“Rest now became to me the sole to kalon--the sole charm of existence. I grew enamoured of the doctrine of those old mystics, who have placed happiness only in an even and balanced quietude. And where but in utter loneliness was that quietude to be enjoyed? I no longer wondered that men in former times, when consumed by the recollection of some haunting guilt, fled to the desert and became hermits. Tranquillity and Solitude are the only soothers of a memory deeply troubled--light griefs fly to the crowd--fierce thoughts must battle themselves to rest. Many years had flown, and I had made my home in many places. All that was turbulent, if not all that was unquiet, in my recollections, had died away. Time had lulled me into a sense of security. I breathed more freely. I sometimes stole from the past. Since I had quitted Knaresbro’ chance had thrown it in my power frequently to serve my brethren--not by wisdom, but by charity or courage--by individual acts that it soothed me to remember. If the grand aim of enlightening a world was gone--if to so enlarged a benevolence had succeeded apathy or despair, still the man, the human man, clung to my heart--still was I as prone to pity--as prompt to defend--as glad to cheer, whenever the vicissitudes of life afforded me the occasion; and to poverty, most of all, my hand never closed. For oh! what a terrible devil creeps into that man’s soul, who sees famine at his door! One tender act and how many black designs, struggling into life within, you may crush for ever! He who deems the world his foe, convince him that he has one friend, and it is like snatching a dagger from his hand! “I came to a beautiful and remote part of the country. Walter Lester, I came to Grassdale!--the enchanting scenery around--the sequestered and deep retirement of the place arrested me at once. ‘And among these valleys,’ I said, ‘will I linger out the rest of my life, and among these quiet graves shall mine be dug, and my secret shall die with me!’ “I rented the lonely house in which I dwelt when you first knew me--thither I transported my books and instruments of science. I formed new projects in the vast empire of wisdom, and a deep quiet, almost amounting to content, fell like a sweet sleep upon my soul!