could hope, nor
hope in vain--the destined vessel at last arrived, to bear him to
countrymen and kindred, where the events of his solitude became a fire-side
tale. To none could I ever relate the story of my adversity; no hope had I.
He knew that, beyond the ocean which begirt his lonely island, thousands
lived whom the sun enlightened when it shone also on him: beneath the
meridian sun and visiting moon, I alone bore human features; I alone could
give articulation to thought; and, when I slept, both day and night were
unbeheld of any. He had fled fr