Of four years' continual speaking at that society, this is the only year of which I remember next to nothing.

Two lines of Coleridge, in whom alone of all writers I have found a true description of what I felt, were often in my thoughts, not at this time (for I had never read them), but in a later period of the same mental malady: "Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, And hope without an object cannot live." In all probability my case was by no means so peculiar as I fancied it, and I doubt not that many others have passed through a similar state; but the idiosyncrasies of my education had given to the general phenomenon a special character, which made it seem the natural effect of causes that it was hardly possible for time to remove.

I frequently asked myself, if I could, or if I was bound to go on living, when life must be passed in this manner.

I generally answered to myself that I did not think I could possibly bear it beyond a year.

When, however, not more than half that duration of time had elapsed, a small ray of light broke in upon my gloom.