"Despair is the true philosophy, since it begets indifference.

Why should I hope?
What prospect is there now, that these eyes, that lip, these many graces, and the imperial pride of that expression, which looks out like a high soul from the heaven that men talk and dream of--what delusion is there now to bid me hope they ever can be more to me than they are now?
I care not for the world's ways--nor feel I now the pang of its scorn and its outlawry; yet I would it were not so, that I might, upon a field as fair as that of the most successful, assert my claim, and woo and win her--not with those childish notes of commonplace--that sickly cant of sentimental stuff which I despise, and which I know she despises no less than I.
"Yet, when this field was mine, as I now desire it, what more did it avail me?
Where was the strong sense--the lofty reason that should then have conquered with an unobstructed force, sweeping all before it, as the flame that rushes through the long grass of the prairies?
Gone--prostrate--dumb.

The fierce passion was upward, and my heart was then more an outlaw than I myself am now.
"Yet there is one hope--one chance--one path, if not to her affections, at least to her.

It shall be done, and then, most beautiful witch, cold, stern, and to me heartless, as thou hast ever been--thou shalt not always triumph.

I would that I could sleep on this--I would that I could sleep.