ed with the certain
expectation of his speedy interference. In my first retreat I had passed
a few weeks of delusive tranquillity, but never after was I happy enough
to attain to so much as that shadowy gratification. I spent some years
in this dreadful vicissitude of pain. My sensations at certain periods
amounted to insanity.

I pursued in every succeeding instance the conduct I had adopted at
first. I determined never to enter into a contest of accusation and
defence with the execrable Gines. If I could have submitted to it in
other respects, what purpose would it answer? I should have but an
imperfect and mutilated story to tell. This story had succeeded with
persons already prepossessed in my favour by personal intercourse; but
could it succeed with strangers? It had succeeded so long as I was able
to hide myself from my pursuers; but could it succeed now, that this
appeared impracticable, and that they proceeded by arming against me a
whole vicinity at once?

It is inconceivable the mischiefs that this kind of existence included.
Why should I insist upon such aggravations as hunger, beggary, and
external wretchedness? These were an inevitable consequence. It was by
the desertion of mankind that, in each successive instance, I was made
acquainted with my fate. Delay in such a moment served but to increase
the evil; and when I fled, meagreness and penury were the ordinary
attendants of my course. But this was a small consideration. Indignation
at one time, and unconquerable perseverance at another, sustained me,
where humanity, left to itself, would probably have sunk.

It has already appeared that I was not of a temper to endure calamity,
without endeavouring, by every means I could devise, to elude and disarm
it. Recollecting, as I was habituated to do, the various projects by
which my situation could be meliorated, the question occurred to me,
"Why should I be harassed by the pursuits of this Gines? Why, man to
man, may I not, by the powers of my mind, attain the ascendancy over
him? At present he appears to be the persecutor, and I the persecuted:
is not this difference the mere creature of the imagination? May I not
employ my ingenuity to vex him with difficulties, and laugh at the
endless labour to which he will be condemned?"

Alas, this is a speculation for a mind at ease! It is not the
persecution, but the catastrophe which is annexed to it, that makes the
difference between the tyrant and the sufferer!