I cannot truthfully say that I was unhappy during those years. We can scarcely miss that to which we are not accustomed, and I have learned since that the world is too full of wants for happiness. My passion for books grew more profound and engrossing; I grew passionately endeared to solitude. There were some fine woods near our house, and I was in the habit of wandering in them by day and night. If in the daylight I heard the sound of voices, or was made aware of the proximity of human creatures, I wandered in the opposite direction. It was known that I frequented the woods by day, but my nocturnal ramblings were secretly indulged in. Even my father was not aware that the nights which should have been devoted to repose were spent in the open. When all in the house were sleeping, I would steal out and wander for hours in darkness, which had no terrors for me. Shadows took comprehensive shapes--comprehensive to me, but perhaps not to all men--and that some were weird and monstrous, like nothing that moved and lived upon the sunlit earth, suited my mood and nature. I did not ask myself whether they were or were not creatures of my imagination. I accepted them without question, and I humoured and made sport of them; spoke to them, taunted them; dared them to action; asked them their mission; and walked among them fearlessly. I loved the supernatural in book and fancy, and on rare occasions, when I was in a state of spiritual exaltation, a vague belief would steal upon me that I should one day possess the power of piercing the veil which shuts off the unseen from mortal eyes. In winter the snow-robed trees, standing like white sentinels in a white eternal night, possessed for me an irresistible fascination. I saw wondrous scenes and pictures. The woods were filled with myriad eyes, gleaming with love, with hate, with joy, with despair; grotesque creatures inhabited every cranny; white spirits lurked among the silvered branches; the frosty stars looked down upon me as upon one of their kindred, and I looked up at them, and cried in spiritual ecstasy, "Only to you and to me are these things visible!" Thus I lived, as it were, the inner life, and became familiar with hidden beauties and hidden horrors. Was I, then, so wrapped up in my own narrow self that I shut my eyes and ears to the pulsing of other human life? Not entirely. There were occasions when I associated with my fellows. Thus, on a stormy night in September, when the rain came down in torrents, I heard the sounds of loud entreaty proceeding from outside the stone walls of the estate. Had it not been that my sense of hearing was very acute, and that those who were appealing were screaming at the top of their voices, it would have been impossible for me to hear them. The wind assisted them and me; it blew in the direction of the chamber in which I sat reading by the light of a lamp. "Some people in distress," I thought, and proceeded with my reading.