ances, and to make a calm
within, under the weight of the greatest storms without. When he came
first hither, he said, he used to tear the hair from his head, and the
clothes from his back, as others had done before him; but a little time
and consideration had made him look into himself, as well as round him to
things without; that he found the mind of man, if it was but once brought
to reflect upon the state of universal life, and how little this world
was concerned in its true felicity, was perfectly capable of making a
felicity for itself, fully satisfying to itself, and suitable to its own
best ends and desires, with but very little assistance from the world.
That being now deprived of all the fancied felicity which he enjoyed in
the full exercise of worldly pleasures, he said he was at leisure to look
upon the dark side of them, where he found all manner of deformity; and
was now convinced that virtue only makes a man truly wise, rich, and
great, and preserves him in the way to a superior happiness in a future
state; and in this, he said, they were more happy in their banishment
than all their enemies were, who had the full possession of all the
wealth and power they had left behind them. "Nor, sir," says he, "do I
bring my mind to this politically, from the necessity of my
circumstances, which some call miserable; but, if I know anything of
myself, I would not now go back, though the Czar my master should call
me, and reinstate me in all my former grandeur."

He spoke this with so much warmth in his temper, so much earnestness and
motion of his spirits, that it was evident it was the true sense of his
soul; there was no room to doubt his sincerity. I told him I once
thought myself a kind of monarch in my old station, of which I had given
him an account; but that I thought he was not only a monarch, but a great
conqueror; for he that had got a victory over his own exorbitant desires,
and the absolute dominion over himself, he whose reason entirely governs
his will, is certainly greater than he that conquers a city.

I had been here eight months, and a dark, dreadful winter I thought it;
the cold so intense that I could not so much as look abroad without being
wrapped in furs, and a kind of mask of fur before my face, with only a
hole for breath, and two for sight: the little daylight we had was for
three months not above five hours a day, and six at most; only that the
snow lying on the ground continually, and t