No sooner did this idea present itself to me, than I burned to accomplish it.

I had before taught myself that Faith is the great creator; that to believe fervently is to make belief true.

So I would not suffer my mind to doubt the practicability of its scheme.

I shut myself up then entirely by day, refused books, and hated the very sun, and compelled all my thoughts (and sleep is the mirror of thought) to glide in one direction,--the direction of my dreams,--so that from night to night the imagination might keep up the thread of action, and I might thus lie down full of the past dream and confident of the sequel.

Not for one day only, or for one month, did I pursue this system, but I continued it zealously and sternly till at length it began to succeed.